Tony Schwartz on “Six Ways Leaders Can Fuel Excellence At Anything”

Tony Schwartz

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Tony Schwartz for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Review’s Daily Alerts, please click here.

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In August, I posted a blog titled Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything. Over the subsequent three months it has become one of HBR’s most widely read blogs ever.

The notion that we can be excellent at anything prompted passionate debate. On the one hand, it’s empowering and inspiring to believe that excellence is within our reach in any area to which we devote ourselves with sufficient diligence — something the researcher Anders Ericsson calls “deliberate practice.”

Just think of how many movies — often based on true stories — tell the story of inspiring teachers, coaches and mentors helping undervalued kids become extraordinary performers: The Blind Side, Stand and Deliver, Lean On Me, Mr. Holland’s Opus, The Bad News Bears, and Dangerous Minds, among many others.

At the same time, it’s daunting to consider that when we ourselves fall short of excellence, it’s not that we lack talent but rather we haven’t put in the right kind of effort.

There is precious little scientific evidence to suggest that genes are our destiny — and more and more evidence of neuroplasticity — the capacity to influence the way our genes express themselves. So what, then, can leaders do to most effectively inspire and nurture excellence in those they lead? Here are six keys:

1. Ban words like “talented,” “gifted,” and “special” from your vocabulary. Well meaning as these words may be, they tend to give people credit for something they did nothing to earn, while also suggesting that others don’t have equal potential. Consider replacing these words with ones like “effective,” “determined,” “accomplished,” “skilled,” “persevering,” and “masterful,” all of which give due credit to effort.

2. Regularly, genuinely, and specifically acknowledge and appreciate people’s successes. Believe deeply in their potential, enthusiastically encourage their passions, and don’t be overly fazed by their failures. There may be nothing more motivating to the people you lead than to notice what they’re doing well, and to express your appreciation with detail and specificity. Likewise, there may be no single more powerful act than to handwrite and mail someone a personal note of appreciation.

3. Provide constant feedback. Annual or semi-annual reviews are vastly insufficient and often worthless. Most people don’t improve their skills over time, in large part because they don’t get consistent, specific feedback. That’s different than judgment or criticism. As often as possible, resist pointing out people’s deficits, and focus instead on where you can help them improve or take it to the next level in any given area.

4. Create and protect periods of uninterrupted focus. Don’t demand instant responses from your people all day long. Interruptions fracture their attention, and absorbed focus is a prerequisite to high quality work, especially on the most challenging tasks. Stop measuring your people by how many hours they work, and assess them instead based on the value they produce.

5. Encourage and model intermittent renewal throughout the day. Great performers, the research shows, work intensely for periods no longer than 90 minutes and then stop to recover and refuel. Create a “renewal room” so people have a place to truly chill out. Nothing better fuels productivity in the afternoons than a 20-30 minute nap between 12 and 2 p.m,
and encouraging people to exercise at midday runs a close second.

6. Tie the pursuit of excellence to a larger mission. Excellence requires enormous effort. You need to give your people a compelling reason to push beyond their comfort zones. What most of us hunger for is evidence that what we’re doing truly matter and serves something beyond the bottom line. CEOs such as Alan Mullally at Ford, John Chambers at Cisco, and Steve Jobs at Apple have done a great job rallying their people around a higher mission. Start by defining what you truly stand for, share with others what gets you up in the morning as often as you can, and encourage people to go through the same exercise for themselves.

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Tony Schwartz is president and CEO of The Energy Project. He is the author of the June, 2010 HBR article, The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less, and co-author, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time. He  is also the author of the new book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance (Free Press, 2010).

Tony Schwartz on “Six Secrets to Creating a Culture of Innovation”

Tony Schwartz

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Tony Schwartz for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Review’s Daily Alerts, please click here.

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When IBM recently polled 1500 CEOs across 60 countries, they rated creativity as the most important leadership competency.

Eighty percent of the CEOs said the business environment is growing so complex that it literally demands new ways of thinking. Less than 50 percent said they believed their organizations were equipped to deal effectively with this rising complexity.

But are CEOs and senior leaders really willing to make the transformational moves necessary to foster cultures of real creativity and innovation?

Here are the six fundamental moves we believe they must make. In all my travels, I’ve not yet come across a single company that systematically does even the majority of them, much less every one.

[Here are the first three.]

• Meet People’s Needs. Recognize that questioning orthodoxy and convention — the key to creativity — begins with questioning the way people are expected to work. How well are their core needs — physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual — being met in the workplace? The more people are preoccupied by unmet needs, the less energy and engagement they bring to their work. Begin by asking employees, one at a time, what they need to perform at their best. Next, define what success looks like and hold people accountable to specific metrics, but as much as possible, let them design their days as they see fit to achieve those outcomes.

