Employees, Customers, Investors

An intersting Idea, from Rob Enderle

Failure to Prioritize

Unlike a typical manager who needs to focus on employees, a manager and the manager’s manager, a CEO has to focus on employees, customers and investors. The right priority is employees, customers and investors. This came up in a meeting between NVIDIA’s CEO and financial analysts this year, and they confirmed this order. The reason for this order is that if employees are properly motivated and taken care of, they take care of the customers, and if the customers are highly satisfied, then the financial performance of the company is more assured and the investors are happy. Use any other order of focus and the company will likely spiral the wrong way. Investor focus typically sacrifices customer satisfaction and employee retention for short-term gains; customer focus tends to drive pricing actions, which reduce margins, causing job outsourcing, employee erosion and profit decline.