A day in the life of a Chief
Executive
4
“ So what do you do ?” “ I ’ m the Chief Executive at Mayo Wynne Baxter , a law firm ” “ Yes , but what exactly does that mean ? What do you actually do every day ?”
You have to be in the mood for that sort of question , which sometimes gets asked at networking events , exhibitions , at dinner parties , and occasionally even when I look into the mirror whilst brushing my teeth in the morning .
Sarcastic replies of “ Oh nothing much – I just sit at my desk waiting for people to ask me important questions ” pop into my head , but are only said out loud if it ’ s been a particularly bad week .
Fair enough though ; I am a lawyer but at the moment doing very little law . At any one time I usually have one or two litigation matters just to make sure that I don ’ t forget what a Court looks like , or how unreasonable some lawyers in other law firms can be to deal with , but on the whole I am “ managing ”. Sometimes that involves leadership ( several thousand books have been written on the difference between leadership and management , and of course everyone doing my type of job wants to be described by the more glamorous title – I ’ ll leave you to decide which that is ).
Managing a business ; what does it mean ? Well , here ’ s a pen picture of a recent and fairly typical day .
07.45
Attending local Bank of England breakfast briefing session on the state of the economy . Have attended a number of these so fully prepared for the intensely gloomy forecast delivered in a cheerful upbeat sort of way , but less prepared for the fact that several other business leaders at the meeting are reporting slight declines in sales . Normally , we all find that here in the South East we are relatively protected from the worst of the recessionary challenges . Some businesses are still , however , doing OK and thankfully we are one of them , but food for thought …
08.30
Driving to Brighton office – decided to take the scenic route – the A259 . Big mistake as lots of other people have clearly made similar decision , and long queues at every conceivable point along the way . Radio 4 is having a slow news day . It has to be Chris Evans then . His sense of fun and quick wit is a good tonic for the misery of economic forecasts .
09.15
Arriving at Brighton office . Two meetings booked in this morning . Need a Costa flat white first though . Shouldn ’ t have bought that almond croissant but hey .
09.30
Checking e-mails . Nothing that urgent . Loads of information that one of these days there may be time to read through and think about properly .
10.00
First meeting . Demonstration of possible new software we could buy to run various bits of our IT system . Salesman struggles with timing and seems horrified that we can only give him 90 minutes ( after that I start sliding under the table anyway ). Our Practice Director makes careful notes and then asks for some indication of price . As always , it ’ s a vague answer but we ’ ll