Book Review: Fully Charged

Fully Charged: How Great Leaders Boost Their Organization’s Energy and Ignite High Performance
Heike Bruch and Bernd Vogel
Harvard Business Review Press (2011)

The power and impact of “organizational energy”

As I began to read this brilliant book, I was reminded of how much of value that Tony Schwartz has to say (in The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working) about the importance of establishing and then nourishing an environment within which people can renew their energy. Achieving that worthy objective requires precisely the same leadership that Heike Bruch and Bern Vogel describe, those who can “boost their organization’s energy and ignite high performance.” In fact, my own opinion is that such leaders are themselves the single most important source of that energy.

Throughout their lively and eloquent narrative, Bruch and Vogel respond to questions such as these:

• What are the components of organizational energy (OE)?
• How to measure – accurately and consistently level of OE in one’s organization?

Note: Bruch and Vogel recommend a seven-step process on Page 59.

• How to increase positive OE with energy-efficiency?
• How to eliminate or at least reduce negative OE?
• What are the key leadership tasks?
• How best to prepare people to complete those tasks?
• What is the “acceleration trap” and how best to prevent or escape it?

Note: Check out the summary of steps to prevent a Culture of Acceleration on Page 157.

• How to craft and then execute a strategy to instill a proactive sense of urgency re OE?

These are among the questions to which Bruch and Vogel. As these questions correctly suggest, they are convinced (and I wholly agree with them) that one of a leader’s most important responsibilities is to generate, nourish, and then “orchestrate” OE.  The nature and extent of effective leadership in any organization (whatever its size and nature may be) will be determined almost entirely by the nature and extent of its emotional, cognitive, and behavioral energy.

Readers will appreciate the provision of Organizational Energy Questionnaire 12 (OEQ  12), a self-assessment of an organization’s energy (or a division’s, unit’s, or team’s energy) in the Appendix. The “OEQ 12” resembles the Gallup Organization’s “Q12®” (to help measure employee engagement) at least to the extent that (a) both are based on an abundance of research data and (b) both help suggest areas of organizational strength or weakness on which leaders should focus.

If your organization needs to become more energy-efficient, this is a “must read.” If you think your organization has no such need, I suggest that you become a much more energetic observer of what’s really happening…and not happening.

Tony Schwartz on why companies should insist that employees take naps

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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Good luck, right?

But here’s the reality: naps are a powerful source of competitive advantage. The recent evidence is overwhelming: naps are not just physically restorative, but also improve perceptual skills, motor skills, reaction time and alertness.

I experienced the power of naps myself when I was writing my new book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working. 
I wrote at home, in the mornings, in three separate, highly focused 90 minute sessions. By the time I finished the last one, I was usually exhausted — physically, mentally and emotionally. I ate lunch and then took a 20 to 30 minute nap on a Barcalounger chair, which I bought just for that purpose.

When I awoke, I felt incredibly rejuvenated. Where I might otherwise have dragged myself through the afternoon, I was able to focus effectively on work other than writing until 7 pm or so, without feeling fatigued.

When Sara Mednick, a former Harvard researcher, gave her subjects a memory challenge, she allowed half of them to take a 60 to 90 minute nap, the nappers dramatically outperformed the non-nappers. In another study, Mednick had subjects practice a visual task at four intervals over the course of a day. Those who took a 30-minute nap after the second session sustained their performance all day long. Those who didn’t nap performed increasingly poorly as the day wore on.

When pilots are given a nap of just 30 minutes on long haul flights, they experience a 16 per cent increase in their reaction time. Nonnapping pilots experience a 34 per cent decrease over the course of the flight. 

The conclusion is inescapable: the more hours we work continuously, the greater the toll on our performance. To get a sense of how valuable it may be for you to nap, take our brief energy audit.

The best time for a nap is between 1 and 3 pm, when the body most craves a period of sleep. The ideal length for a workplace nap is 30 minutes or less, which assures that you won’t fall into the deeper stages of sleep, and awake with that loopy feeling scientists call “sleep inertia.”

“A nap,” argues Mathew Walker a sleep researcher at Berkeley, “not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness, but at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap.”
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If encouraging employees to take a half hour nap means they can be two or three times as productive over the subsequent three hours late in the day — and far more emotionally resilient — the value is crystal clear. It’s a win-win and a great investment.

