The Battle Within

To set out boldly in our work is to make a pilgrimage of our labors, to understand that the consummation of work lies not only in what we have done, but who we have become while accomplishing the task.

—David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea

Your success as a CEO depends on your ability to make good assessments of situations, develop sound plans and strategies, move decisively to actions having positive outcomes, effectively deal with people—and do so over extended periods of time. You must focus on what is crucial while faced with the flow of huge amounts of information and multiple often-competing business, interpersonal, and personal pressures.

To consistently pull this off, you must excel at being able to have your wits about you so you can be focused, in command, and able to make wise decisions at any moment. Psychologists call this being in your ideal executive performance state. You may find it more useful to think of it as being able to stay cool in the executive hot seat. In order for you to do that quickly and reliably, you need to master the most important and greatest challenge you face every day: managing your mind-body operating system—with its biological, psychological, social, and spiritual needs.

The importance of your mind-body operating system is obvious. As the source of all functional capacities, the mind-body needs to be performing optimally to produce the best output. What makes this the greatest challenge? The short answer is that there is an inherent conflict that exists for most CEOs: on one side is their inclination to be focused on the demands of leadership and the pressure to take action, while on the other side, there is the need to monitor and manage their fundamental human needs in order to function at their best.

The struggle that ensues is dramatically captured in the movie The Defiant Ones, starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis as two escaped convicts who are shackled together. Both want to be free, but each wants to dominate the other. So their arguments with one another undermine their forward progress. Eventually they come to the realization that in order for them to succeed in their primary goal, they must find ways to cooperate. Once the chains are removed, their efforts to dominate have been transformed into partnership and respect.

In the business world, we often think of this struggle in the context of a supervisor and a staff member, where there may be tension between the work expectations of the former and the personal needs of the latter. However, when you are the CEO, the struggle takes place within yourself. In your "inner drama," the supervisor side of you is putting pressure on the worker side to work faster-harder-longer-better to meet various company goals. The worker side may need:

• more time for all the work that goes into leading well (to get additional information, to thoughtfully consider options, to manage the various competing demands),

• time to rest when you are mentally or physically weary,

• a reduction in hours to deal with a pressing family matter.

The tension between these two facets of yourself will never completely go away. Left unmanaged, this is by far the greatest source of distress there is. Yet by coming to terms with that reality and accepting ownership for managing it, you can direct your efforts toward mastery. Then you can expect to perform optimally and do what it actually takes to have a good life.

Here is how David Whyte, whose insightful writings about the challenges of integrating one's soul into the workplace and managing the interface between self, work, and relationships, eloquently captures the challenge.

Work is a constant conversation. It is the back and forth between what I think is me and what I think is not me; it is the edge between what the world needs of me and what I need of the world. Like the person to whom I am committed in a relationship, it is constantly changing and surprising me by its demands and needs but also where it leads me, how much it teaches me, and especially, by how much tact, patience and maturity it demands of me.

To help your conversations go better, you need a working understanding of the two sides. We start with a synopsis of what it means to function well as a CEO (your output) and what it takes to function optimally (your input). As the book evolves, you will learn specific skills that are keys to your mastery of the challenge.

Becoming a Wise Leader

The CEO's Performance

The frame of reference for the guidelines I provide is based upon a vision of the CEO as a wise leader—"doing the right thing, in the right way, and against the right time frame." To accomplish that, the CEO's overriding task is to determine "what is happening to and in the organization, apply appropriate perspective and planning to decide what to do, and then to act in an appropriate and determined way."

The CEO's Mind

Not surprisingly, the basic brain functions that enable the CEO to achieve these outcomes are called the executive functions of the mind (see figure 1.1). They are neurologically based mental skills that enable you to supervise yourself and to coordinate and direct your efforts to achieve a goal.

Six Essential Resources for the Executive

With these executive brain functions in place, you have the basic tools needed to be fully functional. In order to optimize the use of those capacities, you must have the resources summarized below. You also need reliable methods to monitor and manage these essential resources, the subject of later chapters.

* Efficient Operating System. You must keep your basic machinery functioning well, and this requires you to have reliable and efficient strategies to regulate and replenish your energy stores. Despite being under continual pressure to expend energy, you can only function at your best if you are attentive to the core biopsychological necessities of your mind-body operating system. To maintain your operating system, you need to effectively set limits on the demands made of you and have good ways to restore your energy.

* Executive Cool. You must...