Well-rounded corporate athletes
It's a curious irony that the jocks have taught the nerds how to take better care of their brains.
Professional sports have understood for a while that physicality alone is insufficient. For decades, the best coaches have invested in the mental and emotional health of athletes. Gradually, the business world has come around to accept that corporate teams, too, require a multi-level performance model to cope with the grueling demands of work.
Whereas professional athletes spend just a fraction of their time performing and most of their time practicing, this ratio is reversed in business. Knowledge workers perform all year long, with typically no more than a two-week "off-season." And whereas the average professional athlete's career lasts about 7 years, in business it's 40-50 years.
No wonder so many of us struggle to keep it together.
Based on learnings from sports science, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz defined a 'performance pyramid' to spell out the sustainable sources of high performance in business. Their pyramid is based on two premises:
1/ Stress itself is not the problem. It can actually be a catalyst for growth. The real issue is a lack of recovery time. Chronic stress without rituals for renewal will ultimately lead to burnout and breakdown.
2/ Energy management is the most important variable. Individuals and teams need a stable pattern that balances energy expenditure and regeneration. They need routines that offset stress with recovery.
Loehr and Schwartz's performance pyramid has four levels:
Level 1: Physical
Our most basic energy source is physical. Exercise, sleep, and diet are integral parts of effective energy management. The standard reason for neglecting such elements is that we're too busy to make time for them. Loehr and Schwartz would say we are too busy not to.
Just as sports professionals have well-defined intervals to promote muscle rebuilding, knowledge workers need regular breaks to restore, and gradually expand, their performance capacity. Without these pauses, we become vulnerable to anxiety and the loss of concentration.
Level 2: Emotional
When you watch athletes who are at the top of their game, it's striking to note how calm and relaxed they appear in high-pressure situations. We see them in a state of "flow." These are joyful moments for the athlete, not stressful ones.
Just as anxiety and tension can cause an athlete to choke under pressure, negative emotions drain energy in business. Individuals and teams can't perform at their best when there is widespread fear or frustration. People need to feel secure and supported.
Quite often, Level 1 can bleed into Level 2, when leaders who have neglected the physical take out the consequences on those who report to them.
Level 3: Mental
Most performance improvement training has a cognitive dimension, addressing things like knowledge management or process re-engineering. Such initiatives rarely deal with focus and attention.
However, that which interferes with focus also saps our energy. In the last few years, breath work and meditation have caught on as highly practical forms of training our attention. There's growing evidence to suggest they quiet and stabilize the mind.
And yet we are still only scratching the surface when it comes to unlocking our mental capacity. Cal Newport has written extensively about how we routinely sabotage ourselves with various forms of task-switching. Unfortunately, these continue to proliferate in the modern workplace.
Level 4: Spiritual
Yes, the term "spiritual" sounds flaky. To be clear, I'm talking about having a powerful sense of purpose. This can ultimately be the deepest and most reliable source of motivation, especially in darker phases. As the German philosopher Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Those who connect their deepest values to their work are tapping into an inexhaustible energy source. Granted, this is easier said than done. Journaling, long walks in the wild, and community service can all help. So too can purpose statement exercises. A sense of purpose disrupts what Loehr and Schwartz call the "relentless linearity" of goal-oriented activity.
It's obvious the working world will continue to transform at an accelerating pace. There will be no letting up on this, and more and more people will start to hit their breaking point. In such a context, narrow interventions are clearly inadequate. For knowledge workers to survive and thrive, we need a holistic approach to energy management. Our resilience and sanity will depend on it.