CEOs focus on long-term strategy while their managers spend 90% of their time on short-term results, leaving them unprepared for senior roles. Managers get only about 10% of their time for strategic thinking, usually at annual retreats, so new ideas from external sources often fail to gain traction in the organization.
Most CEOs forget that while they are focusing on the company strategy 90% of the time, their direct staff is far less concerned. In my experience, the average leader wants managers who are short-term result producers. As such, each manager spends no more than 10% of their time thinking about long-term strategy, triggered by the event of the annual retreat. Therefore, managers develop strategic skills slowly, if at all. Consequently, many who are promoted to top positions end up floundering, as they simply are not used to the long-term thinking needed to guide the enterprise. This means that your bright strategic idea might not be readily understood by your colleagues. While you came to these sudden insights based on your foreign exposure, it might take them much longer to arrive at the same conclusion.
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