CEO Toolbox
So…..You’re working around the clock. Even when you’re not working, your mind is on your upcoming meeting with the board of directors, how to get revenues up, expenses down, getting employees more engaged and more productive, what to outsource and what to keep in house, how to pull morale up for your sales staff, and the beat goes on. Youcatdch yourself fantasizing about having a job where someone else runs the show and you just go to work doing some brainless thing and take home a smaller paycheck and someone else does the worrying. You’re flopping around like a trout in bed during the night worrying about something, and you’re running out of energy every afternoon, wishing Scotty would beam you up.
Here’s the cycle: You drink more. You’re not getting to the gym. You are getting complaints from your spouse and kids about not coming to their games or concerts, or being on your Blackberry while you’re on vacation in Hawaii. You’re taking meds to get to sleep at night. You’re worries you may have lost that “razor sharp” focus you used to have, or worse yet, someone at the office notices you’ve lost your edge. You’re having performance anxiety dreams (half-dressed…can’t find where you’re supposed to be…late for the exam…..wrong room….. or running like your feet weight 200 pounds a piece and the bad guys are gaining on you). How do I know this about you? I’m clairvoyant. No, of course not. Suffice to say, you are among great company. In fact, some of the most successful people in the business world have the exact same syndrome going on. Variations on a theme, maybe, because we’re all different.
The series “Mad Men” on AMC depicts the early 60’s world of high-stress advertising execs. Sexual harrasssment, in-office smoking and drinking, prescription medication, extra-marital affairs, sabotage, politics, gossip, and fantasy to deal with the mounting job stress, which increases from episode to episode. The beginning of the show is very artfully introduced with rather haunting music and graphics of a man’s office falling apart, and then, as if he’d jumped out of a high rise building; suggesting a fallen man (mankind) in the material business world. http://www.youtube.com/v/WcRr-Fb5xQo&hl=en&fs=1 . The executive toolbox was very different then. Welcome back to 2008-09. We have technology we never dreamed of back in the 60’s. (There is a funny scene in MadMen when the office gets its first Xerox machine and it takes up a whole room it’s so big) Life is different. We don’t drink and smoke in the office. The days of the 3 Martini-lunch seem far in the past. We don’t pinch our employees in the butt. Don’t laugh, it wasn’t that long ago! Now we have Starbucks, an African-American running for US President, and women running companies and running for Vice-president! Here’s the problem: times have changed, but many senior executives still have the same tools in their toolbox. Why not empty out the old tools that don’t serve you anymore and put some higher value tools in your box?! I recommend 6 types of tools, and in subsequent posts, I will suggest specific tools in each category, one by one (because I know you don’t have the time to read this right now) 1. Tools to help you prioritize, and focus your energy on the very most important things at the right time. 2. Tools to manage your judgement and expectations. 3. Tools to manage your reaction to stress. 4. Tools to help you think, and bounce your thoughts and ideas. 5. Tools to help you keep things simple, on the job and off. 6. Tools to raise and lower your energy and intensity at will. If you had these types of tools in your box, what could you achieve? Tune in tomorrow for some options for tool “1. Coach Julia
