How do CEO's and highly productive people balance their lives?

I've been fascinated by this question for most of my life.  My uncle was the CEO of Puget Sound Power and Light and family reunions always raised the issue for me over and over.  How does he do that? 

For all of us it’s a choice of how we want to spend our universal allocation of 168 hours a week. No one can fit every —AL aspect of life (physical, emotional, intellectual, professional, spiritual, social, marital, parental, financial, and so on for at least 13 aspects) in every day. AND exercising once a month or spending time with family once a month is clearly not enough. SO, the WEEK is the building block of life. From the day we are born (the center of the chart below), we begin to develop in multiple --AL directions.  Over time we might "develop" the blue shape below, developed on some dimensions and "under-developed" in other dimensions.  IF we have goals (the green line) we can check ourselves year after year in January to see how we are progressing.  The OUTER RING represents "world-class" or "ten" development.  "World Class" on the ProfessionAL dimension might be "president of a first-world country."  CEO of a major corporation might be a "9" on that scale.  "Ten" on the FinanciAL dimension would be Jeff Bezos (in 2020) at $145Billion.  

THEN, add managing ENERGY to the equation. People with higher energy can get more done in the same 168 hours. Energy is a function of brain chemistry (ADHDs like my wife often need a nap after doing one thing), body chemistry, physical habits (like diet, exercise, sleep and rest), PURPOSE and early childhood training and development.

If we have a clear purpose in life (most don’t), we can allocate our time and energy in service of our purpose. Consider a daily cycle: DO → REST. Most people go through life going around that cycle over and over again. A better cycle would be: DO → REST → LEARN → DO. IF we adopt that cycle, we could become gradually better and better at what we do.

That said, significant numbers of people get “stuck” in one phase or another. Habitual DOers can develop workaholism—which is deadly. (Japan has a word, karoushi for it). Habitual RESTers get little done and spend their lives wishing they didn’t have to work and wanting to be lying down somewhere. Habitual LEARNers also don’t get much done except more learning, like some academics. These “whirlpools” or “eddies” in the stream of life can be the result of brain chemistry, early childhood habits, or many other factors.

CEO’s have very demanding jobs that require a wide range of skills. Many of them compensate by emphasizing their favorite issues or skills. Former CFO’s who become CEO’s tend to focus on financial results and may not be the best people managers. Chief marketing officers tend as CEO’s tend to focus on the top line. And so on.

SELF LEADERSHIP becomes increasingly important as people gain more responsibility. How can they get the sleep, exercise, diet, and mental peace to create a sustainable lifestyle? Richard Branson and Henry Ford III seem to have worked it out. Many celebrities seem to be self-destructive with drugs, lack of sleep, alcoholism, etc. Some who focus first on career don’t marry or have other interests but are monomaniacally focused on their careers. John Steinbeck wrote in his diary while feuding with his wife, If a man has a wife and he can’t write, he should get a new wife.

It’s all about VABEs. We define who we are by our behaviors which are based on our semi-conscious VABEs. Each week, we allocate time and energy to the various —AL aspects of life and another block goes into the edifice that becomes our Life. When we are self managing (see for example the Book of SELF in my book A Song of Humanity) we are more likely to get where we want to be. Rather than drifting and then waking up one day and going, HOW did I get here?  

As Cmdr Abrashoff said in his book, It's Your Ship! That is, your life and your career are your ship and you are, if you choose to be, the Captain of that Ship.  You can decide the purpose of your ship, the destination of your ship, how fast you will go, whom to invite on board, where you will put into port, and the fitness of your ship.  If you choose to do so.  

What should we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic?

