No, this analogy isn’t about staying afloat, or skimming across issues without diving deep, or facing waves of crises. It’s a way of thinking about a company from an investor’s perspective.

As a young CEO I focused on customers, selling our products and gaining input for improving them. I hired good people and expected them to do their jobs well. But they weren’t getting much of my time during our brief and irregular meetings and that wasn’t working. So I turned to what most management experts consider a best practice: weekly 1:1 meetings with my Direct Reports. I’ve never turned back, though I have continually improved the process.

Most entrepreneurs, and many leaders and managers, have some level of responsibility for selling. Even executives who don’t ask for money are involved with persuading, which essentially is selling your ideas or perspective. And most of them go about it the wrong way.