Company Blog

There’s a lot of research that shows that a nap at work increases productivity (The Simplest Way to Reboot Your Brain by Robert Stickgold, HBR Oct 2009, p 36, http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/web/2009/health/simplest-way-to-reboot-your-brain)

In our knowledge-based economy which depends on sharp minds, a few minutes of shut-eye can be good for business. It’s known that sleep boosts memory and that a nap with REM sleep improves people’s ability to integrate unassociated information for creative problem solving. Important memory processing occurs as you’re falling asleep. The brain appears to be “tagging” memories of unresolved problems for subsequent processing.

Some organizations have implemented a pro-napping policy. They have nap rooms and nap pods.

So, what do you think? What would you do if you saw a staff members asleep at their desk?

Personally, I won’t be installing sleep pods in my company. I take a more holistic approach regarding work/life balance. I advise people to come to work to work, come refreshed and motivated, sleep well, eat well, exercise, put everything into perspective, seek support, don’t burn out and be consistent and balanced in their approach.

What do you do to encourage your staff to remain refreshed throughout the day?

Following on from the previous article “How do you add value as a leader?” we are going to focus on how a leader should be spending their time.

Leadership is time-intensive. There’s not enough time to do everything and an effective leader must prioritise.

Patrick McKenna and David Maister (First Among Equals. 2002. The Free Press) have listed their top tips.

1. Spend unscheduled, informal time with individual people, serving as coach and helping them develop themselves.
2. Be active in the development of junior people by suggesting new assignments so that they can build their skills.
3. Connect with customers, grow relationships and monitor customer satisfaction.
4. Help team members differentiate themselves in ways that clients recognize and value.
5. Help your people stay current with the trends affecting the industry.
6. Monitor performance and results with group members and discuss results with them.
7. Devise methodologies to capture and share knowledge.
8. Help your group to explore new and innovative ways of using technology to better deliver services and reduce costs.
9. Spend time recruiting, interviewing and attracting new staff members.
10. Spend time following up and actively helping colleagues execute their planned activities..
11. Initiate and plan regular meetings to collectively plan activities and initiatives.
12. Conduct formal performance appraisals with senior people.
13. Conduct counseling sessions with people on the basis of these performance appraisals.
14. Celebrate individual and team achievements – both the minor wins and the major successes.

There are many activities a leader feels that they should be spending time on, however to be truly effective it's important to prioritise and the above list provides guidance.

You’ve just been promoted to Project Leader and now you are managing a group of people. Your previous colleagues report to you and the dynamics have just changed. They treat you differently, they want different things from you, so how do you respond?

Patrick McKenna and David Maister’s book “First Among Equals” is an excellent management text on managing a group of professionals and is recommended reading for new leaders.

Being a leader involves a different mindset in terms of what you do and how you do it. You need to be energetic and optimistic and create shared communication within your team. Your job as group manager is to help your people succeed and to assist with the overall performance of the team, not just your individual performance.

This transition can be very difficult, and the key is to appreciate the importance of both skill and attitude. Leaders need to be able to influence other people without dominating them, and this is a skill that can be taught. Leaders also need to be willing to focus on the success of other people. This change in attitude can be confronting for many. It’s no longer all about you. It’s about us and them.

The role of the leader is to create energy and excitement in the team and a large portion of your activity should be aligned to raising enthusiasm and excitement and hence performance.

To be successful as a leader focus on what excites each of your team members and not only on what excites you.

So, what drives the people around you?