1. Wet meat markets are cesspools of filth and disease perpetuation and creation. Shut them down!
2. Biological warfare is a real and dangerous possibility and every country should be prepared to combat it.
3. Western (or any) cultural conventions like shaking hands are outdated. We can bow to show respect without infecting others. The tradition grew out of Viking testing of weapons-in-hand and no longer makes sense.
4. Everyone should wear masks in public when they are sick. The Japanese learned this long ago. (I lived there for four years.)
5. In Truth We Trust. Prayers and hopes won’t help, neither will political wishfulness or lies. Science has or will get the answer. False VABEs will still kill you.
6. We live in an amazing era in which we can identify base pair by base pair virtually any living organism. Truly amazing compared with what we knew and/or could do 100 years ago.
7. The global desire to “maximize profits” at the expense of local supply chains puts nations at risk for essential materials. “Sustainable profits” would take into account the need for resiliency in the face of major crises. Don’t plan on not having a crisis.
8. In the end, we must globally decide the value of human life versus the quality of human life. How much do we “spend” to keep people alive and to extend life even when may be unconscious or non-functioning.
9. Anyone who seeks to maximize profits at the expense of and while abusing the “Commons” (air, water, soil, flora, fauna and the underprivileged) should be regulated and constrained. People should not profit while defiling the Commons that we all share.
10. There is no such thing as “inalienable human rights.” Nature grants no such rights. Rights are granted by governments. Governments should be held accountable for their abuse of the Commons. Viruses don’t care about what you believe your rights are.
11. Everything comes down to VABEs. Unless we can change what people believe, things won’t change.
12. Humans tend to make short-term decisions that actually are self-destructive and destructive to the Commons.  

Should One Give Advice?

I like other answers that suggest “don’t do it.” I first encountered the dangers of advice in the doctoral program at Harvard Business School. We read and studied Carl Rogers’ book, On Becoming a Person. Therein I learned a variety of “kinds of Responses” in conversation and how they help or don’t help. Rogers’ view was, and I agree, that people usually have the answers within them and that if we could help them see that, they would be much better and more likely to follow through.

So, I learned about “active listening.” And wrote a note about that, a note that became a best seller at Darden. Active Listening

We can array response types on a continuum from Directive to Non-Directive. And then discuss how Directiveness affects listeners. Usually it triggers their defensiveness. To become a good active listener one needs to learn to

1. Suspend fast thinking judgments based on one’s own VABEs
2. Focus on emotions (and their visible signals) as well as content.
3. Follow, not lead, the conversation.
4. Reflect accurately and appropriately what you understand about content and emotion in what the Other is saying.

These are very difficult for most people. People tend to see the world from their own point of view and to give advice based on that. And that advice could be exactly the wrong thing for the Other.

At some point AFTER one has listening actively, the Other may ask what you would do. Even then, be sure to describe what you would do, NOT what the Other should do. Do not attempt consciously or otherwise to impose your VABEs and conclusions on the other. The arrogance of “I know what’s right for you” goes way back to the basic VABEs that most parents used to teach their defenseless, young children:

1. I know what’s right for you, child.
2. I have a parental right to tell you what’s right for you, child.
3. I have a right to punish you if you don’t do what’s right for you, child. (See William Glasser, Choice Theory)

In this, we teach children to obey and conform. And the world’s dysfunctional VABEs are perpetuated generation after generation. There’s more. See my website, www.nadobimakoba.com, or my book A Song of Humanity. A Song of Humanity

Here’s the scale I created in Exhibit 1 in the note (above). From MORE DIRECTIVE at the top to LESS DIRECTIVE at the bottom.

ACTIVE LISTENING

Response Types

DIRECTIVE

Commands and threats

Telling a person what to do. Giving orders.

Persuasion

Selling, urging, entreating, building “logical” arguments to persuade the other to your point of view. Arguing is a heated form of persuasion.

Advice

Offering what you think should be done, based usually on your own view and values.

Questioning and focusing

Establishing a focus on what you will talk about next. Can be done through statements or questions.

Giving feedback

Telling the other person your judgments—both positive and negative. Extremely volatile, i.e., can be constructive or destructive to the individual and to the relationship. Can be solicited or unsolicited.

Directive probing

Asking leading questions to reach specific conclusions. Effective, if used skillfully, in getting a person to “personalize” joint conclusions.

Role playing

Building skills by allowing the other person to practice saying and behaving in situations that are likely to appear.

Summarizing

Attempting to outline the major points of the discussion.

Self-disclosing

Giving information about yourself. Very powerful in building trust and credibility. Can be overdone.

Exchanging

Undirected exchanges of greeting, social comments. Builds rapport and pleasantries and establishes a socially acceptable base for the conversation.

Problem-solving

Open-ended exploration of alternatives without preconceived notions about how to solve the problem. Brainstorming, or “dialogue” techniques, then evaluating alternatives.

Continuances

“Umm,” “Uh-huh,” “Yeah,” and other means of encouraging the other person to carry on.

Silence

Can be somewhat directive depending on the situation.

Reflective listening

Setting aside personal views and listening to another’s content and emotion and then reflecting that understanding back to the speaker. Related to empathy. Extremely useful in building support.

