Endurance Executive Q&A with Alex P. Bartholomaus

I recently had the pleasure of conversing with Alex Bartholomaus, author of Endurance Executive: A CEO's Perspective on the Marathon of Elite Business Performance. As a former for-hire CEO, I realize that managing a successful business—from startup to publicly-traded company—is a marathon, not a sprint. I discovered great insights from this interview, and would like to share them with those who are conditioning for the long-run.

What was the impetus for writing this book?

My team grew our business over the course of fifteen years. During that time, I had journaled every other day and then increased the frequency. A series of events led to my consuming a great deal of content on all things dealing with psychology, behavioral science, child psychology, and neuroscience—all of which kicked off this in-depth learning about performance. The two things I said I was going to do were: first, run a marathon, and second, write a book—I wasn’t sure which order at the time. I ran my first marathon in 2013, and training gave me a great metaphor for the book: What race are you running? I found that preparation is a logical concept. In some cases, the commitment to manage everyone and everything—is the race. What is the totality of that commitment?

Who is the endurance executive?

The Endurance Executive is someone who has come to understand and embrace the endurance nature of being a high-performance leader. You can be a high-performance salesperson or a high-performance leader, for example; yet, in order to stay there, from a sustainable perspective, you essentially never stop. It is akin to being an endurance athlete, because you recognize that you have to be very disciplined about things like your energy, nutrition, and exercise. Now, you don’t have to be an endurance athlete to recognize this, but the successful CEOs understand that—relatively speaking—they have to take care of themselves and be mindful and intentional. Otherwise, they will not stay at the top for very long. The Endurance Executive appreciates the slow burn of working toward something. It seems that the trend has grown toward wanting growth or success very quickly. But if you go too fast during an endurance race, you’re not going to do very well.

I think the key to understanding what we can learn from endurance athletes is understanding the idea of pace. It may seem very logical, but I don’t think you really understand that concept well until maybe the second or third decade of your career. The people who are willing to think about things in the span of ten years, twenty years, or thirty years are the ones to embrace the endurance mindset. As opposed to thinking only of what do I need to do today, this week, or this month—something of which we should be cognizant—we must also think in the context of the next five to ten years. Think, where do I want to be?

Do you see any problems with what the media shows us about the pressure to reach high levels of praise or land big titles and the feelings of “Why am I not there yet?”

People have to change the frame of the question—the media doesn’t make us do anything. The media can have a positive influence if we want them to. For instance, I’m not sure if J.K. Rowling was paying much attention to the media when she wrote the Harry Potter series. Writing a book actually provides a healthy dose of introspection, because it forces you to reflect upon what you want to capture. I think the Endurance Executive speaks to people who are focused on things that matter in the long run. I think that people don’t accumulate tools and wisdom at the same rate that they accumulate success. I hope the concepts in the book will resonate with people who are trying to find the tools to help them survive the journey, in the same way that training for a marathon did for me. I certainly was not good at energy management in my thirties. Complexity enters our lives for a variety of reasons.

I live in this mental frame of reference better in some years than in others. In some years, I don’t race, because I prioritize other metaphorical races. I think that working at whatever the race is, talking about it, and helping others perform better along the way contribute to the feeling you get when you finish a race.

One of the things that helped me come out of the haze of my mom’s passing back in ’03 was that I was in an industry where we had opportunities to become elite. If we embraced a culture of excellence, then it’s kind of like climbing a mountain. Anybody can climb something that’s 2,000 feet, but when you go to 5,000 feet or 10,000 feet, it becomes just like running. Almost anybody can run a 5k, but fewer people can run a 10k, 10 miler, half marathon, and marathon. When you advance to the next level—and the same goes for growth in business—each level has a different set of circumstances that tax our capacity to commit. That lack of awareness of that capacity is not the media’s fault; it’s our lack of awareness. It goes hand in hand with being aware of all the commitments. To say, “I’ve committed to all these things—what comes with that?” I think it just takes time for people to get good at that. I think it comes naturally, and it’s very organic for people to come to understand that with time. Therefore, we must ask ourselves, “How long do I want to work on this?”

What advice would you give to a 30-year-old professional today?

It’s important to look at the past ten years in parallel with looking at the next ten years. The Endurance Executive looks back and shares that timeline with a trusted peer, gets feedback on what the peer makes of it, and compares it to how she/she perceives it. I think that’s a healthy exercise. One of the things I talk about in the book is having your own support team and creating feedback loops. As a kid, I watched Tour de France, and I remember seeing the support and all the people helping this one rider. The first element that I think 30-year-olds could improve upon is asking for help from enough people to have a nice, rich perspective to be able to make good decisions. The second thing I would advise them to do is, after they get the feedback, to take a longer-term approach to what they’re going to do—a longer term approach in terms of how they’re going to continue to invest in themselves. I think a lot of companies are frustrated by a large workforce that craves to be invested in. Yet, we can out-hustle our peers by investing in ourselves, and we’ll advance faster because there’s only so much pro-activity that can ensue. That said, that is not Millennial-specific, and I think that it could transcend generations as advice to most people in their twenties. It’s not just investing in yourself, there has to be an understanding of why—learning has to be important and has to be part of someone’s why.

What does that support group look like?

A support team is a volunteer group who help you in your journey. A board is paid for a specific reason. A support team should be made up of the people you trust and who will give good, valuable perspectives based on where YOU'RE going. Someone more senior is preferable—a peer, a junior, someone outside your industry, not at your company, but in your industry. Those are five quick angles to think about because they all bring different perspectives to your introspection and decision-making when you're at a cross-road.

Is there something that folks can look forward to from you?

I am currently spending a lot of time in podcasts on Executive Leaders Radio.

A group of co-hosts interview CEOs—mostly mid-market size—and we ask questions about what life was like between the ages of eight and fourteen years and how that has contributed to their leadership success. Their podcasts enable you to discover some pretty intimate details about successful leaders that they haven’t thought about for a long period of time. The net outcome is so much Chicken Soup for the Soul. I’m not sure if writing is as much in the future as scripting and being a co-host / producer of learning content in a non-traditional way. We have our days jobs, but there is this creativity that is an accelerator and also keeps us young that I enjoy.

To read the full-length marathon journey, purchase your own copy of Endurance Executive.

Clara Conti is a serial entrepreneur, senior executive, and change agent. Connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter (@ClaraConti).

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.