My theory is CEOs that pay attention to smaller things miss fewer opportunities, and build a culture of doing so across the company. Look up Bezos' infamous "?" emails.
"?" isn't paying attention to things; it's telling other people to pay attention to things. It's building a culture, I guess.
“?” is paying attention enough to recognize something is wrong and needs to be resolved immediately without spending the time to find the resolution yourself. To say that it’s not implies that every single email to him results in a “?” which is patently false.
I absolutely think it's paying attention. The way he describes it is "if the data says one thing, but the customers say another, it usually means there's a problem with how you're measuring". He says he personally reads the emails that come in (though rarely responds).
Telling other people which things to pay attention to is the CEO's job.