Talk about black humor. It was a private joke between them. In a
glass monolith jabbing at the Houston skyline the two men knocked around
a cluster of offices wondering what the hell to do with their lives. Once
the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Philip J. Burguières had
just spent five years building Weatherford Industries into a major
contender in energy services. But in 1996, at 53, he abruptly resigned as
CEO to embark on a three-month stay at a mental hospital in the Midwest.
Burguières was "100 percent convinced that the world would be better
off without me." John Sage, a real estate entrepreneur stunned by
business reversals and the brutal murder of his closest sibling, was, at
48, holding the bleakness back with antidepressants, psychotherapy and
spiritual readings. They dubbed the office the depression suite.
Burguières would drag himself out of bed in the morning and
drive across town to the space that Weatherford was happy to furnish its
ex-CEO; after all, he was still chairman of the board. Once there, he
would shut himself in his office with The New York Times and The Wall
Street Journal and read every word of every story, trying to dislodge the
destructive thoughts that played over and over in his head, hoping his
secretary wouldn't notice. He would return phone calls and might even
accept a breakfast or lunch meeting, but he wouldn't -- couldn't -- muster
the energy to initiate them.
More often than not, around midmorning, Sage came by. It got him
out of the house and it was a place to share the things that were helping
him feel better. That might be exercise, an article or a book he was
reading -- he was especially taken with The Inner Voice of Love, Dutch
theologian Henri Nouwen's personal diary of his own depression -- or
something that came up in his Bible study group. "John had seen the abyss
and was beginning to come out," recalls Burguières. "He was about
six months ahead of me on the timeline of recovery. He became my
mentor."
"We didn't spend hours up there commiserating," Sage says. And
Burguières adds, "We'd share our suicidal fantasies -- then
laugh."
They were true blues brothers.
Neither man thought he'd ever do anything significant in his life
again. "We felt that even if we had something important to do we wouldn't
be up to it," recalls Sage. "We feared we'd be sidelined all our lives.
We were living our worst nightmare." What they didn't realize at the time
was the good that came out of just being there, together. By breathing
the same air, they were pulling each other out of depression. "We were
getting better but we didn't know it," says Sage.
Burguières' experience as a top corporate executive who
battled depression and came out on top is especially unusual. As a result
of his openness he is now sought out -- privately -- by other distressed
CEOs. He finds himself in the extraordinary position of running a secret
network of CEOs with depression. Most only feel safe "coming out" to one
of their own, afraid the stigma will strip them of their standing in the
corporate world and that they'll lose the approval of their boards of
directors.
His experience opens a window into a closely guarded world where
any perceived weakness can carry a high price tag. Indeed, the day
Burguières commenced his recovery -- the worst day of my life," he
recalls -- he got an unwelcome send-off: a front-page story in the business
section of The Houston Chronicle, complete with color photo, publicizing
his leave of absence from Weatherford. "Health reasons," the newspaper
blared. That morning, the company's stock plummeted, losing more than 10
percent of its value.
Because Burguières feels comfortable speaking openly about his
own depression, he has been called on to address stateside and
international meetings of the World Presidents' Organization -- a group of
3,300 current and former CEOs. From his exclusive vantage point, he is
convinced that estimates of the prevalence of mental disorders are on the
low side. "At some point in their careers, fully 25 percent of top-level
executives go through a severe depression. You would be shocked at the
number of CEOs, now running big companies, who are suicidally
depressed."
Some CEOs think Burguières actually understates the occurence
of mood disorders in corner office suites. One top executive who "met the
monster and made it through" contends that being crowned king is itself
the problem.
"You discover that the real fun was getting there," he says. "Once
you're there you live in fear that you're going to lose it. Not only is
achieving the goal a letdown, you don't feel good about yourself as a
'master of the universe.' You treat people differently. You believe in
your own bullshit." A two million-miles-a-year man, this executive went
into a suicidal tailspin the day his wife announced she was leaving. At
the senior management level, he says, "depression is rampant among people
who have achieved their goals -- and even worse among those who have
not."
Depression was the last thing Burguières expected when, at 35,
he was named CEO of Houston-based Cameron Iron Works without even gunning
for the job. But an empty feeling dogged him in his first few months at
the top.
