A matter of habit

Life tends to be more stressful when there are too many decisions and choices to be made, sometimes immediately. Weighing options and analyzing costs and benefits with imperfect information characterize what behavioral economists call the “tyranny of choice.” Reducing choices leads to establishing habits. A business executive is often defined by routine. His authority is defined. He has a list of tasks assigned to him, even how his performance of such tasks will be evaluated and rewarded with variable pay depending on how he meets or exceeds his assigned goals.

The executive signs a contract on his guaranteed annual cash compensation. His work hours, including time for motivational sessions out of town, product launches, and vacations are set. He is given an assigned work space. The benefits he is entitled to, like health insurance, type of car, travel, parking space, key to the private elevator, and access to the executive dining room, are part of his expectations.

Okay, disruptions from technology and competition can disturb this comfortable routine. The qualifications that may have gotten this programmed robot his job may no longer be applicable to his ability of keeping it. His connections in landing clients become frayed over time. Too often does he hear: what got you here won’t get you there.

Anyway loyalty awards for length of service in big companies have been dwindling too. (And now, let’s call on the 30-year awardees.)

The new marketing approaches call for different skills that do away with personal connections, lunch rituals, and remembering birthdays. A new leader is hired from another industry with only disdain for the social structure and past relationships.

When winds of change blow, nothing stays nailed down. The corner office, birthday bonus, trips overseas on business class, security detail against kidnapping, and a regular car replacement every four years are “re-evaluated.” (Can we afford all these perks?) Costs are considered investments that should generate returns — you’ve heard of overhead, what about underfoot?

There is a new set of people being called to meetings involving less than six participants, including the minute taker who concentrates only on “next steps.”

The overturning of routine and predictability is a new stress point in the disruptive economy. Does a suddenly retired executive then embark on his own business and try to be his own boss?

One of the shocks of turning from corporate executive to entrepreneur (or venture capitalist) is not the prospect of losing one’s life’s savings after early retirement, although this is a distinct possibility, but the simple disruption of routine. The comfort of waking up at a certain time, driving off to office, and having something predictable to engage in are no longer available. Even the cash flow becomes volatile.

It is no wonder that executives who retire and lose their cherished routine end up with depressions. Habit can be a form of addiction too. The solution for getting out of the habit may lie in moving out of a comfort zone. Can you embrace a different kind of career, like raising funds from donors (which cannot include personal expenses), teaching, and joining a troll patrol? (A quick geography lesson is necessary.) The nostalgia for routine does not always have to do with money. This becomes secondary not because of its declining importance but its growing unavailability.

One option is to join a smaller company. The habits are similar even if the perquisites are considerably diminished. There are fewer trips and when they are available, the lines to get to the plane are longer with leg room for seats more cramped. Don’t ask for wine.

The executive needs to be pried out of yearslong habits to shift his paradigm a bit. Instead of clinging to routine, he needs to welcome the unexpected. Small steps are needed: change the restaurant of choice, order salad instead of burgers, and brush teeth with the non-dominant hand. If only to learn new routines, these exercises can be liberating. They are also supposed to form new synapses in the brain to ward off dementia.

Anyway, there are still the remaining routines of coffee in the morning, tying one’s shoes, having a foot massage, and paying credit card bills that provide enough predictability (and anxiety) to achieve mental health.

An unplanned day now and then can offer surprises that need quick thinking… on the way to getting into a new routine.

A. R. SAMSON Instead of clinging to routine, the corporate executive needs to welcome the unexpected.