We are all creatures of habit.
Watch anyone as they enter Starbucks for their morning coffee, enter a conference room and watch where they sit, or where they park in the parking lot.
Have you lately looked at your habits and determined which you want to keep and which you are ready to change?
I’m working with one executive who has recently taken over his bosses job and now works directly for the CEO. He is breaking not just his own habits but company habits that his predecessor built.
* The way strategic choices are made and executed.
* The way acquisitions are evaluated and decided.
* The way his division is energized and inspired by how he interacts with all 3,000 employees.
To break these company habits, he has to change his own habits of how he influences, manages his time, and leads his organization. He is completing a reboot of how he works and the altitude he works at.
To successfully adopt new habits you need visual triggers and accountability.
I’ve recently adopted a new habit of cycling two of my girls to school each morning then cycling on to CrossFit. My cycle helmet is my morning visual trigger and my two eight year olds are my energetic reminders who hold me accountable when I’m tempted to sleep in for an extra 15 minutes and then take the car!
What habits are you ready to let go of and take on?
Where is Val?
Over the next few months I’ll be speaking at a number of events in Boston, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. I love introductions, let me know if there is an executive you know in those cities that it would be good for me to meet.
Dedicated to growing your business,
Val
P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here to get them in your inbox each Monday morning: http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/
How To Rapidly Increase Truth Telling
Think back to a time when you were about to quit your job but hadn’t yet told your boss, your board, or your company. I call this the pre-quit-power-zone, because knowing you will soon be out the door usually provides people with an explosion of self-confidence and power. Suddenly you find yourself giving feedback that you’ve previously withheld to your peers, telling the truth about misguided strategy, and offering your team parting words of wisdom about what they should do with their careers and lives.
But why wait? What if you could harness that power for yourself and your team without actually quitting your job?
An executive once shared with me that in the weeks before she finally handed in her resignation, she stopped pulling all-nighters to prepare for board presentations, shut down her voice of self-doubt, and started saying what she really thought about the company strategy. She was overwhelmed with the positive reaction and said she wished she had changed her behavior years ago. She figured she would have tripled her earning potential with the faster promotions and larger bonuses that she would have received.
Here are three simple ideas that I use with the executives I advise to create genuine truth-telling without the need to walk out the door afterwards:
1. What Do You Really Want to Say?
That is a question I often ask exectuives who call me for advice on how to handle a situation. Then I reply “Just say that; exactly what you told me.” Self-doubt is the greatest cause of self-editing. We commonly worry about how someone will react, whether our opinions are valid, or whether there will be consequences for being “contrarian.” All are a complete waste of mental energy. Start being more candid and transparent.
2. Share Your Thoughts and Your Intent
Crossed wires and misinterpretation happen when others have to guess your thoughts and intentions. When you are listening to someone else and a thought comes to you, do you share it, filter it, or mask it in another question? Don’t be so confusing! Share your thoughts and your intentions clearly to achieve crystal clear communication.
3. Encourage Speed in Your Team
When the countdown to leaving is ticking, you accelerate your plans and decisions and take bets on people in new roles. What if the next 30 days were to be your last at the company? What would you eliminate, accelerate, and decide?
There is power in winging it—in not over-thinking and being absolutely ruthless in a thoughtful way with the truth you tell. Write your imaginary resignation letter and live the next 30 days like they are the last in your company.
Dedicated to growing your business,
Val
How To Use Sleep To Increase Your Performance
Did you sleep well last night?
Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister was wrong. You cannot
survive on four hours of sleep each and every night. Your
productivity, sanity, and even health will suffer.
When I ask executives I’m working with at companies including Amazon,
Google, and Starbucks if they slept well last night I rarely hear “yes
Val, I slept great and often have the right amount of sleep”
My first daughter was not yet two when our twins were born so I know
all about sleep deprivation and how to function on minimal sleep.
Coming out of our no alarm clock summer schedule with our three kids
all back to school, I knew I needed to pay attention to my sleep so
last month I bought a Fitbit and the most fascinating insight that I
perhaps knew but didn’t want to acknowledge was how inconsistent my
sleep was. So I have been conducting an experiment to consistently hit
seven hours sleep a night.
As any parent may be able to relate to, there have been many 9pm
moments where the kids are in bed, the kitchen is back together,
lunches packed, and I have to decide if I watch TV, read, actually say
hello and talk to my husband Andy, or go to bed. For the last month
I’ve prioritized the latter, going to bed at 9 or 10pm. (Which hasn’t
been easy when we just get addicted to a new TV series like Succession
which is simply brilliant!)
Data on my Fitbit has helped me see my sleep patterns, how many times
I wake up at night, how much deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep I get
and what I need. Now I am fascinated with how what I eat or drink
affects my sleep and how my performance the next day is impacted.
I’ve also started cycling two of our girls to school, then I cycle
onto my CrossFit class, (more on that next week,) but my sleep is
impacting my cycling performance. I cycle 2 miles up hill each morning
and finally after eight rides over two weeks I could make the journey
without stopping. That I put down to my sleep.
So enough about me, what about you? Did you sleep well? When did you
consistently last get a week of seven or eight hours sleep and how did
it impact your performance? Do you know the accelerators and
decelerators for your perfect nights sleep?
Try the one hour sleep test. Add one hour to your typical sleep time
for seven days and pay attention to how you feel and what improvements
you see to your productivity.
Dedicated to growing your business,
Val
P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here
to get them in your inbox each Monday morning:
http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/