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For Coca-Cola executive chairman James Quincey, success is less about meticulous career planning and more about survival.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a recent interview at the London Business School<\/a>, Quincey likened corporate careers to elimination tournaments, where many capable people drop out or burn out. In his view, success comes down to overcoming challenges, step by step, until rivals fall away.\u00a0<\/p>\n He described his ascent to the C-suite as \u201csurvivor bias,\u201d likening it to repeatedly flipping heads in a coin toss over \u201c20 job rounds\u201d until he was \u201cthe only one left.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Quincey also called work-life balance \u201ca weird phrase\u201d because work is \u201cpart of life, not separate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to choose how you want to invest your life\u2026 and that mix can change over time,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s always your choice.\u201d<\/p>\n Those choices really add up, he said. The way you spend your time now can shape the doors that open up for you years from now.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rather than following a roadmap to the CEO role, Quincey joined<\/a> Coca-Cola in 1996 and continued moving toward more challenging positions, including president of the company\u2019s South American and Mexican divisions. He became CEO of the company in 2017 and executive chairman in 2019. Last month, he stepped down<\/a> from the CEO role to focus on being executive chairman.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the end, Quincey said success isn\u2019t about being perfect \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s about endurance. He advises standing out for something specific in every role, whether that\u2019s transforming a market, fixing a chronic problem or pushing a bold initiative, to make it to the C-suite.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNo one gets there by being the wallpaper,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to have to be famous for something in each job.\u201d<\/p>\n His perspective arrives as workers reconsider their career priorities. According to a 2025 report<\/a> from Randstad, the world\u2019s largest HR services provider and staffing agency, work-life balance is now the highest priority for talent when it comes to selecting where to work. Around 83% of people say work-life balance matters most to them, marking the first time in the survey\u2019s 22-year history that work-life balance ranked above pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gen Z, especially, is feeling that shift. With entry-level jobs harder to come by, younger workers are prioritizing healthier work conditions, even if it means earning less. One recent survey<\/a> of interns from KPMG found that they would give up $5,000 in salary for a better work-life balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Quincey\u2019s daily habits show that he prioritizes balance. He told students at London Business School that he \u201cdaydreams\u201d in the morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI get up very slowly in the mornings, I drink lots of coffee, and I have breakfast, and I don\u2019t fill my day with meetings,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n That kind of flexibility might not be possible for everyone, but Quincey\u2019s overall advice for young people is to \u201cdo something that gets you out of bed in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no harder job than the one you don\u2019t want to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n For Coca-Cola executive chairman James Quincey, success is less about meticulous career planning and more about survival.\u00a0<\/p>\nWork-life balance is an important consideration for workers<\/h2>\n
Quincey\u2019s morning routine<\/h2>\n
Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n
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