Managing Your Energy
How are your energy levels? Have you been dipping too far into your well, or are your levels quite healthy at the moment? If the latter, great, however I have been seeing and speaking to too many people recently who are pushing the boundaries of what is manageable.
Energy and wellbeing are vital to performance. Elite sport has realised this for some time now, even though it doesn’t always get it right. And in early 2021, McKinsey highlighted this issue when they named ‘managing one’s own time and energy’ as one of the six main elements of every CEO’s job.*
Why is this important?
There is a myth, popular in the professional services world in particular (although thankfully, even this is changing now), that good leadership equates to long hours and constant work. I hear a common refrain along the lines of: ‘I’m so busy I haven’t got time to exercise/take time off/think of myself/go for a walk each day/breathe ….’ This is entirely misguided and generally prompts barely concealed frustration from me. I recommend (and urge) a small yet significant shift in mindset: ‘I am so busy that I must find time to exercise/take time off/think of myself/go for a walk each day/breathe ….’ We all know that we operate best when we are feeling strong, when we are feeling relatively rested and when we are building in time to check in with our mental and physical health. A leader is responsible for a lot of people and a lot of outcomes so give yourself the best chance of ensuring this – it really is a marathon and not a sprint.
I cover this area in more depth in my forthcoming book - Staying the Distance: The lessons from sport that leaders have been missing - out in March next year via Bloomsbury. Seeing however that this is such an acute issue at the moment, I am sharing tips on three key areas below: none of it rocket science, most of it common sense, however as we know common sense isn’t always common practice.
Micro-breaks
We all know the benefits of sleep, nutrition, hydration and so on. Whilst improvements in these areas often need significant investment of time and thought, there are some simple things we can be doing on a daily basis to help boost our energy levels. In particular, embedding regular micro-breaks into our days. I first came across this concept off the back of some fabulous research conducted in the elite tennis world by Dr Jim Loehr. Trying to work out what it was that was driving a handful of tennis players to consistently win the big tournaments, he was becoming increasingly frustrated as he couldn’t see what these tennis players were doing differently in their matches from their opponents. Until he started to look at what they were doing when they weren’t hitting the ball. In the 25 seconds between points, and the 90 seconds between games. And a pattern jumped out immediately. After examining countless hours of video (as it was at the time), he noticed that these top players exhibited very similar habits between points and in the changeover between games. And these habits were focused on saving energy and ensuring a positive focus. And to cut a very long story short, that is why we now see all elite players following pretty much the same pattern of turning their back to the court, reaching for their towels, and de-compressing, before turning back to the next point.
You can do the same. Whilst you may not be an elite athlete, you are a serious leader. Don’t expect that you can deliver consistent, sustained performance without prioritizing your energy levels. Whilst the big issues of sleep etc are key, the research shows us the importance of focusing on bite-sized gains as well. On the days you are working from home, build in breaks between Teams calls. Spend 2 minutes stretching, making a cup of tea, walking out into the garden, or just breathing calmly. It doesn’t just provide a physical reset, it provides a mental one too. When you are in the office, again build in proper breaks. Take a walk round the floor, spend two minutes chatting to someone, or even just look out of the window and breathe calmly for a couple of minutes.
Periodisation
Elite athletes are very used to arranging their schedule around key dates and events. Keeping to tennis, the professional tour has a flow to it. The same tournaments take place in the same weeks in each calendar year. There is a relentless list of tournaments. Players need to take part to build their ranking points: the higher their ranking, the more likely they are to be seeded; as a general rule making their progress through each tournament easier; therefore making it more likely they will do well; thereby gaining both more prize money and more sponsorship deals. So players need to pick and choose their entries, and their training blocks, accordingly. Too many tournaments without a rest and they run the risk of injury or burnout; too few and they reduce their chances of doing well and moving up the rankings. They need to time their effort, in a strategic way.
And it’s no different in leadership. You need to make sure that you peak at the right times throughout the year. You can’t be ‘on’ all the time. Whatever situation you are in, concentrate on making sure you can ride the waves on a consistent basis; maintaining the ebb and flow that’s needed.
From a practical perspective, why not go through your calendar and map out in red the weeks where you will need maximum effort? This will help as a constant reminder to you to ensure your energy and stamina levels are at their highest for these periods.
Switching off
I am seeing this a lot. And we are all guilty of this at times. Checking our emails in the evenings. At the weekends. Or even on our days off during the working week (for those who work part time). This isn’t the place to explore the addictive qualities of social media and smartphones, however I do want to reinforce the fact that much of this comes down to habits. And too many of us have unwittingly built unhealthy habits over our phone use, exacerbated in many cases by different working patterns and expectations through the pandemic.
For most of us, a large proportion of the time spent checking emails out of working hours does not save lives. Of course we know this, but it’s useful to remind ourselves of this from time to time.
And as a simple piece of practical advice, I always come back to this quote from Socrates:
The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.
So set new habits for yourself. Something that is manageable and achievable. Such as ‘I won’t look at my emails after 7pm’; ‘I will check them once after I’ve eaten my evening meal’; ‘I will only check them if I am expecting something urgent in’. Over time, you will find that not only do you settle into better and healthier habits, you also manage the expectations of those who are contacting you, as they gradually see that you won’t respond immediately. And in 99% of cases, they will be fine with this!
For more on this or any aspect of leadership, with a healthy dose of mindset, sport, and I hope usefulness thrown in, do feel free to browse through all the articles in the Huddle, or get in touch with me directly on catherine@sportandbeyond.co.uk.