Building Pyramids

As we come to the end of year, it’s not a bad idea to reflect on the year that’s passed and think of what we’re going to do differently in the coming one. I’ve been focused on improving my cycling, and learned that to go faster, I have to go slower.

If you think about the common maxims of exercise, the phrases “push yourself”, “work harder”, “you can do it!” might come to mind. It makes some intuitive sense: if I'm weak or slow, putting more effort in might help me exceed what I did before. But like many of our intuitions about the world prove to be, it’s somewhat incomplete. Pushing hard might get you results, but they’re less durable and could lead to injury and burnout. The more optimal way to get results is to mix low- and high-intensity training sets, technically known as Zone 2 and VO2 max.

Z2 training is working out hard enough to be short of breath but able to hold a conversation – it generally feels easy, almost boring. VO2 is your body’s ability to use oxygen while exercising, and you train that through high intensity workouts. A good visual representation is a pyramid: Z2 is the base and VO2 max is the height: you’re aiming toward maximum volume. Things get interesting when you see the recommended mix of time: 80% Z2 and 20% VO2. The vast majority of your training needs to be “easy”.

As I was on one of those slower Z2 rides, my mind wandered to how this logic applies to the business world. A common theme that’s emerging with business leaders is to crack a tough problem, it’s not sufficient to keep tackling it exclusively. Self-aware leaders take breaks – they go for walks, they talk to their colleagues, they read a book, they work on other problems, and return to the tough one armed with rejuvenation and potential new insight. These business Z2 activities, that keep you mildly challenged but not burned out, are the rich foundation on which creative and insightful breakthroughs are built.

And I think this can be taken even further: personal development can also be visualized as a pyramid, with the base being general knowledge and the height specialized knowledge. As one’s career progresses – becoming more senior, focusing on an ever more niche area in the business – one can’t ignore what’s happening outside of that career. Learning about many things that are not at the core of what you do is not a waste of time, but an essential part of self-development. That wide base allows you to develop context, nuance, correlations, parallels, and lessons that can be applied in your business. I believe that a major limit to how high a pyramid can be built is the width of its base, or the limit to many careers is breadth of experience outside of that career.

I’ll close with the final element of a good exercise program: rest. Your body needs time to build muscle, replenish its energy stores, clean up waste, and set you up for the next workout. Your mind is the same: it needs its breaks. So I hope you’re all taking some time off to take your mind off of work and spend it with family and friends.

Let me know what you think of this, whether you like to mix things up or keep pushing to the limit.