Leigh Buchanan | Inc. magazine

The Bipolar CEO

 

Fortunately, a hard life forges powerful bonds. In Alaska, Harrison is surrounded by close friends, who share his passion for the land -- and for team sports. They gather at the gym for basketball and volleyball, and at the local rink for hockey. Softball is played wearing snowshoes. The ball is orange; white would vanish into white.

In both locales Harrison fishes, hikes, and canoes, activities he enjoys chiefly because they are pursued amid stunning scenery. The difference is that in Hawaii the scenery feels like a boon. In Alaska it feels like a reward.

Some things, however, come more easily in northern climes. Managing a business, for example. Down in the Anchorage warehouse, Harrison is greeted by his employees: seven manly men whose conversation runs to football and hunting. Harrison, who describes himself as a "naturally pretty assertive guy," feels at home among these people, with their firm handshakes and occasionally off-color jokes. "People come to Alaska expecting to work hard," says Harrison. "My employees work hard, and they like their boss to be tough and authoritative." He also appreciates his workers' straightforwardness: when anyone has something on his mind, he speaks up. And motivating employees is a cinch. "All I have to do is offer them a trip anywhere outside Alaska," says Harrison.

In Hawaii, Harrison learned quickly that his management style didn't translate any better than his flannel wardrobe did. Aloha Automotive is a slightly larger enterprise than its frosty counterpart, with 18 employees and $4.5 million in revenues (compared with Alaskan Automotive's $4 million). Size apart, the businesses are almost identical, and consequently, "I just assumed I could go in there and tell everyone, 'OK, this is how we're going to do it,' " recalls Harrison. "Three people left right away. In Alaska I joke around with the employees and the customers; here I have to bite my lip so I don't offend anyone. And you have to watch everyone very closely because when they have a problem, they won't tell you to your face. It just simmers. Even the handshakes are softer."

Devising incentives is tricky, too. Harrison still likes awarding trips, but the only place he can conjure up to entice employees away from the Island is Vegas. Of course, there may be fewer trips to award, because Harrison's employees in Hawaii don't work as hard. "Who comes to Hawaii to work hard?" he asks.

Harrison is speaking for himself as well: he works 50 hours a week in Alaska compared with 40 to 45 in Hawaii. That leaves him more time for the beach and the health club across the street from his condo, and did he mention the Friday-night luaus? Such venues teem with eligible women, says Harrison, something he sorely misses in Alaska. Anchorage's universities used to be unaccredited, he explains, "so all the intelligent, professionally minded women escaped to the lower 48 when they hit 18 and never returned."

Finding a mate, of course, raises the issue of family. And family -- that glue, that anchor, that centralizing force -- is not an obvious fit with Harrison's itinerant life. Harrison recognizes that, but he can't quite imagine loving one person more than these two places. So instead of contemplating sacrifice, he makes mental arrangements. "If I get married, the only way it would work is if she would travel with me between the two," he says. "I'll have to marry someone from Alaska, because it will be much easier to convince her to spend half her time in Hawaii than the other way around."


To the many who equate a good life with an easy one, Harrison's arrangement sounds like monumental folly. Can he go on this way forever? Would he want to? Isn't it possible, for example, that he'll ultimately be seduced into fidelity by the outsized claims of his island home? "I still love Alaska more," Harrison demurs. "I could never leave it. I think though, over time, I could come to love Hawaii as much."

Luckily for Harrison, his hands-on approach to management means he'll probably never have to choose. Delegating makes him squirm, and he can't imagine leaving either business in the hands of others for more than two weeks at a time. So the middle of every month finds him at either Anchorage International Airport or Honolulu International Airport, tiny traveling case in hand. "I have two completely different wardrobes, so there's no need for me to ever pack a suitcase," he says. "The only thing that's the same is, I never wear a suit in either place."

Harrison's belief that his epic commute is sustainable -- that it may even be compatible with domestic life -- may be denial, or it may be something else: the secret to his happiness. Unlike most people, he simply refuses to live by the laws of mutual exclusion. When one door opens, another door remains open, even if it's 3,000 miles distant. And what sounds at first like an extreme kind of life turns out to be an existence in perfect balance.

Perhaps, in the end, it is our whole notion of choice that Harrison's path calls into question. Life doesn't have to be a series of eliminations, reductions, and sacrifices, he is implicitly telling us. Don't dismiss possibilities before even considering them. Simply imagine the best life you can, the one you love, and choose it. Every part of it. That's what Harrison has done.

Of course, a life that never narrows inevitably grows broader, and Harrison's is no exception. Every three or four months now, his straight-line commute becomes a triangle. That's when he stops -- briefly -- in Seattle, to visit his parents and one of his other investments: a casino, in which he is a minority owner. "We bought it with the idea that it was going to be another nightclub," says Harrison. "Then Washington passed laws to allow gambling, and there you are."

Asked if he can think of any other place he might want to buy a business, increasing the variety of his living arrangements by half, Harrison rules it out vigorously, then pauses.

"Maybe Hollywood," he says.

Why not?


Leigh Buchanan is a senior editor at Inc.

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Leigh Buchanan is an editor at large for Inc. Magazine. A former editor at Harvard Business Review and founding editor of WebMaster magazine, she writes regular columns on leadership and workplace culture. @LeighEBuchanan