登顶职场奥运的代价

    正如我们从伦敦奥运健儿的人生经历，还有许多《财富》500强企业首席执行官的简历中都可以看出的那样，打造一个世界级的职业生涯需要超凡的献身精神、坚持不懈和天赋。

    那些在体育和商业领域获得奥运级别成功的人还有另一个共同点：因为连续数年，甚至数十年一心一意地追求同一个目标，这两种人在人生的其他方面都付出了巨大的代价。

    “如果不在个人生活方面做出某种牺牲，成为一位奥运冠军或在职场上获得骄人成就就是一件难于上青天的事情，”芝加哥阿凡达人力资源管理顾问公司（Avatar HR Solutions）高级副总裁、《打造富有磁性的文化》（Building a Magnetic Culture）一书作者凯文•谢里登说。

    眼下，人们还在讨论《大西洋月刊》（the Atlantic）近期一篇名为《大辩论：女性能内外兼顾吗》（Why Women Still Can't Have It All）的封面文章，同时，雅虎公司（Yahoo）新任CEO玛丽莎•梅耶尔（梅耶尔的第一个孩子将诞生在她接掌雅虎仅仅几个月之后）也引来媒体热议。这个时候，这样一个问题就浮现出来：企业的最高领导人究竟需要为成功付出什么代价？但在这样一个时刻处于工作模式的文化中，难以平衡职业目标和个人责任并不仅仅是一个唯有女性才面对的困境。

    《新官上任百日行动计划》（New Leader's 100 Day Action Plan）一书的作者、咨询师乔治•布拉特指出，表面看来，一些男性高管似乎可以毫无牵绊地出差，一门心思地工作，但他们以后也要付出与配偶和子女关系紧张的代价。无论男女，每个人都需要一定量的睡眠、锻炼和休息时间，唯如此，方能拥有真正健康的生活方式。

    “在大公司里，我见到过许多为跻身高层而付出全部身心的人，”布拉特说。“这中间存在明确的取舍和隐含的权衡，但每个人都要面对一个无法逾越的障碍，那就是时间。时间是无法延长的。”

    如今的商业世界竞争激烈，以至于那些登上顶峰的人必须付出“全心全意的”专注度，否则就会被对手横扫出局，这与奥运会热门选手面临的境地大致相同。如果以刚过世不久的作家斯蒂芬•科维确认的四个人生领域——身体、社会/情感、心智和精神——来观察，企业高管在心智方面花费了不成比例的时间，而运动员则花费过多的时间来发展身体技能。

    BPI集团近期针对CEO进行的一项调查中，许多高管表示，他们难以实现工作与生活的平衡，觉得自己的人际关系和健康被忽略了。“我的确认为这反映出美国工商界当下的真实状态，”芝加哥一家人才管理咨询公司的执行董事邓肯•弗格森说。“有时候，人需要做出某些牺牲。”奥运会运动员早在童年时期就意识到了这种取舍。《177个世界级的心理坚韧的秘密》（177 Mental Toughness Secrets of The World Class）一书的作者史蒂夫•西博尔德回忆称，小时候，由于紧密的网球训练安排，他甚至没空跟邻居的小伙伴们一起骑自行车闲逛。

    作为一位接受训练的奥运会选手，“你不得不放弃有规律的生活，无法像正常人那样生活，”西博尔德说。“这是一种非常极端化的生活。”

    他指出，理解训练纪律的重要性，共享运动员目标的亲朋好友成为了一道保护他或她的时间和精神状态免受外部影响的屏障，它的作用非常类似于顶级CEO的核心圈子。

    但如果运动员的家人并不是打心眼里认可他们梦想，并且还憎恶训练夺去了家庭生活时间，这就有可能导致家庭破裂。西博尔德说：“我见过有过这种经历的家庭，夫妻反目，子女愤怒。”。

    解决之策是：你需要意识到你正在要求你的家人付出代价，同时还要利用每一个机会去加强被你忽视的生活领域，无论这个领域是人际关系还是健康。确认并致力于那些真正必须做的优先事项，但当工作不紧迫时，要有勇气把它搁置一旁。可以效仿Facebook公司首席运营官谢丽尔•桑德伯格，每天下午5点半下班，与家人共进午餐；或者如美国排球运动员克里•沃尔什那样，带上你的小孩一起参加奥运备战训练。

    实际上，随着越来越多的顶级高管承认增加家庭生活时间的必要性，并且意识到偶尔放下工作的好处，职场文化或许会变得更加灵活。但在这一天真正来临之前，为最高职位孜孜奋斗的企业高管们仍然需要努力与家人达成某种程度的理解，同时竭尽全力地恢复自身的活力。

