The Making of a Corporate Athlete

Few management theorists have pondered how the physical capacities of leaders may influence their performance. And for good reason: after all, brilliant strategists don’t need to know how to run marathons.  This is both true and false, respond the authors of The Making of a Corporate Athlete. Intellectual abilities are certainly decisive; but we regularly underestimate the importance of physical resistance to our ability to mobilize our full capacities when needed. Stress, fatigue, and an unhealthy lifestyle can rapidly affect a manager’s ability to concentrate, think and even interact constructively with others. Like athletes, managers must learn to train their bodies to make them more resistant and to manage their energy, notably by alternating peaks of activity and moments of recuperation. An article that recalls, in the common sense tradition of Rabelais, the importance of “A healthy mind in a healthy body”.