Vedere Consulting

The year is 1999. I’m working for a health insurance company as an internal OD consultant and trainer. I’m supposed to work a 32 hour workweek so I can spend more time with my family. But I’m working five days a week instead of four, and putting in many late nights and weekends in an effort to keep up with everything I have on my plate. I’m tired and depressed. I often can’t sleep and I have a difficult time unwinding when I am at home. My husband is complaining about my long hours. I’m missing my children. I’m getting desperate but I don’t see any way out.

Does any of this sound familiar? If so, you, like me, have fallen into the trap of working longer and longer hours in an effort to be more productive. The result? We get so tired and unfocused that work takes longer and so we have to spend even more hours at work and then we’re even more tired and unfocused—well, you get the picture.

The solution, according to Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr in their book, The Power of Full Engagement, is to learn how to manage your energy rather than trying to manage your time. Energy is “the capacity to do work.” Schwartz and Loehr contend that by managing your energy you become more productive because you can do more and higher quality work in less time. Energy is expansive while time is finite. The secret is creating the optimum balance between expending and recovering energy.

You see, when you work longer and longer hours, you expend energy that is never recovered. Without recovery, your energy becomes depleted and you lose the ability to concentrate, your emotions become more negative (irritation, depression, etc.) and the quality of your decisions deteriorate. Your productivity suffers because you can’t focus.

Optimum energy (or engagement) is achieved when energy is high and positive. There are four “wellsprings” of energy—sources of renewal and places where energy is expended: your body (physical energy), your mind (mental energy), your emotions (emotional energy), and your core self or soul (spiritual energy). In subsequent blog posts, we’ll explore how understanding and building strength in each of these wellsprings contributes to your energy capacity and therefore to your productivity. The result is a greater capacity to do more and higher quality work, and to stay focused, motivated, and balanced.

Loehr and Schwartz identified four principles that are critical to energy management. First, as I stated earlier, energy relies on a balance between stress and recovery. After a period of work, we must rest and recover. This is true whether the work is physical, mental (as is most of the work we do today) or emotional. Work and recovery are cyclical—they oscillate between each other. Too much work or too much recovery causes a loss of energy.

We have to build in recovery periods if we are to work at our best. We also have to work each of the four areas of energy. This leads to the second principle, overuse or underuse of any of the four wellsprings reduces our energy capacity. Most modern Americans overuse their mental and emotional energy and underuse their physical and spiritual dimensions.

Third, a shift in one dimension produces a shift in all of them. If we decide that we need to strengthen our physical capacity, this will impact our mental, emotional and spiritual well being. For example, regular exercise often gives us more mental energy, a more positive outlook and often leads to a deeper commitment.

Finally, small, incremental changes work best. Schwartz and Loehr suggest developing “positive energy rituals.” These rituals (or specific routines) are new habits you develop to increase your energy. They are carefully designed to fit easily into your current routine and to provide enough enjoyment to keep doing until it becomes a habit. For example, one of my clients spends the first hour on Monday morning reviewing her to do list, estimating how long her tasks will take, and scheduling them into her calendar. Because of this, she approaches her week with a greater sense of control and calm. To improve her mood, another client thinks of 10 things she is grateful for when she first wakes up in the morning. These rituals, which are developed using the principles outlined above, have produced dramatic productivity improvements in Loehr’s and Schwartz’ clients.

More next week!

Jim Loehr is the Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of the Human Performance Institute, http://www.lgeperformance.com/index.html .

Tony Schwartz is Founder and President of The Energy Project, http://www.theenergyproject.com/home.html .

The Power of Full Engagement is published by The Free Press: http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=1&pid=427723 .

Labels: Work and Life Balance

Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.

Not long ago a client was struggling with a tough conversation she wanted to have with a new associate in her law firm. She believed he was having a difficult time hearing the clients’ concerns and it was impacting his ability to build relationships with them. She wanted to send him to a training program but didn’t know how to tell him in a way that wouldn’t be insulting. Many of the executives and managers I’ve worked with have faced a similar dilemma.

The problem with my client’s approach is she was focused on the solution to the problem. What she wasn’t focusing on was the conversation itself—how to send a clear message, how to ask good questions, how to involve her sales rep in the exploration of and solution to the problem.

What is interesting about this dilemma is that coming into a conversation with the solution already figured out makes having the conversation so much harder. Your subordinate is more likely to feel threatened and resentful. You have something—your solution—to sell now, and the stakes are a bit higher.

My client saw this immediately. She, like many of her peers, focused on the solution because that’s her comfort zone. She’s a problem solver and when faced with a problem she automatically does what she does best. The more effective alternative is to focus on the conversation. The question becomes, “how can I approach this person in a way that allows both of us to analyze and resolve the situation?” It’s a whole new problem to solve!

I love the way my client solved it. Here are several of her solutions:
· Find a casual time to have the conversation when she and the associate could be alone
· Offer her insights as a hypothesis, focusing on the facts first and then her analysis
· Ask the associate to offer other hypotheses and insights
· Support his insights when she can honestly do so
· Listen completely to what the associate has to say
· Brainstorm solutions together. Make her solution only one in the mix

You might find another approach more useful. The point is that my client turned her attention to the conversation and thought carefully about the impact of her words and actions, what could be effective and what would work for her, given her skills and comfort zone. I have a lot of faith that this conversation will go much better than it would have. I believe yours can too.
There are a number of great resources that can help you prepare for tough conversations. Several of my current favorites are:

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, by Marshall Rosenberg, Puddledancer Press.
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler, McGraw-Hill.
Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life, One Conversation at a Time, by Susan Scott, Viking Press.
Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work, by David Rock, Harper-Collins.

Feel free to explore the “Tools and Resources” page of my website to link to these and other helpful resources.

Labels: Crucial Conversations

Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.