How Can an Executive Attain Peak Performance?

Everyone should read the classic article by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz: “The Corporate Athlete” from the Harvard Business Review. 

I have rarely read an article that offers as clear a view of what coaching can do for an executive. 

Their central concept is simple and Aristotelian: it is not enough to overcome bad habits, it is necessary to develop and sustain good ones. They, as Aristotle, aim at excellence. 

And they add that no one can perform consistently as a great executive without having balance in his or her life.

Hard work matters, but if that is all there is, then you will end up spinning your wheels. 

As Loehr and Schwartz put it: no one can focus on business all the time. The key to success is the ability to control the oscillation between the stress that distracts you and the routines that restore your focus.

The right balance includes: a consistent exercise routine; proper nutrition; meditation; stable and fulfilling personal relationships; and a sense of purpose that goes beyond the bottom line.

Two points deserve some emphasis. First, to function well on the job you need stable, predictable, and harmonious relationships. 

No executive is going to have stable personal relationships without participating actively in private life. 

No executive is too important to spend time with the children or to take a spouse on a special vacation. And no executive can function well on the job if his or her home life is in constant turmoil.

An executive who refuses to engage in a personal relationship will discover that his or her partner will extract the proper attention by producing drama.

The most interesting and, dare I say, original point in the article concerns something very small: a tennis player tweaking the strings of his racket in the interval between points. And a great player will assume a confident  posture and will visualize the way he wants the next point to go. 

By performing small rituals between points great players recover from the stress of the last point and focus on the next point. The rituals will help him to overcome distraction, put the past behind him, and to focus on the task at hand.

Loehr and Schwartz argue correctly that if a player who does not perform these rituals will become mired in stress and eventually exhausted by it. He will be distracted by thoughts and feelings about the past, and will become a mediocre competitor.

This is clearly Confucian. Your ability to function in a competitive environment involves the smallest rituals, not the greatest insights.