Before you start
An executive operating system is the set of rhythms, documents, and handoffs that let a senior person make decisions, keep calibration, and make the role coverable. When one of those layers is absent or badly wired, the executive compensates personally. The compensation becomes the bottleneck the company grows around.
This workbook is a structured look at those layers. Sixty to ninety minutes, alone or with a chief of staff or peer, once per quarter.
Who this is for
- Founders past the first year of post-fit execution.
- CEOs and COOs running something with more than twenty reports in aggregate.
- Heads of function whose calendar has started to feel like the primary artifact of their job.
- Operators in the first ninety days of a new role, trying to install the system before the company installs them into its existing shape.
Who this is not for
Individual contributors looking to improve personal productivity. This is an audit of organizational infrastructure routed through a specific role, not a time-management template.
How to use this
Block ninety minutes. Treat it as a meeting with yourself.
- Do the quick summary page first (about fifteen minutes). It produces a score and points you to the sections most worth the remaining time.
- Work through the eight audit sections: input system, decision capture, review rhythms, delegation, meeting load, absence resilience, operator debt, and AI in the role. Each one has a short framing, six rated questions, a fillable evidence block, two or three failure signs, and a short recap.
- End with the 90-day action plan, which pulls directly from the section recaps.
Rate each audit question on a three-point scale: 0 if the practice is missing, 1 if it exists inconsistently, 2 if someone else could describe and reproduce it in your absence. Honesty matters more than completeness. Charitable ratings produce a bad plan.
A second pass with a chief of staff, peer, or direct report is useful. They will rate several sections differently than you do. The gap is where the diagnosis sits.
What you’ll have at the end
A short, accurate plan. Not a perfectly completed workbook. The plan names the two or three layers most worth investing in over the next ninety days, with a named owner and a re-audit date.
Download the workbook to begin.