Is complacency killing your productivity and performance?

Chances are if you’re in the habit of rushing through your workdays at breakneck speed, pulse pounding, mindlessly shifting from one task to another, it’s not your own doing. (At least, not yours alone.)

These behaviors are conditioned within us—they stem from pervasive standards, practices, and expectations throughout organizations. Busyness and urgency have become the norm, leaving us complacent and unaware that there’s any other way to operate.

In the following excerpt of my new book, A Minute to Think, you’ll meet a couple of real-life managers who were victims of this paradigm.

           “The Peanut Butter Manager” - excerpted from A Minute to Think

Peanut butter is not on the typical office supply list. But for Mindy, a handy jar of chunky is just as critical as a headset—because Mindy does not eat lunch. This bright-eyed woman loves the work she does as a top salesperson supplying I.V. nutrients to medical patients too ill to eat. After growing her pipeline and clients, she was rewarded with a promotion at work, which, she explained to me, became a demotion in her life. Her schedule, which was previously rock-and-roll busy, now became crushing. Every second at work counted and there were none to spare. Since lunch seemed, in her words “so foolishly wasteful,” she began to work with an ever-present jar of Skippy on her desk to keep her blood sugar up. (Ironic for a professional whose entire focus is helping sustain her end-users with the vital nutrition they need.)

And then, the lack of space began to take an incontrovertible toll on her and her team. Errors in her group’s processes began to surface in client-facing situations. Her health deteriorated, leading to constant headaches and insomnia. This dedicated team was hollowed out and spending all day, every day just getting back to even.

And then there’s Pete. Pete knows a lot about the interactions of flames and oxygen from his thirty-year history of fire and rescue service and his training as an EMT. He also knows a lot about managing pressure since he used to conduct “stress inoculation” exercises for first responders, putting them through progressively more difficult scenarios to prepare for life-and-death assignments. In using these techniques personally, he felt he’d gotten to the point where he was able to “just drive through complex issues that normally would just completely debilitate someone else.”

But when a huge company bought his smaller one, for which he was a regional manager, the new stress was too much for even this powerfully protected man. He began to get 80-200 emails per day and was saddled with an unforgiving boss who sent emails at 11 pm on Sunday night and expected immediate answers. His work life and home life became blended, he said, “like a shuffled deck of cards.” Pete ended up in the ER with trouble breathing in the night from stress. And he broke our hearts with his response to the last question we ask in every interview, “Is there anything else you would like to add?” Pete thought for a moment, and said, “The only thing I’m trying to figure out is when is it going to stop?” 

 ***

I’ve met countless business professionals and leaders just like Mindy and Pete. And the astounding thing is, many would not even admit to having a problem. As a society, as members of a company and as individuals, we have resigned ourselves to accept that this is “just how work is.”

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

To snap yourself and your organization out of this performance-killing complacency, pre-order a copy of A Minute to Think—plus join my VIP Early Reader Club for exclusive perks.

And don’t forget to take The Busyness Test (and share it with your team!) to measure your approach to busyness and learn actionable tools for how to uncover more white space in your workday.

When implemented on an individual level, white space is a wake-up call for those who have grown complacent—at an organizational level, it’s a game-changer.