"We live in a gray zone, constantly juggling activities but rarely fully engaging in any of them….The consequence is that we settle for a pale version of the possible."
- Be Excellent at Anything, page 5
"The higher the demand, the greater and more frequent the need for renewal."- Be Excellent at Anything, page 51
If you connect with one concept in the book, if you adopt just one new practice in hopes of impacting your ability to perform, the idea of “sprints” and “waves” of work and renewal is the biggie. Rooted in the understanding that our physiology operates on rhythms and pulses, the idea is that our bodies AND our minds are designed not for the marathons we tend to attempt every day, but rather for a regular “pulsing” between expenditure and renewal of energy. Based on meeting the need for physical energy (“sustainability”), Schwartz and his team have identified 90 minutes as the optimum amount of time we should work before taking a renewal break. Specific recommendations include mid-afternoon naps (!), exercising in the middle of a workday (rather than early morning or end of day), frequent healthy snacks to stabilize blood sugar, going to bed early to ensure sufficient (7 – 8 hours) sleep and taking regular vacations. Worthy of note is the idea that the key to effective renewal is not how long we do it but how well we do it – like anything else, we get better at it if we practice systematically. I personally am very much in favour of practicing sleep and vacationing until I’m really good at both.
For leaders, the adoption of the “pulse” idea organizationally includes potentially huge culture shifts such as no longer evaluating contribution based on time spent, scheduling shorter meetings, creating space for lunch and mid-day breaks, and actually encouraging people to go on vacation (without staying connected to the office, because if they’re still on email they’re not on vacation).
"…the feeling of being personally criticized… appears to take the greatest toll on our bodies and on our ability to think clearly."- Be Excellent at Anything, page 138
Based on research into the human response to negativity, disrespect and exclusion, Schwartz and his team identified the second need – emotional energy, or “security” – and the suggested practices for both individuals and organizations that can help ensure that need gets met. Awareness is the first step – noticing the triggers that cause physical responses to negativity such as rapid heartbeat, queasiness or muscular tightness. From there he suggests analyzing the difference between the facts of a situation and the “story” we tell ourselves about it, in order to discover what’s real about the threat and what we’ve fabricated. Extrapolate those practices into organizations and consider the impact of criticism, crisis thinking, territory battles and gossip on productivity and performance.
Schwartz encourages direct and timely handling of difficult situations so the effect of stress is minimized – a practice rarely well-developed in organization, in my experience. Beyond that, Schwartz cites the practice of appreciation as being one of the key behaviour changes he encourages when working with executives. Connecting with our own sense of gratitude has inward benefits, and communicating that gratitude benefits others, making the practice incredibly powerful. What if you were to adopt the practice of making a gratitude list at the end of every day? Or sending a thank you note at least once a week? Schwartz suggests that these small, simple practices can be transformative.
"…no factor influences productivity more directly than people’s capacity for absorbed attention."- Be Excellent at Anything, page 36
How often is your automatic response “busy” when you’re asked how you’re doing? If we’re constantly reacting to urgencies and stimuli, what are the chances we’re bringing our best intellectual and creative capabilities to bear? The third need that we have to meet in order to be fully energized, according to Schwartz, is the need for mental energy – “self-expression”. The route to getting that need met involves turning off email for focus periods, understanding and creating circumstances where we can work in “flow,” getting clear on priorities and cultivating higher quality attention. Developing a reflective or meditative practice can be part of increasing your ability to focus, as can working on your listening skills and doing creative exercises to work the less-used right side of your brain.
The fourth energy need is the hardest to meet, particularly in business. Spiritual energy, or “significance” requires paying mindful attention to your values and working in alignment with those values as much as possible. Being part of a community helps, as does the knowledge that you’re working on something beyond your own self-interest. At minimum, committing to doing the “right” thing rather than the “expedient” or “easy” thing can support getting this critical and tough to meet need handled.
It would have been easy to write this summary with a dozen or more “Insights” – there are that many big ideas and actionable recommendations in the book. That said, so much of what Schwartz outlines seems so obvious and so necessary, it seems illogical that so many find it so difficult to live and work the way he suggests. So what really is in the way? And how risky would it be to change some of our habits towards those that have been deeply researched and proven to just make more sense for anyone who wants to live and work at their peak?
Tony’s most recent book, “Be Excellent at Anything: The Four Keys to Transforming the Way We Work and Live,” was published in May 2010 and became an immediate New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. His previous book, “The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy Not Time,” co-authored with Jim Loehr, spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into 28 languages.
