With executive burnout on the rise, EXOS CEO helps condition corporate execs as the elite athletes of the business world.

“We are a human coaching company, and what we say we do — what we do every day — is we get humans ready for the moments that matter most in their lives,” says Sarah Robb O’Hagan, CEO of EXOS. As social capital is the whole concept that profits come from treating people better and our focus at the Dave Alexander Center for Social Capital is on companies taking care of people, we are spotlighting EXOS for its focus on directly empowering executives as individuals.

“So, what we do is we have several thousand coaches around the world who work with individuals to, essentially, figure out what is it that they want to achieve and how can we guide them as their guide on the side, as their support system, putting everything together, essentially incorporating techniques around psychology and biology,” Sarah says. As she explains the interconnectedness of the changing workplace environment, well-being and productivity, she notes, “All those things can basically begin a really negative cycle that affects your psychology. So, we are there to help you unpack all of those things, and how do we get your physical body working for you, your psychology working for you, so you show up every day ready to crush it” — from handling stress to building courage around more innovative thinking.

Our usual focus, at Social Capital, is on how CEOs treat their employees. But EXOS reminds us that CEOs are social capital too. Making a comparison to elite sports and athletes, where EXOS started, Sarah notes, “If you said to an athlete, ‘You have to work out physically for 18 hours a day and expect your performance to be at its best,’ anyone would go, ‘That’s ridiculous; you have to recover.’ It’s just logical. Yet, as corporate executives, we all just kept going, add more to the plate, add more to the plate, and we would find ourselves working 10-, 12-, 14-hour days and then wondering why everyone’s just exhausted.”

She has found it to be a leadership challenge for the most senior executives to understand how to create a culture that enables recovery at all levels — starting at the top because “if you can set that tone for your team, you are going to make a huge difference in their engagement, how excited they are to be at work and, ultimately, how productive they are because you’re helping them feel great at their day.”

Among the many examples and insights Sarah shares is the “little thing” of replacing all-day-long Zoom calls with face-to-face walk-and-talks.

Sarah’s “aha moment” came when she was in her late 30s, running Gatorade globally and, newly returned from two weeks of maternity leave, found herself “burned out to a crisp.” Noting that, in those days, such a workpace was the norm, she shares, “I was working in the sport business and you’re seeing athletes surrounded with coaches and therapists and support teams to help them learn all the stuff we’re talking about, and I remember sitting there going, ‘No one’s doing this for the executives. Why not?’”

Naming Google and Pfizer among companies EXOS works with, Sarah shares how rewarding it is to be part of “having real impact for individual humans.”

Click on the link below to hear Sarah open up about “Someone’s got to take care of the caretakers, and I see that to be my role to a large degree.”