How Strategic Are You? A Checklist for CEOs

Summer is a time for rest and reflection. A brief calm before the autumn chaos. Of course, you want to relax by the sea, just like me. But a CEO’s brain never takes time off; it keeps thinking.

The 15-question checklist below might spark some important reflections. There are no scores, grades, or right answers. This is not an exam. It is simply a tool for private self-reflection.

You can download the checklist as a separate file (link below). The checklist follows the structure of The Customer-Axis Framework.

1. Look back at your major decisions over the last six months. How many times did you sacrifice short-term revenue or profit to maximise customer value, because you knew it was right for the long term?

2. Review your last five major decisions. How many times did your team actually use a report on customer needs to guide the final choice?

3. Think back over the past year. How many times were you sure a new product, service, or update would please customers, but it failed? How often did you think you were creating real value, only to find out you were wrong?

4. How many times during key meetings has someone argued, “Customers only care about low prices, payment terms, and quality,” and no one challenged it?

5. Look at your team discussions over the last few months. How often did one side say, “This will bring profit,” and the other object, “But it creates no value for the customer”?

6. Think about the major assets (both tangible and intangible) and processes you invested in recently. How many were upgraded just to “speed up work”? To “reduce mistakes”? To “make things easier for employees”?

7. How many were improved solely to “reduce costs and increase profit”?

8. During investment discussions over the last six months, how often did anyone actually mention “customer value”?

9. How many times in the last six months have you told your team: “No, we are not investing in this asset or process, even if it pays off. We must invest in something else that creates added value for customers”?

10. Do you have a file close at hand listing the assets and processes that contribute most to customer value?

11. In the past year, were you sure a new product or service would sell at a high price, but reality proved otherwise? Yet, the moment you offered a discount, sales shot up?

12. In the past year, did you accidentally discover that customers would pay more for a product, but you held back fearing it would drive them away?

13. How many times over the past year have you personally talked to a customer without trying to sell something or solve a problem?

14. In the last six months, how many times has your team proposed a decision based solely on negative customer feedback, and you did not insist on gathering alternative views?

15. Do you have a file close at hand detailing your customers’ needs—one you open and use regularly to make decisions?

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If you prefer to work through the checklist in private, download the PDF version here.

If some of these questions made you pause and think, it means there’s a breakdown somewhere in the ‘Identifying Customer Needs – Creating Customer Value – Delivering Customer Value by managing Assets and Processes – Achieving Business Results – Managing Feedback’ chain.

As a wise man once taught me, realizing the problem is 50% of the solution. The structure of my Customer-Axis Framework can help here. I designed it specifically to help CEOs link daily decisions with strategy.

You can download a free PDF presentation about the framework here, or watch a six-minute video here.

If any of your colleagues, CEOs, or business owners might find this checklist useful or interesting, feel free to forward this email to them.

Please take a minute to answer the brief poll below the image. It is completely anonymous—neither I nor anyone else will know how you voted. I will share the results in the next newsletter.