Corporate Athlete

The Making of a Corporate Athlete
by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

Reprint r0101h

January 2001

HBR Case Study
Who Goes, Who Stays?

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David A. Light

First Person
The Ultimate Creativity Machine:
How BMW Turns Art into Profit

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Chris Bangle

HBR at Large
Tocqueville Revisited: The Meaning
of American Prosperity

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Charles Handy

Level 5Leadership: The Triumph of
Humility and Fierce Resolve

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Jim Collins

Where Value Lives in a Networked World

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Mohanbir Sawhney and Deval Parikh

The Ten Deadly Mistakes of Wanna-Dots

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Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Strategy as Simple Rules

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Kathleen M. Eisenhardt and Donald N. Sull

The Making of a Corporate Athlete

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Jim Loehr and Tony SchwartzHBR Interview
Managing for the Next Big Thing:
EMC’s Michael Ruettgers

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Paul Hemp

Best Practice
Getting 360-Degree Feedback Right

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Maury A. Peiperl

Tool Kit
Innovation at the Speed of Information

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Steven D. Eppinger

Different Voice
What Is Science Good For?
A Conversation with Richard Dawkins

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Books in Review
Should Strategy MakersBecome
Dream Weavers?

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John Stopford

The Making of a

Corporate
At hlete

by Jim Loehr and
Tony Schwartz

120

I

F THERE IS ONE QUALITY THAT EXECUTIVES SEEK

for themselves and their employees, it is sustained
high performance in the face of ever-increasing
pressure and rapid change. But the source of such
performance is as elusive as the fountain of youth.Management theorists have long sought to identify precisely what makes some people flourish under pressure
and others fold. We maintain that they have come up with
only partial answers: rich material rewards, the right culture, management by objectives.
The problem with most approaches, we believe, is that
they deal with people only from the neck up, connecting
high performance primarily withcognitive capacity. In
recent years there has been a growing focus on the relationship between emotional intelligence and high performance. A few theorists have addressed the spiritual
dimension – how deeper values and a sense of purpose influence performance. Almost no one has paid any attention to the role played by physical capacities. A successful
approach to sustained high performance, we havefound,
must pull together all of these elements and consider the
person as a whole. Thus, our integrated theory of performance management addresses the body, the emotions,
the mind, and the spirit. We call this hierarchy the performance pyramid. Each of its levels profoundly influences
the others, and failure to address any one of them compromises performance.
Our approach has its roots in thetwo decades that Jim
Loehr and his colleagues at LGE spent working with

Copyright © 2001 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL GUIDERA

Some executives thrive under pressure.
Others wilt. Is the reason all in their
heads? Hardly. Sustained high
achievement demands physical and
emotional strength as well as a sharp
intellect. Tobring mind, body, and spirit
to peak condition, executives need to
learn what world-class athletes
already know: recovering energy is
as important as expending it.

T h e M a k i n g o f a Co r p o rat e At h l e t e

world-class athletes. Several years ago, the two of us
began to develop a more comprehensive version of these
techniques for executives facing unprecedented demands
in theworkplace. In effect, we realized, these executives
are “corporate athletes.” If they were to perform at high
levels over the long haul, we posited, they would have to
train in the same systematic, multilevel way that worldclass athletes do. We have now tested our model on thousands of executives. Their dramatically improved work
performance and their enhanced health and happiness
confirm our...