BMA eBook - Manual / Resource - Page 140
Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time •• •M ANAGING Y OURSELF
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.
a cigarette each time something especially
stressful occurred—at least two or three times
a day. Otherwise, he didn’t smoke. We taught
him the breathing exercise as an alternative,
and it worked immediately: Nishida found he
no longer had the desire for a cigarette. It
wasn’t the smoking that had given him relief
from the stress, we concluded, but the relaxation prompted by the deep inhalation and
exhalation.
A powerful ritual that fuels positive emotions is expressing appreciation to others, a
practice that seems to be as beneficial to the
giver as to the receiver. It can take the form
of a handwritten note, an e-mail, a call, or a
conversation—and the more detailed and
specific, the higher the impact. As with all
rituals, setting aside a particular time to do it
vastly increases the chances of success. Ben
Jenkins, vice chairman and president of the
General Bank at Wachovia in Charlotte,
North Carolina, built his appreciation ritual
into time set aside for mentoring. He began
scheduling lunches or dinners regularly with
people who worked for him. Previously, the
only sit-downs he’d had with his direct reports
were to hear monthly reports on their numbers or to give them yearly performance reviews. Now, over meals, he makes it a priority
to recognize their accomplishments and also
to talk with them about their lives and their
aspirations rather than their immediate work
responsibilities.
Finally, people can cultivate positive emotions by learning to change the stories they
tell themselves about the events in their lives.
Often, people in conflict cast themselves in
the role of victim, blaming others or external
circumstances for their problems. Becoming
aware of the difference between the facts in a
given situation and the way we interpret
those facts can be powerful in itself. It’s been
a revelation for many of the people we work
with to discover they have a choice about how
to view a given event and to recognize how
powerfully the story they tell influences the
emotions they feel. We teach them to tell the
most hopeful and personally empowering
story possible in any given situation, without
denying or minimizing the facts.
The most effective way people can change
a story is to view it through any of three new
lenses, which are all alternatives to seeing the
world from the victim perspective. With the
harvard business review • october 2007
reverse lens, for example, people ask themselves, “What would the other person in this
conflict say and in what ways might that be
true?” With the long lens they ask, “How will I
most likely view this situation in six months?”
With the wide lens they ask themselves, “Regardless of the outcome of this issue, how can
I grow and learn from it?” Each of these
lenses can help people intentionally cultivate
more positive emotions.
Nicolas Babin, director of corporate communications for Sony Europe, was the point
person for calls from reporters when Sony
went through several recalls of its batteries in
2006. Over time he found his work increasingly exhausting and dispiriting. After practicing the lens exercises, he began finding ways
to tell himself a more positive and empowering story about his role. “I realized,” he explains, “that this was an opportunity for me to
build stronger relationships with journalists
by being accessible to them and to increase
Sony’s credibility by being straightforward
and honest.”
The Mind: Focus of Energy
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.” It’s far more efficient to fully focus for
90 to 120 minutes, take a true break, and then
fully focus on the next activity. We refer to
these work periods as “ultradian sprints.”
Once people see how much they struggle to
concentrate, they can create rituals to reduce
the relentless interruptions that technology
has introduced in their lives. We start out
with an exercise that forces them to face the
impact of daily distractions. They attempt to
complete a complex task and are regularly
interrupted—an experience that, people report, ends up feeling much like everyday life.
Dan Cluna, a vice president at Wachovia,
designed two rituals to better focus his attention. The first one is to leave his desk and go
into a conference room, away from phones
and e-mail, whenever he has a task that requires concentration. He now finishes reports
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