Harvard Study on CEO TIME

“We found that, indeed, time is the scarcest resource” for CEOs

A study published by Harvard Business Review sheds light on how those in the top spot use their time.

Harvard professors Michael Porter and Nitin Nohria’s study tracked the daily activities of 27 CEOs (only two women and 25 men) of companies with an average annual revenue of $13.1 billion. Data was collected from the CEOs in 15-minute increments, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for three months. Overall, the study collected 60,000 CEO hours.

On average, 75 percent of a CEO’s time was scheduled in advance, while 25 percent was spontaneous.

CEOs struck a balance between work and personal time:

• 31 percent of their time was spent working,
• 10 percent commuting,
• 25 percent was personal time (awake but not working, including family and downtime),
• 29 percent was spent sleeping (on average, they clocked 6.9 hours a night)
• 5 percent was spent on vacation

CEO work week

• 25 percent of their work is spent on people and relationships
• 25 percent on functional and business unit reviews
• 16 percent on organization and culture
• 21 percent on strategy
• 3 percent of their work is spent on professional development,
• 1 percent on crisis management. Meanwhile,
• 4 percent of their work is on mergers and acquisitions
• 4 percent is spent on operating plans

Not-so-efficient meetings plague CEOs.

• 72 percent of their work time is spent in meetings
• 28 percent alone time
• 32 percent of the CEOs’ meetings lasted an hour
• 38 percent were more prolonged than that
• 30 percent were shorter

CEO Communication

• 61 percent of their communication was face-to-face
• 24 percent was electronic (like email, zoom meetings)
• 15 percent by phone and letter

Face-to-face interaction is the best way for CEOs to exercise influence, learn what’s going on, and delegate to move forward the multiple agendas that must be advanced. It also allows CEOs to support best and coach the people they work closely with.

How a CEO spends face-to-face time is viewed as a signal of what or who is important; people watch this more carefully than most CEOs recognize.