The word broke this evening: "“Habemus papam! We have a Pope!" But the question in so many minds has got to be: "for what purpose, and for how long?" When the Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church entered their conclave on Tuesday to choose the next Pope, they carried with them a need to address fundamental questions regarding the prospects for a sustainable leadership term from among the candidates that they consider. It’s one thing to have the right ideas, it’s quite another to be able to see them through. Despite nearly 2000 years of sustaining as an organization, the unpredictability of the future is such that Pope Benedict’s surprise resignation reveals how difficult such leadership roles are, and the toll that they take on the individual.
One big hint about how much the Church’s senior leadership community is really hoping for profound change will be indicated by the “prospects for sustainability” in the candidate that they choose. A less fit pontiff might be able to move the organization for a short while, as did John XXIII, but big changes need sustained efforts, someone who can drive the change home.
According to Steven MacGregor, with whom I've had the pleasure of working at Telefonica Universitas: “sustainable organizations require sustainable leaders” – witness Sony after the loss of Ibuka and Morita, or even Apple after the loss of Steve Jobs. MacGregor, CEO of the Sustainable Executive Academy, in Barcelona, Spain, and affiliated with the Foresight and Innovation program at Stanford University, argues that sustainable executive performance (SEP) should be a goal of all organizations who expect to outperform in their competitive arena: "basic human needs are often compromised within the professional domain, with detrimental effects on health, well-being and ultimately performance”. In the same way that athletes take care of their whole self to be at their best, so too should "corporate athletes," yet MacGregor aims to move beyond the conception of the Corporate Athlete, first developed by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, to that of the “sustainable executive,” an idea which links the personal sustainability of a leader to sustainability at the enterprise and societal level.
MacGregor, who’s research background is in both innovation and corporate social responsibility, and who was a national-level athlete as well, believes that “there is real synergy in linking these three levels of the self, enterprise, and society, to create a powerful ‘triple lens of sustainability’ with the potential to transform enterprises. The growing fields of digital health at the personal level, and impact studies at the macro level will give us greater insight in the coming years.”
Managerial sustainability should not be regarded as inconsequential; this goes well beyond “work-life balance.” While we all recognize how "risky" it is for war-reporters, athletes and political leaders to perform, somehow we lose sight of how risky it is to be a successful professional manager in a stress-laden competitive environment. Given the round-the-clock expectations that digital life has placed on executives, it may well be that holding a desk job is one of the most dangerous things you can do.
MacGregor believes that professional managers should be paying attention to five essential elements, which take the whole person into account:
1. Maintaining physical mobility: ensuring sufficient physical movement and mobility during the day to help combat the negative effects of sedentary lifestyles.
2. The ability to recover quickly: Stress and surprise create a need for the executive athlete to have the strength to recover and resume: this can be conditioned through physical and mental practices that can be performed within the workplace and at home.
3. Fueling personal energy: not only nutrition, but all energy sources that fuel performance and sustain action over the longer term.
4. The ability to focus: creating conditions through technology, timing and space to provide support for focusing executive attention
5. Creativity around exercise: different ways of incorporating physical fitness into busy lives.
He, in fact, will soon be starting a venture with TicTrac to track an individual’s performance on these five dimensions, as they strive for greater personal sustainability, and they will launch this effort this Spring at Telefonica's Universitas.
Building on the notion of the corporate athlete might sound too heroic for many organizations, but, as with athletes, we all want to be winners for many reasons, involving both our own professional ambitions as well of those of our stakeholders. Steven MacGregor's contention is that any corporate team has an advantage when they are better prepared for competition than are their rivals, and that this preparation goes well-beyond know-how and resources. By recognizing that sustainability starts with the individual, we may be better prepared to build human.centric organisations that create and capture long-term value, increasing also harmony between business and society. More likely however, is that the responsibility will first fall on the individual manager to make smart choices regarding her or his fitness for life. One hopes that the new leader of the Church, or any ambitious organization for that matter, will be sufficiently prepared beyond “know-how and resources” to take on the challenge of moving her or his organization successfully into the future. As a starting point, attention to diet, exercise, sleep and mindfulness might be just as important for change leadership as is a knowledge of basic strategy concepts.
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Bill Fischer is the co-author of the soon to be published [April 8, 2013] Reinventing Giants (with Umberto Lago & Fang Liu) (Jossey-Bass), as well as The Idea Hunter (with Andy Boynton & Bill Bole) (Jossey-Bass, 2011).
Bill Fischer can be followed on Twitter at @bill_fischer Steven Macgregor can be followed on Twitter at @macstrongBCN
