by Gayle Hilgendorff
We got two feet of snow in Boston last weekend. It was an all out blizzard. The city shut down on Friday at noon and reopened Monday morning. It was like Christmas Eve – “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse”. As of Friday night, if you were caught driving on the road, you were given a $500 ticket and threatened jail time. All public transportation closed at 3:30 – ALL of it. Buses, trains, subways, everything.
There was nowhere to go and nothing to do but sit inside and wait it out.
We are always dreaming of that elusive day when we have ‘nothing to do’. Yet when those days appear, we spend our time worrying about the fact that we have nothing to do but relax. It’s hard for us to shut down.
It doesn’t help that we are constantly plugged into our emails, on-line messaging systems, texts, smart phones, etc. It’s been a while since the idea of the office being ‘closed’ for the day felt like a snow day from our childhood. We can work any time, any day and at any hour from the comfort of our homes.
But this ‘luxury’ takes its toll. The human body and brain was not meant to work round the clock. To remain productive human beings, we need down time – in the form of sleep, relationship time and vacations. Heck, even some short breaks during the day to step away from your work would suffice. But we don’t feel justified to take that time.
In an article that hit the New York Times this weekend, Tony Schwartz nails what I also believe to be a major factor in our need to work constantly. He says, “In most workplaces, rewards still accrue to those who push the hardest and most continuously over time. But that doesn’t mean they’re the most productive.” I realize that to many people, if they had the tradeoff of being more productive vs. more rewarded, they might actually take the latter.
But I know for sure that productivity is the primary ingredient to impact, and impact is truly what gets rewarded most over time. And, your rewards are not just monetary. The rewards that an impact performer accrues include personal, social and spiritual.
It’s true. Working hard is great when you are truly enjoying what you do and feel like you are making a difference. Working hard sucks when you are just working hard.
But for further confirmation, I will share with you that in 21 years of serving as an HR Director for a Fortune 500 company, I have sat in many more employee evaluation meetings than I even care to count. I know what people have to do to get the highest ratings and the most coveted promotions. And I can tell you in full confidence that impact to the business always ranked over plain hard work. I know it might not always seem that way to the untrained eye, but think about it rationally. When running a business, the goals are to 1) make money, 2) provide a service to the human population and 3) grow. Growth is a key ingredient.
It’s really quite simple. Business owners think about future growth. They think about leadership of the future. They rate, rank and promote people who will be in leadership positions of the future because those people will keep the business growing. If a business is growing, it’s making money. If it’s making money, business owners are happy.
And, it’s the people who are having an impact on the business that are seen as the best potential for future leadership. Those hard workers are great too – but they will burn out. They will continue to produce a consistent work product, but never be able to convert that to business impact.
So how do you become an impact player vs. a hard worker? You take time out to renew your own resources. You choose going to sleep over finishing those last couple of emails. You choose engaging in family activities on the weekend over consistently looking at your emails on your smart phone. You choose scheduling time in your day for quick renewal activities (eating a healthy lunch, exercising, walking around the block) over those non-urgent emails.
And you take advantage of the times you are given to relax. Whether that’s taking a vacation without your computer or being shut in during a snow storm and catching up on your movie watching, taking time away from work will make you that much better when you return.
If you do nothing else…
Every 90 minutes walk away from your computer for 10 minutes. You can set a reminder in your calendar to pop-up every 90 minutes. If you are on a phone call using your computer, no problem – just stand up at your desk and do a quick stretching routine.
Gayle Hilgendorff is a certified health and leadership coach who left as a Partner in a global consulting company to found her own business focused on helping other corporate executives achieve their best, professionally and personally, through better health.
While at Accenture, Gayle was responsible for executive career coaching and leadership development programs for a global organization of 30,000 people. After a turning point in her own career, she realized that true leadership and professional success were founded on being a healthy person – mentally, physically and emotionally – not just working harder