    奥运会游泳项目金牌和铜牌得主温迪•博格利奥利觉得自己非常幸运，因为丈夫支持她的奥运梦想，而且经常会在她似乎不可能进行晨练的时候，把她赶下床。

    “要是我的生活没有他的话，我想我是不可能入选美国奥运代表队的，”现任盖恩沃斯金融公司（Genworth Financial）发言人的博格利奥利说。“作为一位奥运运动员，你不得不放弃很多东西。在如何花费自己的时间方面，运动员必须变得极其自私。”

    译者：任文科

    Building a world-class career requires superhuman dedication, persistence, and raw talent, as we can see in the life stories of athletes gathered for the London Olympics -- and in the resumes of many Fortune 100 chief executives.

    Those who reach Olympic levels of success in sports and in business share one other common quality: both groups of people have paid a major price in other parts of their lives for pursuing one aim with a single-minded focus for years or even decades.

    "It's really, really difficult to be an Olympic champion or a super-achiever in the workplace without some kind of sacrifice on the personal front," says Kevin Sheridan, author of Building a Magnetic Culture and a senior vice president at Avatar HR Solutions in Chicago.

    The question of what price top leaders pay for success arose in the discussion of a recent Atlantic Magazine cover story titled "Why Women Still Can't Have It All" as well as the coverage of new Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa Mayer, whose first baby is due just months after she takes the helm. But it's not just women who struggle to balance their career goals and personal responsibilities in our always-on work culture.

    Some male executives may appear to be free to travel and devote themselves to work exclusively, but later pay a price in their crumbling relationships with spouses and children, notes George Bradt, a consultant and author of The New Leader's 100 Day Action Plan. And regardless of your gender, every human being requires a certain amount of sleep, exercise, and downtime to have a truly healthy lifestyle.

    "In the big companies, the people that I've seen absolutely devoted their lives to get to the top," Bradt says. "There are the explicit tradeoffs and the implicit tradeoffs, but the gate on everybody is time. You cannot expand the time."

    Today's business world is so competitive that those who reach the very top must focus "all-in" or lose out to their rivals, much in the same way as Olympic hopefuls. If you think of the four areas of life identified by the recently deceased author Stephen R. Covey -- physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual -- business executives spend a disproportionate amount of time on the mental, just as athletes overly develop their physical skills.

    In a recent BPI Group CEO survey, executives said they struggled to achieve work-life balance and felt both their relationships and health were neglected. "I do see this as a reflection on what's going on in corporate America these days," says Duncan Ferguson, a managing director at the Chicago talent management consulting firm. "There are sometimes things you need to sacrifice."

    Olympic athletes recognize the tradeoffs as early as childhood. Steve Siebold, author of 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of The World Class, remembers when his tennis training schedule kept him from joining the neighborhood kids tooling around on their bikes.

    "You give up a regular life. You're not going to live like a normal person" as an Olympian-in-training, Siebold says. " It's an extreme life."

    Close friends and family members who understand the importance of discipline and share the athlete's goals become a cocoon protecting his or her time and mental state from outside influences, he notes, much like the inner circle of a top-level CEO.

    But if the athlete's family members don't truly share the dream, and resent the time that training takes away from family life, it can lead to broken homes. "I've seen it work really well with families and I've seen people get divorced and the kids are angry," Siebold says.

    The solution: recognizing that you're asking your family to pay a price and taking every opportunity to bolster the neglected areas of your life, whether it's relationships or health. Identify and commit to those work priorities that are truly mandatory, but have the courage to put work on the shelf when it's not urgent. Maybe that's a decision to leave work every day at 5:30 p.m. for a family dinner, like Facebook (FB) COO Sheryl Sandberg does, or to bring your kids along for Olympic training, like U.S. volleyball player Keri Walsh.

    Indeed, as more top-level executives acknowledge the need for family time and the benefit of occasionally turning off work, workplace culture may grow more flexible. But until and unless that day comes, business executives who reach for the top would do well to build some level of understanding with their family members and rejuvenate themselves however they can.

    Wendy Boglioli, an Olympic gold and bronze medalist in swimming, feels fortunate that her husband supported her Olympic goal -- and was often the one to kick her out of bed when early morning practices seemed impossible.

    "If I hadn't had him in my life, I don't think I would've made the Olympic team," says Boglioli, now a spokesperson for Genworth Financial. "As an Olympic athlete, you give up an awful lot…. You have to be pretty darn selfish about how you spend your time."