Leading with Balance Matters Now More Than Ever for Peak Performance

Enterprise leaders know that speed, agility, and innovation are the keys to success. Yet many still feel their organizations can’t move fast enough. The current pandemic is stretching many organizations in ways they never imagined.

That’s why the idea of organizational agility remains such an attractive option for so many corporations typically slowed by laborious decision-making processes and limited resources. 

Agility promotes collaborative, cooperative management and decision-making, with a mentality of transparent info sharing anytime and anywhere. It allows teams to engage, interact, and innovate faster. For many companies, this openness is a new starting point, a way to move briskly into the future and achieve shared goals. 

But there’s a human catch.

While our business models and management strategies have evolved in recent years, our understanding of how to avoid employee burnout has not. In today’s information age, we are sometimes overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data that’s flowing at us. An open, agile, always-on culture puts that into an even higher gear, especially when the majority of us are now working from home. In our 24/7 ‘integrated’ lifestyle, we are surrounded by smartphones, smart homes, smart cars … and exhausted humans. 

Whether your product is cars or personal protective equipment, a company is only as good as its people. Our employees (their brains and expertise, intuition and skill-sets) are invaluable assets. More than ever, huge value is leveraged from smart ideas and the winning technology and business models they create. Just as our businesses transform, the way we manage teams in an always-on environment must also change. 

Do This Now

As the pace of innovation and collaboration accelerates during this crisis, how do leaders cultivate people’s energy and creativity without burning them out and maintaining their humanity? Here are a few ideas, centered around the “five P’s” of what can help deliver peak organizational performance: purpose, practice, perseverance, priorities and passion:

Purpose: In my line of work, the ongoing health and well-being of our employees and our customers is our purpose. Servant leadership, selflessness and strong team accountability through empowerment are agile principles that help us advance more quickly to better serve clients at any time. Purpose-built teams, who care about each other’s well-being, succeed far more frequently than loosely coupled colleagues unaligned to a common goal.  

Practice: Einstein once said, “once you stop learning, you start dying.” Maintaining a strong commitment to constantly evolve your own skills and those of your team, helps form a foundation for a well-prepared organization that can adapt quickly to change, leveraging current skills. In this case, “proper preparation prevents poor performance,” and it contributes to peace of mind among colleagues.  

Perseverance: This isn’t about weekend ‘warriors’ who have been perceived as the sign of a committed worker in the past. This perspective encourages exhaustion and imbalance. As a team leader or executive, you may work over the weekend, but it doesn’t mean you can expect everyone else to as well. And if you are ‘leading on empty’ chances are your employees are too. Perseverance in this case is establishing common goals across the team and capitalizing on our diversity of thought and experience to tackle your greatest challenges.  

Priorities: People are often afraid to go on vacation — they shouldn’t be. Especially now. Time away from the office, especially when that office is now in your home, is as important as that spent in a productive meeting or developing strategy. When you disengage and unplug, you are also productive. And make the time off sacrosanct. You can’t reenergize if you’re sneaking in a quick glimpse of work email. You’ll be rewarded with fresh thinking when you return. In fact, many of IBM’s Master Inventors come up with their best inspirations for new patents while spending time with their families. 

A fundamental element of setting priorities is learning to say no. This can be difficult. We all want to contribute to the best of our ability. But if you’re not the right person for a task or if you have a prior commitment or competing obligation, suggest someone who is.

Passion: Leaders must be present and efficient at work. Believe in your teams and goals. Hours in the office should be quality hours, spent on focused conversations and actions related to your mission and goals. Conversations should be thoughtful and well-intentioned. Communications must have clear points or needs spelled out. 

There is a reason this is called a knowledge economy. What is between our ears counts. As we move from siloed work to agile, interdisciplinary collaboration, working with others in new ways, we must also bring a new approach to teamwork, whether it is virtual like today, or in person. Together, we can go far.