When I opened my feed on LinkedIn this morning, I scrolled down to a post from Harvard Business Review titled, “Manage your Energy, Not your time” …it caught my eye.
The piece was written by Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy with the by-line…
“The science of stamina has advanced to the point where individuals, teams and whole organisations can, with some straightforward interventions, significantly increase their capacity to get things done”.
In the summary, the authors write:
“As the demands of the workplace keep rising, many people respond by putting in ever longer hours, which inevitably leads to burnout that costs both the organization and the employee. Meanwhile, people take for granted what fuels their capacity to work—their energy. Increasing that capacity is the best way to get more done faster and better.”
As I was reading this, I started to see myself appearing in the words. The last year has been immensely challenging for many of us whether you are a start-up, an SME or a large multi-national. Running what we do from spare rooms around the world, balancing all aspects life and asking “am I working from home or living at work...?”.
Crux is a small business that works with much larger clients, we put our all into what we do, and this means we regularly push the envelope to make sure we are delivering more than we promised…working early and late, working weekends, working on holidays…the lines blur. The last year has allowed us to grow and learn and its enabled us to put measures in place to make sure the foundation is stable, and we have the capacity to deliver as a team. Our focus has been on time, inputs, and outputs and how we efficiently fit them into a timeline…until now, we hadn’t considered the energy.
Another line from the summary…
“Time is a finite resource, but energy is different. It has four wellsprings—the body, emotions, mind, and spirit—and in each, it can be systematically expanded and renewed. In this article, Schwartz, founder of the Energy Project, describes how to establish rituals that will build energy in the four key dimensions. For instance, harnessing the body’s ultradian rhythms by taking intermittent breaks restores physical energy. Rejecting the role of a victim and instead viewing events through three hopeful lenses defuses energy-draining negative emotions. Avoiding the constant distractions that technology has introduced increases mental energy. And participating in activities that give you a sense of meaning and purpose boosts the energy of the spirit.”
The four key dimensions outlined in the article:
The Body - Physical energy – Avoiding peaks and valleys
The Emotions - Quality of Energy – Recognising the triggers
The Mind - Focus of energy – Distractions are costly.
The Human spirit - Energy of meaning and purpose – Finding the sweet spot
I started the think how these keys may relate not only to ourselves but directly to the functioning of our businesses as whole entities.
Avoiding the peaks and valleys:
We can all generate leads; you only have to check your email inbox these days for 10 people that will get you signed up to the ‘hottest lead gen system in the Cosmos’…
Leads are meaningless if they are not qualified, without qualification they are ‘feel good fillers’ in the CRM.
Even when they are qualified, they need to be developed and progressed towards commercial interaction. How many leads in your CRM are already projects that are unofficially awarded to your competition? Remember buyers these days are around 60% through their decision-making process before they come anywhere near anyone in Sales.
In the roaring 2020’s, its important your team have all the digital skills they need to be able to network, prospect, develop and close business all online.
Recognising the triggers:
When you can’t contact the key people in that target account…
When your phone call goes to voicemail for the 5th time this week…
When the emails are not responded to…
When that prospect that you quoted starts to ghost you,
When that deal that you needed to make quota doesn’t close,
When you are constantly late to the table only to find your competition have been there from the start…
In the roaring 2020’s, its important your team have all the digital skills they need to be able to network, prospect, develop and close business all online.
Distractions are costly:
A quote from the article…
“Many executives view multitasking as a necessity in the face of all the demands they juggle, but it actually undermines productivity. Distractions are costly: A temporary shift in attention from one task to another—stopping to answer an e-mail or take a phone call, for instance—increases the amount of time necessary to finish the primary task by as much as 25%, a phenomenon known as “switching time.”
Cold calling someone distracts them, emailing them distracts them – Do you want your team to become the source of “switching time” issues with your precious prospects?
In the roaring 2020’s, its important your team have all the digital skills they need to be able to network, prospect, develop and close business all online.
Finding the sweet spot:
A quote from the article…
“When you’re attempting to discover what you do best and what you enjoy most, it’s important to realize that these two things aren’t necessarily mutually inclusive”.
We ask our clients what they want to be famous for, some know right away but it’s interesting that so many people get stuck on this question. Think online, digital, and social and think about what you want to be famous for.
Write down around 20 words that are important to your organisation, the kind of things you’d like to think your company would show up for in searches. Run a quick check on some of the key profiles in your organisation and the content you put out…is it all aligned?
In the roaring 2020’s, its important your team have all the digital skills they need to be able to network, prospect, develop and close business all online.
"People can cultivate positive energy by learning to change the stories they tell themselves about the events in their lives. We teach them to tell the most hopeful stories possible."
The concept of managing energy and not time has had a positive impact on me. When we put the lens of ‘managing the energy’ over all of the activities we need to do to meet new prospects, share our message, generate leads, and put ourselves in the position where we are having more conversations about commercial interaction, we find the most effective and energy efficient method these days is to make sure the team have all the digital skills they need to be able to network, prospect, develop and close business online.
Thanks to Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy for their excellent article which was the inspiration for this one (link to the main article below).
Let’s connect and have a conversation.
Live Social ‘21
The science of stamina has advanced to the point where individuals, teams, and whole organizations can, with some straightforward interventions, significantly increase their capacity to get things done.
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