How to Succeed as CEO of Your Life
Principle #1: Manage Proactively—Part 2
Why You Must Manage to Succeed
I took my car to the shop for an oil change. The garage manager told me they were busy and that it would be a couple of hours till the car was ready. A restaurant belonging to an old franchise was within walking distance, so I grabbed by computer and headed there for lunch. It used to be one of my favorite places to eat. However, it had been a while since I had seen one, so I thought all the restaurants belonging to this franchise had been closed down. However, for old time’s sake, and because it was the closest option, I decided to see if they were as good as they used to be. They were not. I could detect a lack of active management in almost every aspect of the operation and concluded that poor management had killed the franchise.
In the preceding article I introduce you to Joe, who had started his new job as CEO of ABC Widget Company. As Joe interviewed Bob, the chief operating officer, Joe discovered that the company was in serious trouble because Oscar, the previous CEO, had managed reactively rather than proactively. He waited until problems became apparent and then started dealing with them rather than heading them off by proactive management.
This led to a discussion regarding the need to manage proactively to succeed as CEO of your life. This conclusion, however, prompts us to ask why. ABC Widget Company had well-qualified, responsible employees. One would think that if the CEO would just let them do their jobs, the company would be in good shape. Likewise with our lives. Why can’t we just take it a day at a time, enjoying life as we go along, without taking on the responsibility and doing the work of management? To discover the answer, I need to take you back to your high school physics class. If you do not want to go there, if high school physics brings back bad memories, hang in there with me. I promise to make this trip to the past painless.
Management: The Essential Remedy for Chaos
The need to manage everything in life can be found embedded in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That law can be expressed in the terse statement, “Entropy in a closed system increases.” Let me explain. Entropy is merely a term expressing chaos, the opposite of order. A closed system is one that blocks the entry of organizing energy. Therefore, the Second Law of Thermodynamics merely states that a system left to itself tends toward chaos. This tendency toward chaos also manifests itself in the human realm. We have all witnessed thriving companies go bankrupt because they ceased to be aggressively managed, like the restaurant I mentioned earlier.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics makes reference to increased chaos in a closed system. What about an open system, one in which energy is introduced? If we throw a stick of dynamite into a closed system, we introduce energy, but that energy only serves to increase the chaos. Reversing the chaos and bringing order requires intelligent energy. Warding off chaos in our lives also requires intelligent energy. Our minds need to provide the intelligence to organize and our wills, unleashing the full range of our capabilities, provide the energy. That is the essence of management: our minds developing a plan that provides productive order and our wills implementing that plan.
Because the default setting in life is chaos, every aspect of life requires management. Any element of life, big or small, left unmanaged will become chaotic and produce trouble. That principle even applies to down time. If I have a rare Saturday afternoon with nothing to do, and I fail to intentionally manage that block of time, chaos will rear its ugly head in the form of my eating too much, buying something I don’t need, or my capitulation to some other form of chaotic living. Though we need relaxation, even that must be managed.
For humans, this tendency toward chaos comprises only one source of trouble. Scripture informs us that the world, the flesh, and the devil serve as catalysts that ramp up the production of chaos to especially destructive levels. The world is aggressively selling us a full range of commodities, telling us that we owe it to ourselves to buy them. The flesh gets into the act by craving those products, and the devil is active in convincing us that they comprise the ultimate happiness, and that we can never achieve true happiness without them. These sordid activities of the world, the flesh, and the devil make aggressive management of every aspect of our lives all the more imperative.
Some Human Beings Are More Proactive Than Others
Management, or its absence, becomes apparent as we consider the landscaping of the homes in most neighborhoods. Some people employ no landscaping strategy. Whatever is growing around their house was put there by the contractor when the house was built. If necessary, they mow the grass, which by now consists mainly of weeds. If a bush dies, they may remove it but give no thought to replacing it. By way of contrast, other homes reveal a landscaping plan that has produced an attractive yard. The presence or absence of management becomes obvious to the casual observer driving by.
