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Hot Tip: The Smartest Phone Call A CEO Can Make

 

Bob Neuschel is a business professor at Northwestern University, and serves on many boards. He shares a gem of a CEO board communication tip that he finds effective (and, hint-hint, that can help make the CEO's job more secure):

"I like a CEO who periodically telephones the director, once a week or every other week, so they can chat with each other. The point is just to bring the director up-to-date. The call is fairly short -- just a few minutes, usually under five. But it makes me feel so comfortable to get frequent communication like that from the CEO on what's going on, issues that are coming along? if there's a problem and we're warned ahead, it doesn't seem so bad."

CEOs: If you were to call every outside director on your board weekly just to catch up, how much time would it take? perhaps half an hour per week in total? Now, can you think of any other way to use that half hour that would pay such benefits?

Copyright © 2001 Ralph Ward's Boardroom INSIDER

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