Seraf’s CEO advisor: vision, priorities and trade-offs

Its mission fits in one line: the direction of the business and the final framing of priorities. It is accountable for three outcomes: clear priorities, resolved priority conflicts and decisions ready to be made. To get there, it watches four signals in your Serafex space.

• A priority conflict: two projects need the same person in the same week, or an urgent project is holding up an important one.
• A decision with no owner: renewing a supplier, choosing a piece of software or answering a client, and nobody has taken it on.
• A significant risk to the business: a client who accounts for a large share of the work in progress, a critical deadline with no plan, a commitment that exceeds capacity.
• A missed commitment: a promised date that goes by, a forgotten follow-up, a pipeline item that hasn’t moved in weeks.

The CEO advisor is part of the Council’s first ring. It takes part every morning, even when nothing important is flagged; in that case, your brief simply tells you so, and that is useful information in itself. It works closely with three other roles: the Chief of staff, who coordinates follow-up and prepares decisions, the COO advisor, who knows your delivery capacity, and the CFO advisor, who knows where your cash stands.

It also holds a special place in the Council’s chain. Several roles bring their issues to it before they are presented to you: the CMO advisor for marketing, the CPO advisor for product, the AI director and the competitive intelligence role. Its job is then to put each issue back into the big picture: a promising campaign isn’t worth much if the team that would have to deliver it is already swamped.

The CEO advisor’s rights are deliberately limited: frame the business’s priorities, recommend an order of priorities and ask you for a decision. It never says “it’s decided.” It says “here is what I recommend, here is why, and here is the decision I need from you.”

Take a fictional bakery and caterer in Trois-Rivières with seven employees, invented to illustrate the method. In November, three projects are competing for the same pastry chef: the holiday gift boxes, a catering contract for a neighbouring company’s office party, and the photos for the new online ordering site. The owner asks Seraf which one to push back.

The answer could look like this: “Recommendation: push the website photos to January. Reason: the gift boxes and the catering contract have fixed dates in December, while the site has no promised launch date; the chef is already booked three Saturdays out of four. Next step: I’ll prepare a message to the photographer suggesting two dates in January, for you to review before it goes out.” The owner is free to follow this recommendation, adjust it (for example, keep a one-hour photo session in December) or set it aside: the decision is hers.

This kind of framing fits a practice the BDC recommends to businesses. Its tips for implementing your strategic plan (new tab) note that a plan often goes nowhere for lack of time, support or resources, or for lack of follow-up to make sure progress stays on track, and that regular review meetings are essential, monthly being typical. Its guide to creating an action plan (new tab) specifies that each initiative should have someone responsible and a timeline, over a horizon that generally covers 12 months, with a deeper review each quarter.

The CEO advisor keeps that follow-up alive between those meetings. A priority with no owner becomes a signal. A commitment that is slipping shows up in the brief before it is missed. And when you open your monthly review, the list of pending decisions is already there.

To get a good trade-off, give it something to work with. Name the competing projects, the dates that won’t move and the constraint that worries you (a person, an amount, a season). “Which of these three projects should I push back, knowing the chef can’t work more than 40 hours?” gets a far more useful answer than “What should I prioritize?”

Every role on the Council has reserved actions, meaning things it is not allowed to do. For the CEO advisor, there are three.

• It doesn’t present itself as an officer of your business. It isn’t listed in any register, signs nothing and doesn’t speak on your behalf. It is an advisory role in your Serafex space, not an executive position.
• It makes no external commitment. It promises nothing to a client, a supplier or your financial institution. If it recommends writing to someone, Seraf prepares a draft, and sending it waits for your confirmation.
• It gives no final approval. In the conversation, Seraf presents one recommendation, its reason and a next step. In the morning brief, its recommendations come back to you with the choice to accept, edit, postpone or decline.

These limits aren’t caution for show. They reflect how the Council is designed: every seat sends the decision back to the person who owns the business. They also protect your business, because a decision made without you, even a sound one, commits you to something you haven’t examined.

Nor does the CEO advisor replace your human advisors. An advisory board, a mentor or a business partner who knows your industry brings experience the Council doesn’t have. The Council helps you walk into those meetings with clear priorities and precise questions. If you want to reflect on your own role as a leader, the Council also includes a founder coach, who steps in only when you ask.

Finally, the Council is in service for Serafex clients, and its recommendations always reach you through Seraf, your single point of contact.

The best way to get to know this role is to ask it real questions about your week. Here is a starter list. Ask Seraf these questions as they are, then adjust them to your situation.

After each answer, ask: “What information are you basing this on?” If the answer reveals a gap (a project missing from the pipeline, a deadline that was never entered), fix your records: the CEO advisor only sees what your space contains.

Then set up a short routine. On Monday, ask for your three priorities. Every morning, decide on the brief items that concern the direction of the business. On Friday, ask which commitments slipped. Once a month, review the decisions you accepted, edited and declined.

Some questions belong to another role. To find out whether you have the cash a priority requires, see the guide to Seraf’s CFO advisor. To find out whether the team can deliver on time, see the one on the COO advisor. Seraf brings these perspectives together when your question calls for it.

Let’s talk about your priorities and your Council.