Jerry S. Wilson gets paid to eat and drink his way around the world. Right now, he may be in Atlanta, but tonight, he could be in Miami. Then he’s flying off to Hong Kong tomorrow and up to Japan just a few days after that. And this is typical for the president of The Coca Cola Co.’s global McDonald’s division, which serves 56 million customers a day throughout 118 countries.
“I spend 70 percent of my time in the market with the customer and with my people,” Wilson says. “In fact, my office is my BlackBerry, if you think about it. The beauty of such a device is you’re always connected, and the sun never sets on my job.”
The problem with being on the road — or in the air — so often is that he has to figure out what’s the most important way to spend his time.
“I think the biggest leadership challenge that certainly I’ve had, and I think a lot of other executives have in this day and time, is you have finite time with infinite ways to spend or invest that time,” Wilson says.
He prefers to focus on the things that will move his division of the $28.9 billion beverage giant forward, such as balancing the art and science of business, developing his people, and setting attainable stretch goals for his employees.
“Your goal is to spend your time in the highest impact zone as often as you can, and generally speaking, that’s going to include other people.”
Here’s how he does it.