My intention is not to speak ill of those who do not landscape their yards. They may have concluded that doing so does not constitute good stewardship of their time and money. However, landscaping our lives is essential and worth the investment. While the lives of some people reflect proactive planning, others, like Oscar, live a day at a time, putting out fires as they flare up.
The situations of life force everyone to manage their lives to some degree. If we do not mow our grass, sooner or later it becomes difficult to find the front door. The need for food and other necessities forces us to manage our money to some extent. Managing our lives in response to the pressures confronting us comprises a reactive approach. The person taking a proactive approach prepares and follows a budget, devises a program for caring for his health, finances, and home and takes initiative to organize the other areas of his life.
One difference between these two styles of management, as Joe concluded, is that the reactive approach keeps the individual functioning at a crisis level. Since he does not act until disaster threatens, every area of his life hovers barely over the breaking point, resulting in life hovering at the lowest levels of existence. Not acting until he encounters a medical crisis tends to leave him in poor health. Waiting until he runs out of money in the middle of the month leaves his finances in disarray. Not tending to his relationships, not maintaining his home, and not intentionally organizing other components of his life at best results in an existence barely above the chaos level. Because the proactive person develops and implements initiatives to manage the various components of life, he functions at a high level of existence.
The crises created by a reactive approach waste time, energy, and money, which leads to even deeper crises when they occur. The proactive approach, on the other hand, tends to avoid most disasters, leaving the individual and family with more resources with which to optimize life. For example, the person who does not maintain his car makes himself vulnerable to a breakdown on the road or even an accident, either outcome soaking up a lot of resources and adding to the chaos of his life. The proactive person who maintains his vehicle will avoid most of those problems. A proactive approach promotes stable, organized, and productive lives and protects our resources.
It seems that human beings may fall along a continuum, perhaps following a bell curve, with some people more inclined to take a reactive approach to managing their lives while others tend toward being proactive. If you are not wired toward proactively managing your life, that is not a put-down. We all have our inclinations in different directions. However, not being inclined toward proactivity makes it all the more essential that you intentionally work at it, because succeeding as CEO of your life depends on it.
Even if you tend to be more proactive, chances are that in some areas of life you are more reactive. I know some men who manage proactively at work but take a reactive approach at home. Just ask their wives. Some people are proactive in caring for their homes but reactive in caring for their health. All of us seem to have areas that call for increased proactive management.
History of Failure
As I noted earlier, during my younger years I failed to grasp my responsibility to manage my life. No identifiable plan guided my decisions, large or small. Only much later did I begin to recognize my management responsibilities. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me that God had assigned me the role of CEO of my life. My management approach paralleled Oscar’s and produced a similar outcome. The resulting lack of management led to entropy, chaos, and failure. I was not trying to be a bad person. A CEO does not have to try to be bad to ruin a company. Oscar seems to have been a good person. I kept my life in chaos merely by failing to proactively manage it.
Though I made a commitment to Christ early in life, I never grasped the part of the message about God assigning me the role as CEO of my life and the related responsibility to intentionally manage it. Maybe it had been conveyed to me. If so, I didn’t hear it. Maybe I should have figured it out for myself, but I didn’t.
When I finally woke up to my biblical responsibilities and my failures to meet them, I could not undo the wasted years. Those failures left me with deep regrets regarding missed opportunities, joys, and fulfillment. Even greater remorse resulted from the realization that my unmanaged life had hurt others. Moving through life without a clear purpose and the drive to achieve that purpose left me like a ship cut loose in a harbor, banging into other ships in the vicinity, and inflicting substantial damage.
My desire to help individuals avoid similar regrets over wasted years and hurt to others comprises the driving force behind this series. I am convinced that even many Christians are not managing their lives intentionally and optimally because they are not consciously aware that God has assigned them the role of CEO of their lives.
If you are not currently managing your life to succeed as its CEO, I urge you to begin today by implementing this first principle: proactively managing every area of your existence. I guarantee that you will be glad you did.
Embracing this role as CEO of our lives prompts us to ask, What is the nature of the commodity God has called us to produce? The chapter ahead addresses that issue.