Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time - Sunita Alves

7/28/2019 Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time - Sunita Alves

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Although my PSA was on dangers of artificial food color, I'm thinking of switching Assignment 4to a blog response I wrote on my company website to provide alternative view of a HarvardBusiness Review article.

This article was posted to another team's intranet page and I thought giving them my point ofview of the "larger" conversation would help them put the article in context. However, I didn't domuch research. This topic is so close to my heart ...I had all the references already. So it stillneeds to be massaged into Assignment 4 requirements...but here is the blog entry as-is:

Harvard Business Review Article - Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time

A colleague of mine sent me this article as I am part PM, part coach and thought I would find itinteresting: Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time.

I found it to be part of a larger conversation that I've been listening to and participating in for sometime now and decided to focus this blog on it. I performed the "Are You Headed for an EnergyCrisis" survey in the article from two points of time in my life:

Are You Headed for an Energy Crisis Survey Time period Survey Score/Meaning

2003 -2007 -- the period I pretty much hit bottom in terms ofstress on the job (coincidence has it this is the time I had bothmy children and became a "working parent").

12 -A full-fledged energymanagement crisis.

Jun 7, 2014 - Today

1-Excellent energymanagement skills (thecircled "x" is what still persiststoday)

My reaction to the article was to draw connections to what others have been saying inthis conversation. However, I also thought somethings were too implicit...and this is not

as straightforward as the authors make it sound.

I hope these observations help engage you into the larger conversation on this important topic,which is part of the larger goal many of us share: to be happy, fulfilled, and connected.

The article opens with "Organizations are demanding ever-higher performance from theirworkforces. People are trying to comply, but the usual method - putting in longer hours- hasbackfired. They're getting exhausted, disengaged, and sick. And they're defecting to healthier jobenvironments." Later in the article they state "The implicit contract between organizations andtheir employees today is that each will try to get as much from the other as they can, as quickly aspossible, and then move on without looking back."

As IBMers we likely can identify with this or have seen other colleagues and customers who feelthis way. I myself with my score of 12 was fully in this state just a few years ago.

Looking back , I see that I have employed many of the techniques the authors suggest withouteven realizing i t to get better at energy management such as better email management anddisciplined time away from work. They say "the optimal candidates for energy renewal programsare organizations that are feeling enough pain to be eager for new solutions but not so much thatthey're completely overwhelmed." Well, about five years ago I personally hit "enough pain" to beeager for new solutions and fortunately I was becoming more self-aware through many teacherssuch as Deepak Chopra, Martha Beck and others.

However, it's not straightforward to change your habits as the article might imply, even simplehabits. For example, in the "Idea in Practice" section, they list several practices to follow torenew energy. However, the practices are very "external" (e.g. change your diet, yourexercise, your breathing. But what is not really called out enough in my opinion, is there has to

be an internal change first ...in your belief systems. It starts with awareness -- for example,seeing that implicit contract you might believe you have to work long hours. Once you see it thenyou can change it. And that's the hard part. Likely the people who successfully changed theirexternal behaviors (Cluner, Warner, Henke) in the case studies may have been coached by theauthors but that won't necessarily be available to the reader of this article.
http://www.med.umich.edu/leadership/resources/Manage%20Your%20Energy%20Not%20Your%20Time.pdfhttp://www.med.umich.edu/leadership/resources/Manage%20Your%20Energy%20Not%20Your%20Time.pdf


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We have internal bias -- for example beliefs that we need to work long hours to be valuable, thatif we fail we will be vulnerable, that there just isn't enough time, that our company won't supportus going off the grid, etc. A first point of change is to inventory these beliefs and systematicallyturn them around. If this is done in parallel with these practical techniques then the success ratewill be higher. Also consider that you might need to find someone to work through this with you --because it's hard to see things you take for granted:

"Most of us have biases, and we can easily fool ourselves i f we don't make a conscious effort tokeep our minds open to new information. Psychologists have shown over and over again that

humans naturally tend to accept any information that supports what they already believe, even ifthe information isn't very reliable. And humans also naturally tend to reject information thatconflicts with those beliefs, even if the information is solid. These predilections are powerful.Unless we make an active effort to listen to all sides we can become trapped into believingsomething that isn't so, and won't even know it." --A Process for Avoiding Deception,FactCheckED.org

We see from the 12 step AA program that changing internal beliefs is paramount to changingbehavior ...and well i t takes 12 steps. So my suggestion is to take the practices suggested in thearticle as one part of the puzzle and the other is to really evaluate your thinking and once youfind you have some beliefs that don't serve your higher values or purpose...simply start to turnthem around or let them go. The authors do say:

"To do this, they must first become more aware of how they feel at various points during theworkday and of the impact these emotions have on their effectiveness.""While most participants aren't surprised to learn these behaviors are counterproductive,having them listed in one place is often uncomfortable, sobering and galvanizing.""people can cultivate positive emotions by learning to change the stories they tellthemselves about the events in their lives."to "discover their areas of strengths, we ask them to recall at least two work experiences inthe past several months during which they found themselves...feeling effective, effortlesslyabsorbed, inspired and fulfilled."there is "often a ...divide between what people say is important and what they actually do""Regrettably, the high demands and fast pace of corporate life don't leave much time to payattention to these issues, and many people don't even recognize meaning and purpose as

potential sources of energy."

You can see that this is about self-awareness as much as changing some external habits. Itabout digging inside first to change your external circumstances second ( or at least in parallel).

Larger conversation links: I found this article part of a larger conversation going on. I madethese connections to topics raised in the article:

1. Building energy by doing what you do best and enjoy --- Strengths Training/ MarcusBuckingham (plus many others) - http://www.tmbc.com/

2. Changing your story --- Byron Katie - what would you be without your story / Turn-it-around

3. Fight or flight response, deep abdominal breathing -- Coaching Training, Introduction toPsychology University of Toronto Course and Yoga are all engaged on the benefits of deepbreathing . It can trigger your sympathetic nervous system vs. the limbic system. When iffight or flight, adrenaline and cortisol (I think) are released and can shunt blood away fromyour digestive and immune systems to your large muscle groups. This is not healthyunless you are in danger and need to run really really fast. So deep breathing, evenrelaxing the jaw and tongue trigger your body to resume normal functions and improveoxygen to the brain --an important source of energy we don't get enough of because we

don't breathe properly. [For a refresher in "how to breathe" observe a sleeping baby ]4. Expressing appreciation to others --- this is gratitude in general and a source I like to

read on this habit is the Dalai Lama. This link has a quote from him plus many othersengaged in the gratitude conversation.

5. Feeling disengaged --- Brene Brown discusses vulnerability and disengagement in herbook -Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.

6. Recognizing the role emotion plays in the negative actions we take --- ByronKatie "Emotions & Reactions List" -- What are your "go-to" emotions on this list?
http://www.thework.com/downloads/worksheets/Emotions_and_Reactions.pdfhttp://www.brenebrown.com/books/2012/5/15/daring-greatly.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/21/quotes-on-gratitude-dalai-lama-maya-angelou_n_2140642.html#slide=1765743http://www.thework.com/index.phphttp://www.tmbc.com/http://factchecked.bootnetworks.com/ToolsOfTheTrade.aspx


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So coaches, psychologists, nutritionists, personal trainers, spiritual leaders are also part of thelarger conversation on many of the topics in this article.

Thank-you Tim for sharing it with me ... as you can see I found it very enlightening!!

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Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time - Sunita Alves