Fiscal fitness? Can CEO's exercise habits improve company sales?

• Author: Kaelble, Steve
• Position: Executive Health & Fitness - Chief Executives Officer

IS THERE A CONNECTION between an executive's physical fitness and his or her company's fiscal fitness? Mike Goldsby wanted to know.

Goldsby is a management professor at Ball State University's Miller College of Business, and he's a passionate runner. Outside of the classroom and office hours, you're likely to find him jogging around Muncie, putting in some of the roughly 60 miles that he logs every week. On some occasions, he'll be running in the company of Dr. Donald Kuratko, founding director of the business school's entrepreneurship program and an equally devoted fitness buff.

These dual interests in business and fitness led to a recent study involving more than 360 small-business executives from Indiana and neighboring states. For the study, Goldsby teamed up with Kuratko and James Bishop, a colleague and fellow fitness enthusiast from New Mexico State University. The researchers set out to learn how many of the CEOs in the sample were fanatical runners or weightlifters, how satisfied the execs were with their jobs, how their companies were doing financially--and whether any correlations could be spotted linking fitness practices to business and personal success.

The answer turned out to be yes. "For both groups, their intrinsic and extrinsic rewards were significantly stronger than those for their non-running and non-weightlifting counterparts," Goldsby says. Intrinsic rewards, he explains, pertain to personal job satisfaction, while extrinsic rewards are financial and other measurable gains.

Perhaps most interesting: the companies headed by CEO runners were more successful in terms of sales than companies beaded by non-runners. There was no similar correlation between weightlifting and the annual revenues of the executive's company, Goldsby reports.

Of course, correlation and cause are not one and the same. Goldsby says the researchers wondered, "Could there be a selection bias?" In other words, are runners naturally higher achievers in other areas of life? Perhaps, Goldsby...