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CEO Feedback by Wandering Around

By March 14, 2016February 18th, 2019Opinion
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Dr. Sheth was recently interviewed by Capital Magazine, Turkey, about why it is important for CEOs to get feedback, and the different ways in which they can get it today.

What follows are some excerpts from the interview:

Capital Magazine (CM): What is the importance of getting feedback for the CEOs?

Jagdish Sheth (JS): Getting feedback is becoming increasingly important because of the unprecedented growth of social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and WhatsApp. Today’s CEOs are what I call “fish in a digital aquarium”. Everyone is curious about the CEO and his or her leadership style.

Also, as they become more and more like celebrities, much like the show business people, more and more people are curious about their personal lives.

CM: How do successful CEOs or managers get feedback from their team and employees?

JS: There are three ways managers can get feedback from customers and employees: The first is a quantitative survey on a 5-point scale. For example, customer and employee satisfaction surveys and indices.

The second is qualitative feedback, such as the analysis of social media comments.

The third and most powerful feedback is CEOs visiting the customers and the employees on their location. This is what I call “feedback by wandering around.” It gives a more holistic view and it is highly experiential.

CM: What are the best ways of getting feedback for the CEOs? What is the frequency of getting feedback for successful CEOs? What should be the frequency?

JS: In today’s dynamic environment and with the explosion of social media, the feedback needs to be continuous.

CM: Could you give us some best practices on CEOs getting feedback? What makes them best practices?

JS: The best practices are the following:

  1. Organizing town hall meetings with small groups of employees and customers at their locations.
  2. Offering direct email access to employees and customers so that they can communicate without filtering by corporate staff people.
  3. Visiting customers and employees is the best method. My recommendation is that the CEO should spend no more than one third of his or her time in the office. The remaining two thirds should be divided between customers and employees. This is particularly crucial when the company’s customers are all over the world and it also has operations all over the world.

CM: What do you recommend to the CEOs who want to get best and most efficient feedback?

JS: Get feedback by wandering around.

2 Comments

  • Ron Strauss says:

    Cogent observations that are timeless. Feedback by wandering around is especially important in firms that sell through distributors; it’s crucial that the CEO and marketing staff get direct feedback on their served markets.

  • Geetha Ravi says:

    This is truly a practical and wonderful method to get feedback

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