Manage Your Energy
High Performance = Your Energy,
not Your Time
An epidemic of overwhelm…
exercise
1. What does it mean to be present with
yourself?
2. What benefits might you get from being
present with yourself and taking time for
reflection?
2014: The Year of Mindful Living
The brain is the most energy
demanding organ in the body.
N I K E
L Pose
“People are
like bicycles.
They can keep
their balance
only as long as
they keep
moving.”
Albert Einstein
“Like a drunk, a
person who is sleep
deprived has no idea
how functionally
impaired he or she
really is. Most of us
have forgotten what
it feels like to be
awake.”
Charles Czeisler, Harvard
Trigger Antidote
Who triggers you?
Time Management Matrix
Urgency
Not Urgent
Urgent
High
II
X
I
X
X
X
Importance
X
The Gold Mine
III
Low
X
X
X
X
X
IV
X
Prioritize to identify the “Critical Few” –get them done fast!
Stephen Covey “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”
Why do we need
Mindful Leadership?
“You can learn to lead with
excellence by cultivating your
innate capabilities to focus on what
is important.”
Janice Marturano
Continuous
Partial
Attention…
“Creativity is
the residue of
time wasted.”
Albert Einstein
Recovery break
every 90-120
minutes to sustain
full engagement.
Conscious Thinking—A Precious Resource
1. Scarce Resource
“Making decisions and
solving problems relies
heavily on the Prefrontal
Cortex. This is a precious and
limited resource…”
• Schedule the most attention-rich tasks when
you have a fresh mind
• Prioritize prioritizing as it’s an energyintensive activity
2.
Multi-tasking
• You can only focus on one thing at a time
and switching between tasks uses energy
3.
Distractions
• Attention is easily distracted
• Being “always on” can drop your IQ as
significantly as losing a night’s sleep
• Remove external distractions
• Inhibit internal distractions before they take
on momentum
Adapted from: Your Brain At
Work; David Rock
How To Perform At Your Peak Every Day:
10 Tips For Working Smarter In 2014
1. Don’t check your email first thing.
2. Make your first task of the day
prioritizing your top three goals.
3. Conserve your decision-making
energy at every opportunity.
4. Find and protect your quality
thinking time.
How To Perform At Your Peak Every Day:
10 Tips For Working Smarter In 2014
5. Reserve meetings for your low-focus
time.
6. Don’t waste precious energy
multitasking. Single-task as much as you
can.
7. At the beginning of each meeting, decide
where you want to be by the end and the
most effective way to get there.
How To Perform At Your Peak Every Day:
10 Tips For Working Smarter In 2014
8. Learn to maintain a positive state of
mind.
9. Carve out down time.
10. Celebrate small wins.
What Is NeuroLeadership?
•
•
How leaders and organizations that understand the brain behave
Neuroscience guides action in each of these four domains
Facilitate
Change
Regulate
Emotion
Effects of Stress
•
•
If we feel threatened our bodies
release adrenalin and cortisol
Dulls both our ability to think and
feel— “numbing out”
•
•
•
IQ Drops 10-15 points at each level
Difficult to respond sensitively and
empathetically to others
Implications on:
•
•
•
•
•
Decision-making
Interpersonal relationships
Customer Service
Creativity
Safety
Terror (Reflexive)
Fearful (Reactive)
Alarmed (Emotional)
Alert (Focused)
Calm (Abstract)
Relationship Between Arousal and Performance
Mindfulness, An Essential Element of
Resonant Leadership, Boyatzis & McKee
1. Awake
2. Aware
3. Attentive
Mindfulness, An Essential Element of
Resonant Leadership, Boyatzis & McKee
“Mindfulness is the capacity to be
fully aware of all that one
experiences inside the self – body,
mind, heart and spirit – and to pay
full attention to what is happening
around us – people, the natural
world, our surroundings and events.”
Mindfulness, An Essential Element of
Resonant Leadership, Boyatzis & McKee
. . . Mindfulness describes a
healthy state of cognitive
openness, curiosity and
awareness. – you must be
comfortable with your own
company.
Mindfulness, An Essential Element of
Resonant Leadership, Boyatzis & McKee
“In fact, many organizational
cultures, (maybe even society
today) drive people to action,
rather than reflection, which
means that real listening is
actually quite rare.”
Mindfulness, An Essential Element of
Resonant Leadership, Boyatzis & McKee
“Avoiding openness – and
vulnerability – results in a
narrow focus and can
ultimately cause you to slip
into mindlessness.”
Mindfulness, An Essential Element of
Resonant Leadership, Boyatzis & McKee
1. Build trust through clarity and
consistency.
2. Make sure you never profess beliefs
when people are watching, only to
act differently when the temperature
rises and the pressure is on.
Mindfulness, An Essential Element of
Resonant Leadership, Boyatzis & McKee
3. Know that you will feel
uncomfortable, even vulnerable,
because in the midst of real change
around you, the rules are not clear and
politically expedient behavior is very
tempting.