One Lesson Leaders must learn from Railway Engineers

High School physics taught us why a small gap is kept between the 2 rails of a railway track. It is to allow the expansion of the steel track in the searing heat of the hot Indian days and contract again during cooler nights. Lack of a gap would cause the tracks getting deformed resulting in a disaster for the trains plying on them.

Image Courtesy : Nirmal Kumar Mandal

From the railway lines, lets cut to our professional lives today.

Our hunger to be productive drives us to budget every minute of our time. Like exercise scores we take pride in filling our calendars end to end. An empty chunk of time in our daily calendar may disturb us and just like ‘nature abhorring a vacuum and rushing to fill it’; we rush to fill it with some or the other meeting.

I have nothing against productive use of time. As a management consultant I am in the business of selling expertise and time. But yes, if I am only selling time without taking time to read, reflect learn then slowly my expertise will diminish and my mind will not expand.

I also agree that in our professional lives there are times when calendars are filled chock a block and there are intense demands on our time. The danger lies in this becoming routine. Just the way a train might get derailed if the tracks expand and buckle, prolonged periods of intense demands on time may derail your business or team performance.

The culture of keeping the ‘gap in the rails’ has to be championed by the leadership of a company and embedded in the corporate culture. There are 2 important benefits for the organization

1.    Unleashing creativity / Innovation – The little bit of space allows employees to think and reflect. It allows the mind to expand and maybe think of creative solutions. They may range from creative breakthroughs or something simple that can help solve day-to-day problems.

2.    Increasing engagement – Lets face it, attending back-to-back meetings is not exactly motivational. So giving time to reflect and think would definitely increase engagement.

So, if you are a leader of a team, I am sharing 5 tips for you to help you on this journey

1.    Label or brand this this time for you and your team members – whether its Pit stop, Pause or any other name of your choice, but you must choose a name. I like to call it my whitespace time.

2.    Please be comfortable of being on your own – I see quite a few leaders who feel that every minute of their time has to be utilized interacting with someone. And while some schedule depends on their superiors a large chunk of time goes with their teams. In fact, when there is a gap in the calendar, the easiest thing is to fill that time with a meeting with subordinates. After all, they can’t refuse. So, it starts with you being comfortable of being on your own and in your whitespace time.

3.    Do schedule the whitespace time during working hours in working days – I am sure you understand the importance of this. Your team members have personal lives too, that should not be intruded on for this. By scheduling whitespace time during working hours you give a strong reassuring message to your team of walking the talk.

4.    Please do not ask for a feedback or a report of the outcome of how the whitespace time was spent. One of the biggest ways to kill any possible outcomes of this would be to ask for a feedback or a report of outcome of the time spent by your employee. Give them the leeway for some time and sooner or later you will see initiatives and improvements both in tasks and engagement.

5.    Do not penalize everyone for a few – There may be a few team members who may utilize this time for their own personal needs. This mostly will happen in the initial stages but let it be. Most of them will get used to this and use the time productively.

And yes, like any step do not over think this on the consequences or ponder over too many finer details. Do not procrastinate by believing that the right time to kick-start would be somewhere in then near future when workload is relatively less. You know that work never ends and urgency is embedded in our professional lives. So, allocate those whitespace time slots now to your self and your team members individually.

And you will see, this small step, just like the gap in the rails will keep your business and team on track despite the vagaries of work pressure.

Wishing you and your team all success

Authors note: This whitespace time is applicable to our personal lives too. You can watch a video I had made on this by clicking the link below

https://youtu.be/15i-sZC0WrM