NON-DIRECTIVE

Examples of the Pareto Principle (80% is the result of 20% of ...)

Well, roughly speaking, not exactly 80/20,

1. Tiny majority of people own the vast majority of the world’s wealth. Adam Smith said capitalism depended on capitalists of “good character” implying to me that they “cared” about the Commons (air, water, soil, flora, fauna, and the underprivileged.) Which clearly the vast majority of that 20% (more like 1%) don’t.
2. Tiny minority of the population account for the vast majority of the crimes committed. I did research on the police/crime in Baltimore and the COP (Chief of Police) said they knew who the criminals were and they were a tiny minority of people—preying on the rest. Includes DUI repeat offenders.
3. Fast Thinkers versus Slow Thinkers (see Daniel Kahneman’s book). The vast majority of people make quick judgments based on their VABEs while a small minority judge more slowly—and seeking evidence and data.
4. Tiny minority of micro-organisms create the biggest problems in human society. COV-19. Ebola. Plague. Pretty obvious.
5. Cyclical disasters. A tiny few in the vast 4.5 billion year history of the earths’ major disasters have caused the vast majority of lethal consequences. Meteor strikes, Russian lava flows, volcanic eruptions (e.g. Krakatoa), hurricanes—not all that common, in fact, very uncommon, and yet they create huge consequences on life on earth.
6. Life Health Costs. Study after study show that the vast majority of anyone’s (on average) lifetime healthcare costs are created in the last year or two of one’s life. End of life attempts to prolong life without regard to quality of life cost exponentially more than healthcare earlier in life—on average. For very modest extension at low quality. True also earlier in life wherein the few with severe birth defects or unusual conditions create the big majority of hospitalization costs.
7. Mental health costs. The few (schizophrenia for example is about 1% of the worldwide population) create enormous stresses on society in living/surviving costs. Which sadly most of society ignore—and put them on the streets.
8. Innovation. The Newton’s, daVinci’s, vanGogh’s, Einstein’s, Pasteurs, Nobel’s, Copernicus’s, Brahe’s, Planck’s, etc are a rare minority and yet they have contributed ginormous influence on society.
9. VABEs. A tiny minority of VABEs and MEMEs have had huge negative effects on mankind. For example, “my religion is the true religion.” “My ethnicity is superior to your ethnicity.” “Because I am right, I am justified in forcing you to submit.” Moderating or eliminating those few VABEs would eliminate most of the war and suffering in the world.
10. Enzymes. Injecting small amounts of the appropriate enzyme in a chemical process can create huge changes in the speed and results of the process.

Some that come to mind immediately. How will you use these examples to modify your understanding of the world and what you do in it?

Can I trust the quick and easy psychological tests?

There are hundreds even thousands of quick and easy surveys out there. Many of them are called “self-assessment” instruments. The advent of inexpensive survey creator tools like Qualtrics and Survey Monkey have allowed the proliferation of survey tools.  Some are of value, some are not. Creating a valid and accurate survey requires significant effort: question formulation, item writing, item testing usually with a field of experts, initial testing to establish various validity and dependability statistics to ensure the survey is actually measuring what you hoped it would, sample selection, and more.

At the simplest level, surveys should report the demographics of their samples (not assuming the results apply to the general public), and percentages of responses. Beyond that there are many ways to analyze the data depending on the size of the data set and the tested validity (does it measure what it says it does) and dependability (does it yield the same kind of results time after time).

The “psychological” studies that one reads in popular magazines are of the simplest kind with very little validity and/or dependability analysis. Typically, they simply report as noted above, sample characteristics and simple percentages.

Note that some tests have been analyzed and re-analyzed over the years to mixed results on both validity and dependability. IQ tests are among these as is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) which was originally developed by a mother and daughter team trying to analyze the “different” personality of the son-in-law/husband.

THEREFORE, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT ONE NEVER PLACES CONFIDENCE IN THE RESULTS OF ANY SINGLE ASSESSMENT TOOL. No instrument is accurate enough nor comprehensive enough to hang your hat on/believe in. I have taught career management courses at Harvard and Virginia for over 3 decades and we always said that one should ONLY TRUST RESULTS THAT APPEAR REPEATEDLY ACROSS MULTIPLE DATA SETS/INSTRUMENTS. This is inductive logic, scanning evidence and looking for patterns across multiple data sources.

