HEEDING THE CEO HEALTH WARNING
269
of all other aspects of your life: “It is possible to organize life in such a way that you can balance private life and business. If you work hard and have the right people around you, you can make it work. If you delegate, put in controls, you can have a good home life.” Make time work for you as well as the business Sir John Parker is insistent that you are paid to be smart, not tired, so keeping mentally fresh and alert is part of your job. For him, managing your personal life is part of being a complete CEO. “It is totally possible to have a balance and in fact it’s essential,” he says. “It’s totally easy to become stale when you don’t have time to sit with family and friends. Treadmills do not make for good leaders and managers: stressed people do not get the best results. What’s work–life balance about? It’s about managing your time. My father used to say to me that if you cannot manage your time you cannot manage anything. You need to ask yourself: ‘What am I doing two weeks from today?’” Create protected time every week Harriet Green warns against losing the initiative on a daily basis. She argues that one should not “be too responsive. I’ve taken to walking to the train from home. It takes 35 minutes, but gives me time when I’m not on the Blackberry and I can think, really think. You must not let the technology control you.” Philip Moore has a weekly routine: “At the weekend, I walk my dog for about an hour and I think a lot about my work. The dog is irrelevant really, but the walk is quite helpful.” Richard Baker says that at Alliance Boots he always managed every week so that he had a thinking day to reflect on events and gain perspective. Know what can refresh you daily Keith Butler-Wheelhouse refreshed himself while CEO through routines based on exercise and domesticity. “I go to the gym and play