What an Engineer Can Learn From the Daily Routine of Siemens CEO Roland Busch

We often look at CEOs and ask: How do they manage so much?

Hundreds of emails. Back-to-back meetings. Global travel. Thousands of employees. Decisions involving billions of dollars.

A recent Business Insider article about Roland Busch, CEO of Siemens, gives an interesting glimpse into his daily routine.

What caught my attention wasn't how busy his life is.

It was how simple some of his operating principles are.

And many of them are surprisingly relevant to engineers.

1. Start by taking care of yourself

Busch typically starts his day around 6 AM and spends 75–90 minutes exercising.

Weightlifting. HIIT. Boxing. Jump rope.

Even while travelling, he tries to maintain the routine using hotel gyms.

There's an important lesson here.

As engineers, we spend enormous amounts of time improving systems.

We optimize CPU time.

We reduce memory.

We improve algorithms.

We automate repetitive tasks.

But sometimes we forget to maintain the most important system we have:

ourselves.

A demanding career is not a sprint. It can last 30 or 40 years.

Health is not something separate from career performance. It is infrastructure for it.

2. Don't create meetings because the calendar says so

One thing from Busch's routine surprised me.

He doesn't necessarily have recurring meetings with his direct reports.

His philosophy is simple:

Come to me when you need me.

Sometimes that may mean several conversations in a week. Sometimes there may be no need to meet for weeks.

This is particularly relevant in large organizations.

Recurring meetings are easy to create and surprisingly difficult to remove.

Monday sync.

Weekly status.

Monthly review.

Project update.

Leadership update.

Soon, the calendar becomes the work.

But meetings should exist because communication is required, not because Outlook says it is Tuesday at 10 AM.

For engineers, uninterrupted thinking time is incredibly valuable.

Protecting that time can sometimes produce more value than adding another status meeting.

3. Communication doesn't always need to be long

Busch reportedly receives around 200 emails a day.

Yet he tries to keep his inbox below 100.

One technique is surprisingly simple.

When possible, he responds immediately.

Sometimes the response is just:

"OK."

Or:

"No."

Engineers can learn something from this.

We sometimes confuse detailed communication with good communication.

A five-paragraph email isn't automatically better than five words.

A 20-slide presentation isn't automatically better than one diagram.

A one-hour discussion isn't automatically better than a five-minute decision.

The goal of communication isn't length.

The goal is clarity.

4. Reduce complex problems to the variables that matter

Perhaps my favourite lesson from Busch comes from his background in theoretical physics.

He describes learning to reduce complicated situations to their essential variables.

This is exactly what good engineers do.

When debugging a complicated problem, you don't investigate everything simultaneously.

You isolate variables.

You create a smaller testcase.

You remove unrelated components.

You reproduce the behaviour.

You identify what changes the outcome.

Eventually, a huge problem becomes a small problem.

Leadership isn't completely different.

Organizations may have hundreds of variables—technology, customers, people, competition, budgets, schedules and politics.

But usually only a few variables determine the outcome.

The ability to identify those variables is an underrated leadership skill.

5. Become the person who can solve difficult problems

There is another interesting part of Busch's career story.

After demonstrating that he could handle difficult situations and turn around troubled businesses, he was repeatedly given bigger and harder responsibilities.

This creates a powerful career flywheel:

Solve hard problems
→ Earn trust
→ Get harder problems
→ Gain broader responsibility
→ Become a leader

Many engineers think career growth primarily comes from doing more work.

I think there is an important distinction.

Don't simply become the person who does more work.

Become the person people call when there is a difficult problem.

The second reputation is far more valuable.

6. Keep your operating system simple

Busch has reportedly worked paperless for years and keeps a clean desk.

There's something appealing about this philosophy.

Complex work doesn't necessarily require a complex personal system.

Sometimes simplicity creates speed.

Fewer unnecessary meetings.

Fewer papers.

Shorter responses.

Clear decisions.

A small number of priorities.

The bigger your responsibilities become, the more valuable simplicity becomes.

7. Success outside work needs deliberate effort too

Perhaps one of the most important observations in the article has nothing to do with Siemens.

Busch talks about deliberately maintaining relationships—with his wife, family and long-term friends—despite an extremely demanding schedule.

This matters.

Careers naturally consume whatever space we give them.

There will always be another release.

Another customer issue.

Another deadline.

Another promotion.

Another important meeting.

If we wait for work to become quiet before investing in relationships, we may wait forever.

Important relationships need to be treated as priorities rather than leftovers.

8. Find your shutdown mechanism

Busch has also taken up playing guitar.

Even 20 minutes requires enough concentration that his mind moves away from work.

I like this idea of having a shutdown mechanism.

For someone it might be guitar.

For another person, walking.

Reading.

Meditation.

Exercise.

Cooking.

Playing with children.

The activity itself matters less than its ability to tell your brain:

Work is finished for today.

In an always-connected world, switching off has become a skill.

The bigger lesson

What I found most interesting about Roland Busch's routine isn't his schedule.

It's his approach to complexity.

Exercise consistently.

Communicate clearly.

Remove unnecessary meetings.

Simplify difficult problems.

Solve the problems others struggle with.

Protect important relationships.

And create a way to disconnect.

None of these ideas sound revolutionary.

That's perhaps the point.

We often search for complicated productivity systems to handle complicated careers.

But sometimes the better approach is the opposite:

As your responsibilities become more complex, your operating principles should become simpler.

For engineers aspiring to become technical leaders—or eventually business leaders—that may be the most useful lesson of all.

Inspired by Business Insider's August 2026 profile of Siemens CEO Roland Busch, “A day in the life of Siemens CEO Roland Busch.”