We summarized this technique at Harvard based on the award-winning work of John Kotter, Tony Athos, Charles McArthur and Victor Faux. You can see my summary of that work with guidance on how to use some 25 self-assessment tools on one of my webpages at Personal Web - James G. Clawson (at the bottom the Career Option Workbook COW and at Getting Below the Surface The interactive PDF file FindingFit is available through Darden School Business Publishing. FindingFIT

NEVER TRUST THE RESULTS OF A SINGLE INSTRUMENT! There are many reasons for this.

Is there one best method or way to learn that works well for everyone?

Well, there are many sources describing variations in learning styles, kinds of intelligence, and preferred channels of data input. So on the surface, the answer would seem to be “no.” “Works well” may be the differentiating phrase.

That said, learning involves creation and maintenance of neural-neural synaptic connections that we ill-understand—yet. Research into brain function continues apace around the world. There are reports of multiple amputees learning to control prosthetic hands, for instance, with electrodes attached to their foreheads.

Early in life, right after birth, babies can’t even follow you with their eyes and they cannot speak a language. As the weeks and months and years go by, babies gather more and more physical and mental skills. From observation, emulation, and REPETITION.

SO, I offer that while it’s more difficult from one person to the next, REPETITION is on balance the learning system that works most deeply and most broadly across the world. People memorize the Koran, or poetry, or the Bible or parts in plays. They learn 800 moves in taekwondo or karate. They learn mathematics, history, etc. One time exposure usually doesn’t do much. Creating the neural-neural connections that we refer to as “knowledge,” “wisdom,” or “experience” takes time and REPETITION. The brain, however vast it is, tries to be efficient by letting go of synaptic connections not used and applying energy and resilience to connections that are used over and over again.

So, my answer is REPETITION. Malcolm Gladwell popularized the concept of 10,000 hours, even for geniuses like Mozart, of repetition to get really good at something. Eric Clapton would practice guitar as a youth until his fingers bled. (see his autobiography)

Doug Newburg and I in our book, Powered by Feel, note that one challenge is the love of something enough that one will do whatever it takes to get good. WIthout that love or desire, one will not have the STAMINA required to excel through repetition. Bruce Hornsby spent 18 months “shedding” learning to convey whatever he wanted on his keyboard—and that included crossing hands and going over and over again. That stamina was based on enjoying or liking or wanting or loving a thing so much that “practice” became a “want to” not a “have to” (choice vs. obligation)

So that, the desire or love of a thing/skill/knowledge is the underlying basis for repetition as the doorway through which one becomes an expert.

Where/how does one get that desire? It might come naturally, it might be imbued by parents, it might be internal desire, it might be a simple but powerful choice. The presence or absence of that choice pretty much defines who we will become—or not.  

Characteristics of Cults

Cults are dangerous. Cults erode or remove your free agency and in return they offer a sense of membership, of belonging.  Beware. Beware.  Maintain your freedom to think and act.  Recognize and be aware of these characteristics of cults.  

1. Charismatic leader who demands total loyalty and obedience.
   
2. Threat of exclusion if you disobey the leader's rules.
   
3. Contribution and "consecration" of your property and wealth.
   
4. Instructions to avoid reading or viewing or listening to anything that contradicts the teachings of the great leader.
   
5. Difficulty in leaving.  Threats of bodily harm, loneliness, loss of privilege, loss of property and/or wealth, loss of fellowship, being followed, byzantine rules for getting out, constant pressure to stay, etc.
   
6. Instructions to study and re-study daily the teachings of the great leader.  Constant imprinting of the core teachings beginning with loyalty and obedience.
   
7. Expectations to attend meetings and demonstrate loyalty and obedience.
   
8. Strict hierarchy topped by the great leader.  You may think you know what's best for you, but if your local or general leader says otherwise, you are wrong.
   
9. Expectations to conform to grooming and dress.
   
10. Sexual implications of membership from intimacy with the great leader and / or unwillingness to recognize the natural sexual variations evident in 10% of the global population since history began. Responsibility to confess in some detail sexual "sins" of which there are many.
    
11. Questioning or Criticizing the great leader and their appointed lieutenants is not tolerated.
    
12. Asking or forcing members to separate themselves from the rest of the (evil) world.  Clipping communication links including phone, mail, news, radio, etc.
    
13. Placing loyalty and obedience to the leadership above all else, including self and family.  Even to the point of sacrificing your life and total property and wealth.