Energy Management at Work

People in our organizations are suffering from clinical depression and other stress-related illnesses in unprecedented numbers.

Current statistics say that 33 percent of the North American workforce is clinically depressed, and one in two people will develop cancer.

Diabetes, immune-deficiency illnesses, and nervous-system disorders are also on the increase.

The price to the individual of working in unhealthy environments is enormous. The price to an organization of employing unhealthy individuals is also high: diminished productivity, lost potential, and the rising cost of health care (illness care) are among the more obvious ramifications.

The two most outstanding risk factors for disease, both causing stress, are lack of self-happiness and lack of job satisfaction. Not to be forgotten, however, is that there is a circular cause-and-effect relationship between individual health and balance and organizational health and balance. Just as unhealthy organizations can negatively impact the health and balance of individuals, unhealthy individuals can negatively impact the health of organizations. In great enough numbers, or in key positions, unhealthy workers can literally cost the organization its life.

I invite you to do something to turn this situation around. To enjoy health, balance, and effectiveness, organizations need action to be taken by two parties: the organization itself, and the individuals within the organization. The organization has to work at its health and balance and the individuals within the organization must work at their own health and balance. If only one party works at health and balance, it never works.

There are many paths to personal healing and to organizational healing. There is no one right path for either. You will need to find the path that is right for you and the path that is right for your organization. Interestingly, you will often find yourself doing work to achieve organizational health that is parallel to the work you are doing for your personal health. One such instance is energy management.

Think about what it has taken you to learn to manage your personal energy and to ensure that you are not wasting your precious life force through energy leakages. Personal energy management has required that you stay focused, with your attention in the present, rather than in the past or future. It required you to learn to make choices that are life-nurturing for you rather than life-depleting or toxic. You learned to leave behind victim thinking and addictions, and to develop new constructive patterns with your thoughts. You learned how to do deliberate, positive creating with your life rather than creating the life you did not want through creating by default.

To support the gains you have made in personal constructive energy management, take the topic of energy management into your organization. Speak to team members about energy management, what you have learned, and ask what your team members are willing to do regarding energy management in the organization. Suggestions you might make could include:

1. Start with a single day during which each person is committed to making no negative comments; reflect about the experience together at the end of the day and then make choices about where energy is to be focused in the future.
2. Make agreements with each other that problems may be voiced up to three times--but never more than three times. If any problem is raised for a fourth time, it should considered the making of a new addiction, and is not to be listened to.

Leaders also have a key role in the creation and sustaining of a life-nurturing organization that supports healthy individuals. Great starting points are:

1. Create opportunities for discussion among your people to raise to their consciousness the benefits of working together to create a life-nurturing organization. Invite everyone within the organization to create a list of the benefits.
2. Remembering that real change comes from the inside out, engage your fellow workers in discussions and actions to remove whatever is life-depleting and to support that which is life-nurturing for the organization to get its work done in a positive environment. This can be started by making a list of items placed in the category of life-depleting or life-nurturing.
3. Use participative meetings as a catalyst for the desired changes and as role models of energy management. Eliminate meetings that are solely for informational purposes so that people's time is not wasted in meetings. Information can be presented in other ways. Instead, use lively, interactive meetings in which participants have maximum opportunity to identify current issues, opportunities, and solutions. Encourage them to make recommendations for company leaders to consider, and to create collaborative plans or recommendations for action.
4. Implement "The Law of Two Feet," also known as the "Law of Mobility," throughout the organization. The Law of Two Feet, which is a feature of the participative meeting format called Open Space Technology, states that "If you are neither learning something nor contributing, use your two feet to go to somewhere that you are contributing, or learning." Trust people to use their precious energy wisely, and assist all involved in attending to energy management at every moment. The inevitable result is maximum productivity, born of optimal health and balance.

As you consider this, think about where you are working, where your friends are working, and where your children are working. I know that I want my children and grandchildren to have the opportunity to work in joy-filled ways, in places where their lives are nurtured rather than depleted. I believe in diligent work, in high productivity, and in healthy profits for businesses. Contrary to what has been taught in business schools for decades, I believe that diligent work, high productivity, and healthy profits can be achieved without the workforce becoming sick to achieve them. Learning about energy management as individuals and as an organization is imperative for a healthier future.

By Birgitt Williams