Why CEOs Need to Travel to Maintain Momentum

Navigating the top position in any organisation can be a substantial piece of work.

And it’s not necessarily physically or even mentally exhausting, but working at the highest level may exhaust our capacity to lift our vision above a horizon constantly thronged with decisions. We don’t intend to develop a narrow perspective, for the very reason that virtually every CEO was hired for their “vision”, that mercurial ability to see the future and move towards it. Odd then, that the job itself can become a set of blinders.

Experiencing something new can restore that sense of creative thinking – of powerfully aligning skills and abilities with an organisational perspective and taking a team along with you on that journey. Travel is one of the easiest ways to have new experiences, it’s easy to organise, it delivers intense and unexpected encounters, and it creates lasting impressions.

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The influence of travel

The influence of travel is profound – it’s a whole-body experience that feeds every sense. But it also does something more remarkable… it creates the space within which that mercurial thing called ‘flow’ can happen. Flow is something we’ve all experienced, and yet few of us can predict – it’s the mental state of total focus, involvement and enjoyment in the present moment. It’s a psychological condition that athletes and scientists rely on to produce peak performance and breakthroughs, and it’s utterly delicious. Absorption in a new place, dish, activity, culture can all create flow, and that’s one reason that the world’s elites have always travelled – to create inspiration and act upon it.

Travel is also an initiator of empathy, that’s why gap years broaden the mind and develop compassion in self-centred teens. But no CEO can afford a gap year; they are lucky if they can get a week! So their travel has to fulfil many aims, as Mark Twain put it, “Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.” Using travel time effectively to deepen connection to causes, activities and beliefs can be a powerful way to restore the psyche and increase engagement with those things we find most important and that can often become neglected as we deal with the imperatives of deadlines and markets. 

Making the most of travelling

Getting the best from travel requires planning and organisation, that’s why it’s important to work with travel professionals who can select experiences and destinations that inspire and support creativity, enhance empathy and offer opportunities for flow. And there are things we can do to get the best from our travel too: such as putting down our daily life at the departure gate or gangplank and allowing ourselves to have only conscious experiences, fresh perceptions and invigorating connections. 

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We can also seek out people who, like us, are aiming to learn and grow, so that we enjoy an atmosphere of continuous improvement, what the Japanese call Kaizen ‘changing things for the better’. 

At the end, travel doesn’t just recharge our batteries and top up our creativity, it allows our teams to shine in our absence, giving us a new perspective on them and their abilities, so that when we return we’re renewed and so are they.

For a taste of our Hosted Travel Experiences around the world, please visit our webpage on Satopia Travel here.