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Meeting With Self

Just the other day I was talking to a friend and sort of complaining about how I seem to have lost my grip on my calendar… again. This tends to happen from time to time, but this time I was feeling like I couldn’t even find the time to get my ideas in order and have some free, creative thinking time.

Well, my friend just smiled sympathetically.

“Quite common. It happened to me as well.” he said as a matter-of-fact. “What I do is take notes of things that interest me throughout the week. I don’t make any assumptions about the things I note, just try to put them down factually. To go through all those notes, I scheduled a two hour weekly meeting with myself. It’s a recurring appointment and I try to choose a different environment than the office. That way I’m generally not interrupted.”

I didn’t give it much thought then. In fact, two days had gone by before I recalled the conversation and decided to try it.

First thing I did was book a weekly two hour slot in my calendar.

“Let’s see how long I can make this last.” I told myself as I hit the save button.

A few weeks have passed since then and I’ve managed to keep holding my weekly “meeting with self”. I’m also becoming much more proficient in taking (meaningful/useful) notes (mind-maps help a lot) and have already quite a collection of interesting ideas to explore and follow on. Also, some of these ideas have already started to pay off as I’ve been able to incorporate them into some of the projects I’m currently working on.

Designer and creative thinker Stefan Sagmeister also suggests an interesting approach to work-life balance and how to find time for creative thinking. His approach is a bit more radical, but I guess creative types usually are. Stefan’s approach involves taking a year long sabbatical leave to think and try new and different things. During this year, he collects ideas to fuel his work for the next seven years, before taking another leave. You can see Stefan Sagmeister’s talk on The Power Of Time Off in the Videos section.

Having time to think, sort out ideas, throw away those that are not interesting and focus on the ones that are is a precious commodity nowadays. Don’t count on having time “later” to do everything you need to do. Book the time in you calendar. That way everything else just tends to fit together.

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• Stefan Sagmeister
• The Power Of Time Off   

The Science of Motivation

Dan Pink, a former speechwriter for Al Gore, gave this wonderfully insightful talk on the nature and science of workplace motivation at the TED conference this year. During his 18m presentation (a limit set for all talks at the conference), Dan explains both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and how knowledge workers react to the mainstream reward system in place in most businesses today.

Visionaries

Throughout my career I’ve observed managers and leaders alike. It really doesn’t matter if you’re in a managerial position or not – leaders are not defined by their title, but by their actions. Regardless of being in a managerial position or not, there’s one thing I consistently find in common among leaders. All are able to articulate a simple, compelling view of a possible or hoped-for future outcome – a Vision. Visionary leaders are also able to influence and shape current courses of action so that, eventually, that vision becomes a reality.

My observations and professional experience tell me that the ability to develop and effectively communicate a vision is a fundamental (if somewhat overlooked) leadership skill. A vision statement is a powerful way to galvanize and motivate people around an idea. It provides a beacon and a direction against which we can measure our own ideas, our actions and even our values.

We can develop vision statements to meet any number of different purposes. From an overarching vision for a nation, an industry or an organization to a more specific vision that will provide direction to a department, a team, a product or a project. Even our own careers can benefit from a vision that can help us identify a career path and determine what our next course of action should be.

Authors James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras studied a number of companies whose enduring success have led those organizations to outperform the stock market by a factor of 12 since 1925. In  “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies”, Collins and Porras conclude that all these organizations have a core set of values that remain unchanged even when faced with drastic changes to business strategies or market conditions. Although the authors state that the book “is not […] about charismatic visionary leaders”, most (if not all) of the companies seem to have had their core values imbued into the company’s Vision by one such visionary (if not also charismatic) leader.

Looking into the future and imagining what you or your organization might become is an extraordinary exercise. Just make sure to aim high and far. Be bold. Be grand. I think that true visions should not be modest in any way, shape or form.

 

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you fail, you’ll still land among the stars.”

- Les Brown

 

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References

Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies Author(s): Jim Collins, Jerry Porras

Stress Management 101

We’re living through tough times. Unemployment is rising worldwide, many companies are doing massive layoffs, some are being bought off and others are simply going out of business. Those who are still in business are struggling to ensure quarterly growth to stockholders. This situation creates an increasing pressure upon corporate employees, so being effective in managing stress is quickly becoming a fundamental trait – one that no one can afford to do without.

So, what do I mean by “managing stress” ?

First of all, I don’t think that all stress is bad. The right amount of stress can help us find the drive to address those big issues and achieve bold goals. However, when stress reaches toxic levels we might find ourselves utterly incapable of tackling even the simplest daily task. The thing about stress is that we usually tend to ignore it until it’s too late and our stress level is already toxic – damaging self-esteem, draining energy and eroding relationships. It’s fundamental to recognize signs of stress and actively engage them. The table below contains a few examples I’ve compiled from several sources.

