Over 40% of the CEO’s typical day is dedicated to meetings and gatherings. London School of Economics has studied the agendas of over 500 CEOs worldwide. Here are the results.  

Manage people, organise work, phone calls and business trips. We all imagine our manager engaged daily in these activities. But what do they do every day, what is their typical day? A team of researchers from the London School of Economics and Harvard Business School, who studied the agendas of more than 500 CEOs around the world day by day, found out. The main activity of these professionals in the workplace is to hold meetings.

The study, called the Executive Time Use Project, aims to determine how managers organise their time and how it affects the performance of their businesses.

Here are the interesting results that emerged: a sample of 65 CEOs spend on average 18 of the 55 working hours per week in a meeting, more than 3 hours in telephone meetings and 5 hours in business lunches. Furthermore, other activities remain, such as business trips and field operations supported by collaborators. Finally, a lower percentage is dedicated to solo work. In short, a manager is a professional in group work. Coordinating other professionals remains one of the main objectives.

Finally, the study shows that Italian CEOs tend to plan their time aiming at the productivity and profitability of their businesses measured in terms of sales associated with each individual employee. In the Italian case, the element that determines the company’s performance are the people the CEO meets. Relationships are at the top!