• Teach Creativity Systematically. It isn’t magical and it can be developed. There are five well-defined, widely accepted stages of creative thinking: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification. They don’t always unfold predictably, but they do provide a roadmap for enlisting the whole brain, moving back and forth between analytic, deductive left hemisphere thinking, and more pattern-seeking, big-picture, right hemisphere thinking. The best description of the stages I’ve come across is in Betty Edwards’ book Drawing on the Artist Within. The best understanding of the role of the right hemisphere, and how to cultivate it, are also in this book.

• Nurture Passion. The quickest way to kill creativity is to put people in roles that don’t excite their imagination. This begins at an early age. Kids who are encouraged to follow their passion develop better discipline, deeper knowledge, and are more persevering and more resilient in the face of setbacks. Look for small ways to give employees, at every level, the opportunity and encouragement to follow their interests and express their unique talents.

These activities are only possible in a workplace that doesn’t overvalue face time and undervalue the power of renewal.

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To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Review’s Daily Alerts, please click here.

Tony Schwartz is president and CEO of The Energy Project. He is the author of the June, 2010 HBR article, “The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less” [click here] and co-author, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time” [click here]. Tony is also the author of the new book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance (Free Press, 2010).

Tony Schwartz on why the CEO is the Chief Energy Officer

Tony Schwartz

Here is an excerpt from article written by Tony Schwartz for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Review’s Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

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(Editor’s note: Listen to a podcast with Tony Schwartz, the author of this post at http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2010/05/managing-the-productivity-para.html)

Above all else, a leader is the chief energy officer.

The most fundamental job of a leader is to recruit, mobilize, inspire, focus, direct, and regularly refuel the energy of those they lead. Energy, after all, is contagious — especially so if you’re a leader, by virtue of your disproportionate position and power. The way you’re feeling at any given moment profoundly influences how the people who work for you feel. How they’re feeling, in turn, profoundly influences how well they perform. A leader’s responsibility is not to do the work of those they lead, but rather to fuel them in every possible way to bring the best of themselves to their jobs every day.

Think about the best boss you’ve ever had. What adjectives come to mind to describe that person? My colleagues and I have asked this question of thousands of people over the past decade, and here are the ten most common answers: Encouraging, Inspiring, Kind, Positive, Calm, Supportive, Fair, Decisive, Smart, and Visionary.

Only three of those qualities have anything to do with intellect. More than two-thirds are emotional qualities — and they’re all
positive ones. No one has ever said to us, “What I loved about my boss is how angry he got. It showed me how much he cared.” Negative emotions may prompt instant action, but they don’t inspire people in the long term. Even in small doses, negative energy can take a considerable toll on people.

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Leaders lead not just by the actions they take, but by the way they make us feel along the way. It’s not false or half-hearted praise most of are looking for, but rather simple recognition and appreciation for real effort and for our tangible contributions. 

So what kind of boss are you? What adjectives would your employees choose to describe you? For starters, you could try out our Leadership Audit, which we developed at The Energy Project as a very rapid way to assess how you are influencing the energy of others. Even better, ask your employees to take it too — it’s an efficient way to get instant feedback about their own experiences.

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To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Review’s Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.


Tony Schwartz is president and CEO of The Energy Project. He is the author of the June, 2010 HBR article, “The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less,” and co-author, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time.” Tony is also the author of the new book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance (Free Press, 2010).


Tony Schwartz on why, for real productivity, less is truly more

Tony Schwartz

When I wrote a post on this site about The Myth of Productivity recently, a number of commentators argued productivity has gone up not because employees are running scared, but rather because companies have finally laid off the slackers who were dragging productivity down.

There are surely plenty of low performers who got the ax, but there are also many committed high performers among the millions of people who have lost their jobs over the past two years. There are also many high performing survivors at these companies who are being pushed to work in ways that aren’t sustainable.

The way we’re working isn’t working — for employees or for their employers. There is a better way to fuel productivity and high performance. The first key to changing the way we work is recognizing that the value of those you manage isn’t generated by the number of hours they work, but rather by how much value they produce during the hours we are working. Working longer hours, juggling more tasks and answering more emails isn’t the solution.

As every great athlete understands, the highest performance occurs when we balance work and effort with rest and renewal. The human body is hard-wired to pulse, and requires renewal at regular intervals not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally.

Unfortunately, rest and renewal get no respect in the organizational world. Instead, most managers instinctively view those who seem to need time for rest and renewal as slackers.

But what are the costs of working continuously? Do we think as clearly, creatively and strategically, or work as effectively with colleagues and clients, in the 10th or 12th or 14th hour of a workday devoid of real breaks, as you do in the 2nd or the 4th?

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To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Review’s Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

Tony Schwartz is president and CEO of The Energy Project. He is the author of the forthcoming June, 2010 HBR article, “The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less,” and co-author, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time.” He is also the author of the new book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance (Free Press, 2010).