Energy Management

SLIDE XX: RESILIENCE / PERFORMANCE CURVE

Link to reading ‘Working Without Stress’ which talks about the difference between pressure and stress (pressure is on the horizontal axis not stress).

The curve is of course a generalisation and may not actually be true for everyone.

We’re going to take a deeper dive however than this simplistic model.

SLIDE XX: QUOTE

Managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal.

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

What do you think about the quote?

As obvious as this sounds, everything we do requires energy. If we don’t have the right quantity, quality, focus and force of energy, we are compromised.

As stewards of the organisation we will need stamina and energy to sustain ourselves as individuals and as a team.

There is a lot of work being done in applying sports science/psychology to organisations – e.g. to work out how to best manage energy and therefore create sustained performance.

More About Being Stewards (optional)

There is something more though than managing our own energy – we know that energy is infectious – whether it be positive or negative. We also know through various sources of data (e.g. McK impact of top teams, microcosm, etc.), that leaders have a disproportionate impact on the energy of those around them and in the organisation.

So apart from a corporate responsibility, as leaders, we are the stewards of organisational energy - leaders recruit, direct, channel, renew, focus and invest energy from individuals and teams in the service of the corporate mission

We place too much emphasis on time and don’t necessarily attend to managing our energy sufficiently well.

SLIDES XX: OLD VS NEW PARADIGM

Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz’s book, The power of full engagement, suggests that top athletes follow some principles in achieving their peak. Loehr and Schwartz refer corporate executives to be corporate athletes and take lessons from how top athlete achieve their peak.

From studying how top athletes achieve their peak Jim Loehr and Tony Schwarts suggest a new way of looking at our energy and engagement.

Go through old and new.

Old Paradigm

• Manage time

• Avoid stress

• Life is a marathon

• Downtime is wasted time

• Rewards fuel performance

• Self discipline rules

• The power of positive thinking

New Paradigm:

• Manage energy

• Seek stress

• Life is a series of sprints

• Downtime is productive time

• Purpose fuels performance

• Rituals rule

• The power of full engagement

Get people’s thoughts / reflections on the difference (this slide often creates some debate and sometimes a bit of push back).

Lets dig into what energy may man by looking at a model by Jim Loerhr and Tony Schwartz.