Whether pursuing new opportunities or just weathering a storm, adapting to relentless change requires energy. Red Bull may get you through a report deadline, but you’ll need reliable, sustainable energy strategies to keep yourself and your team engaged for the long haul.
Here are three I like. Bonus – they’re all FREE!
- Energizing Work
- Appreciation
- Achievement
1 – Energizing Work
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!” you might be saying. “Work is what’s wearing me out. How can work be energizing?”
Most jobs (and teams) do not assign work that aligns with people’s strengths (or energizers). All of us have some tasks that “just have to get done” whether we like them or not, but there’s more than one way to accomplish the same task. Also some of the tasks that each of us do might be done faster, easier, and more happily by someone else on the team. Task-swapping anyone?
Don’t know your strengths? There are lots of assessment tools to help with that. (Ask me about Strengthscope)
Organizing work to enable people to spend more of their day doing work they find energizing will make your team more productive and engaged and leave them feeling more energized at the end of the day.
2 – Appreciation (aka “valuing”)
Many people are speaking and writing about this now, so I won’t belabor the point. If you find yourself skeptical, think back to the last time you got a message saying “great job”; “thanks so much!!”; or “I really liked the way you…”. How did YOU feel? A little extra pep in your step, maybe?
Hard to remember the last time that happened? Be a trendsetter and start doling out the appreciation yourself. You’ll feel better, too!
3 – Enabling Achievement
Remember that huge feeling of satisfaction and a weight lifting the last time you finished a big project – or even got through your whole to-do list for the day? If you’re reading this, you’re probably intrinsically motivated by achievement. Unfortunately, the structure of our work and workplaces often makes it harder to accomplish the work we’re being paid to do!
If you want to free up energy for yourself and your team, remove barriers to achievement. There are many barriers to achievement in the workplace, but today I’ll talk a ubiquitous one that we’re all aware of but seem to have accepted as a “cost of doing business” – interruptions.
The research is clear – interruptions are expensive. They are a great time-saving for the interruptER who’s generally seeking information (or companionship), but interruptions are a huge time suck for the interruptEE, robbing them of the satisfaction of daily achievement.
It’s not just a feel-good personal satisfaction issue. Unrestrained interruptions lead people to work longer hours or go without sleep to get uninterrupted time (see “The Time Famine” by Leslie Perlow) – or work on a presentation or research for one project while attending (and ignoring) a meeting about another.
More devices are coming with “focus” modes to minimize disruptions, but these are only useful if leadership endorses their use (DM me for more research references). In one client organization, there was an expectation that people would respond to a text or SMS message within 60 seconds. If they took longer, it was assumed they were away from their desk and risked getting dinged or having not posted an “away” message.
One of the ways to both achieve focused work time and maintain high levels of connectivity among team members is to designate “quiet time” – an hour every morning; meeting-free Fridays; etc. These can have a huge ROI in terms of both quantity and quality of work as well as staff well-being, engagement, and retention. There is no one size fits all – each company, division, or team will have to sort out what makes sense given the natural rhythms of their work.
To be clear, these strategies are not intended as “tips” or “tricks” to further exploit the workforce. The difference between talent optimization as “maximum extraction” versus “responsible stewardship” lies in the intent behind the strategy. Whatever leaders might say, their intention will eventually become visible in how they respond to worker needs. Please optimize responsibly.
Feel free to reach out and invite me to connect on LinkedIn and/or Instagram.