The problem is that most corporate cultures remain addicted to the draining ethic of more, bigger, faster. Rest, by this paradigm, is for slackers. Until your employer sees through that myth, consider these tips to take matters into your own hands:

1. Schedule a regular time for your nap — between 1 and 3 p.m. is ideal — to increase the likelihood that you’ll take it.

2. If you have your own office, create a cheeky sign for your door to set expectations others. As in: “Short nap in process to ensure high afternoon productivity.”

3. If you work in a cubicle, see if you can find a quiet space for your nap, even if it means leaving the building and taking your nap on a park bench, at a Starbucks or in a local library.

4. Turn off your technology and set an alarm for 20 or 30 minutes.

5. Close your eyes (obviously) but don’t try too hard to fall asleep. Instead, breathe in through your nose to a count of three, and out through your mouth to a count of six. Even if you don’t fall asleep, this way of breathing will insure you’ll get a rejuvenating rest.

Note: Schwartz is spot-on: “The problem is that most corporate cultures remain addicted to the draining ethic of more, bigger, faster. Rest, by this paradigm, is for slackers.” That’s an idiotic mindset but a durable one nonetheless.

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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 http://hbr.org/2010/06/the-productivity-paradox-how-sony-pictures-gets-more-out-of-people-by-demanding-less/ar/1%5D and co-author, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time” [click here http://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-time/ar/1%5D. 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 Keys to Being Excellent 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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I’ve been playing tennis for nearly five decades. I love the game and I hit the ball well, but I’m far from the player I wish I were.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot the past couple of weeks, because I’ve taken the opportunity, for the first time in many years, to play tennis nearly every day. My game has gotten progressively stronger. I’ve had a number of rapturous moments during which I’ve played like the player I long to be.

And almost certainly could be, even though I’m 58 years old. Until recently, I never believed that was possible. For most of my adult life, I’ve accepted the incredibly durable myth that some people are born with special talents and gifts, and that the potential to truly excel in any given pursuit is largely determined by our genetic inheritance.

During the past year, I’ve read no fewer than five books — and a raft of scientific research — which powerfully challenge that assumption (see below for a list). I’ve also written one, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working [click here], which lays out a guide, grounded in the science of high performance, to systematically building your capacity physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

We’ve found, in our work with executives at dozens of organizations, that it’s possible to build any given skill or capacity in the same systematic way we do a muscle: push past your comfort zone, and then rest. Aristotle had it exactly right 2000 years ago: “We are what we repeatedly do.” By relying on highly specific practices, we’ve seen our clients dramatically improve skills ranging from empathy, to focus, to creativity, to summoning positive emotions, to deeply relaxing.

Like everyone who studies performance, I’m indebted to the extraordinary Anders Ericsson, arguably the world’s leading researcher into high performance. For more than two decades, Ericsson has been making the case that it’s not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather how hard we’re willing to work — something he calls “deliberate practice.” Numerous researchers now agree that 10,000 hours of such practice as the minimum necessary to achieve expertise in any complex domain.

There is something wonderfully empowering about this. It suggests we have remarkable capacity to influence our own outcomes. But that’s also daunting. One of Ericsson’s central findings is that practice is not only the most important ingredient in achieving excellence, but also the most difficult and the least intrinsically enjoyable.

If you want to be really good at something, it’s going to involve relentlessly pushing past your comfort zone, along with frustration, struggle, setbacks and failures. That’s true as long as you want to continue to improve, or even maintain a high level of excellence. The reward is that being really good at something you’ve earned through your own hard work can be immensely satisfying.

Here, then, are [three of the] six keys to achieving excellence we’ve found are most effective for our clients:

• Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That’s when most of us have the most energy and the fewest distractions.

• Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.

• Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously, however, can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.

I have practiced tennis deliberately over the years, but never for the several hours a day required to achieve a truly high level of excellence. What’s changed is that I don’t berate myself any longer for falling short. I know exactly what it would take to get to that level.

I’ve got too many other higher priorities to give tennis that attention right now. But I find it incredibly exciting to know that I’m still capable of getting far better at tennis — or at anything else — and so are you.

Here are the recent books on this subject:

Talent is Overrated by Geoffrey Colvin. My personal favorite.

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Genius in All of Us by David Schenk.

Bounce by Mathew Syed

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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” [click here] and co-author, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time” [click here]. 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).