Page 225 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

206 • CEO Material: How to Be a Leader in Any Organization

In one study, 9 out of 10 people surveyed (e.g., nurses, social work-
ers, police officers, sales people, road workers, and prison guards) say that
they have stress on the job, and 70 percent of those said that it comes
from juggling work and home demands.
It’s true that some CEOs sleep only 4 hours a night and work most
of the other 20 hours, but I know some realtors, garbage collectors,
writers, oil and gas land men, and single mothers who do the same.
People choose to work to the level they want. One CEO was known
for such a relentless work schedule that when it was a holiday in the U.S.,
he’d fly somewhere else in the world where it wasn’t a holiday so that he
could keep working. A different CEO, though, made it his goal to work
“24-7”—that being 24 hours a week, 7 months a year.
The bulk of our imbalance or lack of proportion is due to our
own choosing. People do what they want to do. One CEO friend told
me, “People say, ‘I’m sorry’ for being late. They weren’t sorry, or they would-
n’t have been late. They chose to sleep later, talk on the phone longer, or
whatever. They say, ‘I’m sorry,’ to be polite, but they don’t mean it.”
Being “too busy” is an excuse for not choosing.
If you’ve ever been on a sailboat, you may know the expression,
“Keep one hand for the boat and one hand for yourself,” meaning do your
job on the moving craft, but take responsibility for yourself and your
safety too. Having your personal life in check keeps you at the helm in
your career.

I have balance because I plan it and do it. If you don’t, you’ll never
get it. The world is so interconnected, I can have an epiphany at the
top of the hill in Aspen and e-mail on the ski lift. The CEO job isn’t
to sit at a desk 24 hours and make sure people are doing the right
thing. I have my rules, though, every day I get to zero messages and
every week I’m home Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, but even
then, my mind is never actually off duty.
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I sacrificed nothing I wanted or missed. If it was important to me,
I would have tried to find a way to have it be part of my life.

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