The Next Level

Avoiding the pitfalls of fast growth.

“How can fast-growth entrepreneurs lead a more balanced life?” is one of those agonizing questions that I am often asked. The good news is that there is a rather simple answer: “You can’t.” Save your money, and don’t waste your time on the books and coaches who want to sell you advice. Here is why.

Fast growth is a 24/7 proposition. It is not just the hours you put in at work; it’s that it owns your head. You think about work in the shower and on vacation, and you get lost in all of the ideas while you are sitting at dinner. It is exciting and dangerous. Of course, the collateral damage on the big three — family, health, and faith — can be disastrous. Nothing describes it better than F. Scott Fitzgerald, who said, “Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.”

Hero entrepreneurs have big egos and the audacity to want to create or change a market. In fact, many want to change the world, which is a very demanding job. And once you start to smell success, it is hard to stop. You become an addict, but instead of getting drunk at a bar, you get high on work. And that is fine until you have to go home and deal with routine family matters like changing diapers, taking out the trash or attending meetings of the P.T.A., or God forbid, the homeowner’s association. You are always in a hurry, and everybody else is so slow.

I remember one evening when my human resources director, Harriet McCormick, called me into her office and said, “We need to talk,” which is never a good thing coming from H.R. — even if you are the chief executive. She said, “Cliff, you have a mistress, your work. This company is going places, and you need to make up your mind if you are ready to give up your life for it.” I blew the conversation off because I was having a great time. I loved my family, I felt good about what we were doing at work, and I assumed I could maintain the balance. Five years later, I had three Inc. 500 plaques hanging on my wall — and I was divorced. This is the danger of the balance propaganda. You think you can have it all, and you wind up losing what means most to you.

Now I work with hundreds of fast-growth entrepreneurs who struggle to find the balance they read about in airplane magazines as they zip off to see the next customer, and I see these tragedies happen over and over. I tell fast-growth entrepreneurs not to get married while they are in fast-growth mode. They always do. I tell them to consider building a successful small business or consider making their current office more profitable instead of opening five new offices over the next year. They never do.

Entrepreneurs think they want balance, but they really don’t. We like swinging for the fences, and here is the weird part — we actually enjoy the insanity of long hours and long odds. It still gives me a thrill to remember the day I got the phone call from my I.T. department saying, “We are up and live in Hong Kong. South Africa next.” There were times, though, that I would go home for dinner at 6 p.m. to be with my family and within 30 minutes it felt like the whole world was trying to get a hold of me. These were not ego calls where I was just chatting. Balance was not in the equation and not in any conversation. If it had been, the company would not have made it.

How do I feel now about not having balance back then? First, I am not worried about that deathbed conversation where everyone says they wish they had spent more time with their family. At that point, we are going to die in short order anyway. No, the pain cuts a lot deeper and lasts a lot longer when the regrets start, as they did for me, at 49, when you are dropping off your daughter at college and you have the whole long ride back to think about how much more you could have done and how much more you could have been there.

These are the life moments when you ask yourself whether it was worth it. Well, if your life can be just about you, then it is. But if you need to share your life with others, it is not. Look at Bill Gates as a role model. He did not get married until he was getting ready to exit as Microsoft’s chief executive. From a distance, I think we can say that he has done fast growth and family well. He just did not try to do both at the same time.

I thought I could help entrepreneurs understand that balance is a fantasy — a good fantasy but still fantasy. But I have been about as successful as Harriett was with me. I discovered that entrepreneurs listen and ask a lot of questions but continue to do even more of the work thing. I would say maybe 2 or 3 percent make some time adjustments between work and family. I have been told that this is about the same success rate for heroin users in rehab. I once engaged Dr. Dragana Bugarski, an M.D. with an M.B.A., to discuss the science of how our brain makes decisions and how the brain reacts to pleasures and failures at a conference of 35 chief executive entrepreneurs. Dr. Bugarski showed us brain scans of heroin addicts, people engaged in intimate acts, people with attention-deficit disorder and entrepreneurs.

She demonstrated that entrepreneurs get their drive and capacity for work fulfillment from the same brain stimulants that drive heroin addicts to go back to the needle. Dr. Bugarski explained why the brain’s pleasure center drove us to stay late at work when we should be at home. It was a very emotional session for everyone. No one left “fixed” that day but everyone better understood what was making it so difficult to achieve balance. The science drove us away from the idea of the so-called balanced life and toward a discussion of how entrepreneurs can have an integrated life of work, family and health. How? Your dedication and outcomes of work, family and health are measured not by time but by consistency and commitment. For example, if you get home at 9 p.m., a couple of bedtime stories are better than being there all evening but checking your e-mail and making phone calls.

While balance is largely designed around a fixed allocation of time, an integrated life is designed around focus on where you are at the moment. In short, when you are at home, you are at home. Don’t tempt the brain by leaving your cellphone on or looking at e-mail while you are eating dinner. Louis Brown, chief executive of Brown Financial and a P.G.A. golf pro, said after Dr. Bugarski’s talk that he now sets a specific time to leave the office — it might be early or late but he no longer kept putting it off and making his wife wonder when he would be home. “My wife now knows that I might not be home until 8 p.m.,” he said, “but she also knows that when I get there, I am totally focused on the home. I don’t let myself try to do both or even 90 percent one and 10 percent the other.”

Here is the deal: Fast growth means all-in, 24/7 for the mission and success of the company. Balance is snake-oil that says it can all be pretty and nice. It can’t. But I think setting boundaries can help. I think boundaries are about bringing maturity and intelligence to the fast-growth life. Here is an example: You cannot make all of your child’s softball games, because you will be texting and taking calls during the games. But you can attend half the games and leave your phone in the car. Half the games you are all-in at work and half the games you are all-in at home.

Boundaries are trade-offs, and entrepreneurs are good at negotiating trade-offs. Balance is propaganda that sells well but is a cruel hoax that will continue to write tragedies.

Cliff Oxford is the founder of the Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/balance-dont-believe-the-hype/?partner=rss&emc=rss