leadership·Published 2025-08
Executive Water Bottle Size and Likelihood of Organizational Restructuring Within Twelve Months: A Positive Correlation
Principal investigator: Dean Beaumont Kessler, Dean of the Practitioner Program.
Executives who carry water bottles with a capacity of 40 oz or more are significantly more likely to announce a major organizational restructuring within the following twelve months.
Methodology
Three hundred and one C-suite executives were enrolled in a twelve-month prospective study. At enrollment, Institute fellows conducted one-time workplace observation sessions during which the executive's primary hydration vessel was photographed and its capacity determined via physical measurement or product identification. Organizational restructuring events were tracked from public announcements, press releases, and, in 44 cases, from employees who reached out to the Institute unsolicited following publication of the preliminary brief.
Funding disclosure: Funded by the Institute's Executive Behavior Laboratory endowment. The Institute's own Director carries a 64 oz vessel, a fact that was not considered disqualifying.
Instruments cited in this study
Full citation
Kessler, B. (2025). Executive Water Bottle Size and Likelihood of Organizational Restructuring Within Twelve Months: A Positive Correlation. Institute for the Study of Pointless Metrics. r = 0.85, p < 0.001, n = 301.