Bob Stanke, Executive Operating Advisor. I measure how a senior leader's operating system actually runs, identify the one constraint holding it back, and help rebuild it so the fix holds. Bob Stanke is a Chief of Staff, the role companies create when an executive's operating system has outgrown them. This site covers the operating layer of executive work: what reaches a leader, where their attention goes, how decisions clear, and what leaves their desk. It does not cover the interpersonal layer that most executive coaching addresses, such as presence, influence, or feedback. The audience is senior leaders who were promoted for good reason and now spend very little of their week doing what they were promoted for. Primarily VPs and SVPs at companies over 1,000 people, and founders and CEOs at companies of 50 to 500. The Executive Operating System The Executive Operating System is a framework describing the four components that determine what a senior leader actually produces. The components run in sequence, and the system moves at the speed of its tightest constraint. This is why improving a downstream component while an upstream one is broken produces no durable gain, and why executives who clear their calendars often watch them refill within a month. **Intake** is what reaches the executive at all: channels, reports, escalation paths, and standing invitations. It is the least examined component in executive work and the most common hidden constraint. **Attention** is where time actually goes: the meeting portfolio, the shape of the week, and whether uninterrupted blocks of two or more hours exist at all. **Decisions** is what the executive resolves and how fast: decision rights, decision latency, and the calls that should have been made a level below. **Distribution** is what leaves the desk: delegation, span of control, and what stops entirely if the executive is unavailable for a week. **Alignment** is the output measure rather than a fifth component. The Alignment Gap is the distance between an executive's stated priorities and their actual allocation of time, decisions, and delegated capacity. It is agnostic about cause: the gap proves the system is misaligned, and the four component scores indicate where. Diagnosis proceeds in flow order, because upstream components mask downstream ones. Intervention targets the constraint rather than the symptom. The **Executive Operating Index** is a free fifteen question self assessment that scores all four components on a 0 to 100 scale and identifies which one is binding. Band boundaries sit at the midpoints between response anchors, producing four maturity levels: Reactive, Managed, Designed, and Compounding. The **Executive Operating Audit** is the paid version. It measures the same four components against sixty days of real calendar data, a two week decision log, and input from three colleagues, then returns a verified Index, one named constraint, and a 90 day plan. Start here - [The Executive Operating Index](https://www.bobstanke.com/eoi): Free fifteen question assessment, about five minutes. Scores Intake, Attention, Decisions, and Distribution, and names the constraint that is actually binding. - [Homepage](https://www.bobstanke.com/): Overview of the problem, the framework, and how to work together. ## The four components - [How to Design Your Intake](https://www.bobstanke.com/blog/how-to-design-your-intake): Why intake only ever grows, the distinction between filtering and organizing, the silent cancellation test for recurring reports, and how to write escalation criteria. - [How to Audit Your Own Calendar in 30 Minutes](https://www.bobstanke.com/blog/how-to-audit-your-calendar): Step by step method for classifying sixty days of calendar data, including classification rules for ambiguous meetings and benchmark ranges. - [Map Your Decision Rights](https://www.bobstanke.com/blog/map-your-decision-rights): Why ambiguity about ownership always escalates upward, the four levels of decision authority, how to write escalation thresholds, and why a decision that can be reopened is not a decision. - [Find Your Single Points of Failure](https://www.bobstanke.com/blog/find-your-single-points-of-failure): The unplanned week test, the four kinds of single point of failure and their different fixes, and why delegating outcomes works where delegating tasks does not. ## Writing - [Your Calendar Is the Most Honest Strategy Document in Your Company](https://www.bobstanke.com/blog/calendar-honest-strategy-document): Why stated priorities and calendar allocation diverge, and why reactive work has a requester while strategic work does not. - [Why You Don't Have Two Hours to Think](https://www.bobstanke.com/blog/two-hours-to-think): Why executive focus is an aggregation problem rather than a discipline problem, why fragmentation is a threshold rather than a gradual loss, and five ways to recover uninterrupted time. - [All writing](https://www.bobstanke.com/articles): Full archive, organized by the four components. ## Work with Bob - [Talk through your results](https://www.bobstanke.com/session): A 30 minute session reviewing an Index result, what the scores suggest, and what to examine first. - [The Operating Layer](https://www.bobstanke.com/subscribe): Newsletter, every other Tuesday. One piece of an executive's operating system taken apart, with something to measure and one change to install. ## Optional - [About Bob Stanke](https://www.bobstanke.com/about): Background as a Chief of Staff and EOS Integrator, and thirty years turning work that runs on memory and willpower into systems that run on their own. - [Contact](https://www.bobstanke.com/contact): For questions, speaking, or research collaboration.