Physical Affecting your normal physical condition	Mental Affecting your normal mental abilities	Social Affecting your normal interactions with others
Anxiety (pounding heart, elevated blood pressure, sweating) Muscle tension or headaches Sleep disturbances (can’t sleep, sleep too much, unusual sleeping hours) Skin rashes Stomach problems Forgetfulness Trembling or other tics (i.e. muscular spasms, eye twitching) Changes in eating patterns (eating too much or too little) Drinking more alcohol Pacing or restlessness Increased smoking	Lack of concentration Low productivity Indecisiveness Mind racing or going blank Resistance to change Depression Low self-esteem	Irritability and impatience Envy Apathy or loss of interest in your work Social withdrawal Aggressive driving

Table 1: Signs of stress

Of course, different people worry about different things and deal with stress in different ways, but we usually become stressful due to a feeling of lack of control. To some people control comes in the form of meticulous planning. To others it’s just the opposite. Besides the feeling of lack of control, stress is also usually amplified by premature worrying, that is, worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet. Ever felt like this?

We all know that bad things really do happen (even to nice people). But we still have to make sure that, no matter what we’re worried about, we do so proportionately to the situation in question. If the situation warrants a high degree of concern then we can use this additional stress to tackle the issue at hand in a productive and effective manner.

Although stress is not exclusive to the workplace, it happens that most of our lives and, consequently, our human interactions happen in the workplace. As such, workplace stress has become a serious concern among several international health organizations.

Workplace stress is commonly defined as the harmful physical and emotional response that can erupt when there is a conflict between what is demanded of someone and the level of control that person has over when and how to meet those expectations.

Workplace stress often occurs when the demands of the job and the working environment on a person exceed their capacity to meet them.

There are many situations that factor into this, acting as stressors in the workplace. Typically, the “pressure to perform” means an increasing effort to meet rising expectations with no increase (or even a decrease) in job satisfaction.

This relentless requirement to work at optimum performance takes its toll in the organization producing low job satisfaction, reduced efficiency, among other consequences. At the individual employee level consequences include absenteeism, poor decision-making, indifference, lack of motivation and creativity and, in more extreme cases, illness, alcoholism or other addictions.

Figure 1: Effort to meet expectations vs job satisfaction over time

Additionally, stress that the person is experiencing at home (marital difficulties, financial problems) also adds to the equation and, as I’ve mentioned previously (see “Balancing Work and Personal Life”), we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of a stable personal life in our work performance.

So, understanding the nature of work related stress (particularly it’s symptoms) is a first step. This awareness can trigger the realization that we might be needing a break to step back, look at the big picture, assess and weigh our options and determine a course of action that steers us away from toxically stressful situations.

References

• “Managing Stress”, Pocket Mentor Series, Harvard Business Press
• Stress Map: Causes of stress in the workplace

Balancing Work And Personal Life

[…] work/life balance is about working smarter, not longer.

Every once in a while, in all of the companies I’ve worked for, I’ve heard or got mail from HR talking about work/life balance. I’ve heard so much about it that it became almost like a mantra.

Why has work/life balance become such an important factor in the modern workplace?

Perhaps it has to do with overcoming remnants of the 80’s yuppie work culture, set by the late Baby Boomers and early Gen X’s, where working long hours was seen as something worthy of praise (think of Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street”). Thinking about it, I can’t help to relate this to that late industrialist mindset where production is directly related to the number of hours spent in production.

Personally I think that work/life balance is about working smarter, not longer. In the modern, knowledge workplace, it’s all about performance, not productivity. Most modern workplaces should produce value and not quantity. Quantity, or mass production, only scales as much as your workforce. Production of value, on the other hand, can scale much more with even a small workforce.

So what does this mean to later generation Gen X’s and especially Gen Y’s, the knowledge workers of the modern workplace?

I have to admit that I find myself in a constant struggle to achieve a good work/life balance, experiencing moments where it seems I’ve got it and moments where I realize I haven’t. However, from the moments that felt like I’ve got it, I’ve come to realize the following:

First of all, work and personal life can and should be complementary. No one can be truly fulfilled if he or she only focuses on one dimension of life. More importantly, we have to acknowledge both the importance a healthy work environment plays in the stability of our personal lives, and the importance a healthy personal and family life has on our work performance.

To achieve this, we have to be able to balance professional and personal goals. What I’ve found out was that I had clear business goals, but didn’t have any clearly set personal goals. We tend to pursue those goals we can track, so a lack of clearly established personal goals makes it much more likely that we focus on our work, overlooking our personal lives.

Additionally, to reach our personal and business goals, we have to effectively leverage our skills in both areas. We all have skills that we can use or apply to situations in our personal lives with the same level of success that we do at work. The opposite is also true. Many skills that we use in our personal lives can be leveraged effectively in the workplace. Think about the way you educate your children, or how you contribute to your community. I’m sure all of us can can find examples that apply here.