PMSA Blog by Mandy Carlson: Gain vs Drain
Thursday, 02 June 2022
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Gain vs drain: some ways to promote and preserve your energy in a project and team environment.
As living systems – people and teams – we need to ensure a continuous flow of life-giving fuel to cover our basic needs to survive, and invest in satisfying our higher-order needs to thrive.
Our body-brain systems are complex and clever, and all the different parts work in synergy so that we function well [effectively].
We are extremely well-designed systems that are highly efficient but we have finite energy and need to recalibrate our energy. This is critical because in modern times we have developed behaviours that are not conducive to our wellbeing and which can jeopardise our energy supplies.
The good news is that we can intervene and shift to balance our brain and body – systems within one whole system – to feel more energised to perform certain tasks more effectively and to add a richer layer of enjoyment factor to the things that matter most.
‘The brain's most important job is not thinking or seeing or feeling or doing any of the things that we think of as being important for being human. Its main job is running a budget for your body – to keep you alive, to keep you healthy. So every thought you have, every emotion you feel, every action you take is ultimately in the service of regulating your body.’ Lisa Feldman-Barrett.
Ideally we want to set up [ourselves as systems] so that we have more than sufficient supply of energy to be most effective in our daily lives – navigating the bumps and stretching towards our dreams and what matters most.
Enhancing energy is essential for ourselves and our team [or any group including family]: -
- To avoid the extreme of ongoing stress(ors) that could lead to burnout and life-threatening diseases and reduce our capacity and performance; and
- To thrive as team with increased capacity to be physiologically and socially resilient, and increase our capability to be collectively creative and innovate, and to perform optimally.
How can we promote and preserve energy in our systems as individuals and as teams?
There are many answers to this question. Let’s consider some of the different ways to promote and preserve energy.
- Purpose energy
Research by Anthony Burrow illustrates that people with purpose are able to buffer the challenges of life and remain buoyant even in turbulent times.
Those without visibility of their purpose tend to report higher levels of distress on days when stressors are high. This means a huge depletion of their personal energy to be able to think clearly, complete tasks efficiently, and find solutions to shift them beyond those stressors most effectively.
A shared sense of purpose as organisation and team is inspirational, supportive and sticky binding people and purpose.
How can you unpack your personal/team purpose and keep it in focus?
- Mental energy
Did you know that the brain uses 20% of the body’s overall energy? And this amount can increase when we are doing extra taxing thought processing like problem solving and strategising.
Our energy is reduced when we go against our natural rhythms of sleep/wake times, movement/exercise, being still/meditating, and nutrition/hydration. In addition, constantly
dealing with destructive thought patterns or insufficient focus time where we are bombarded by distractions, or experiencing intense emotional challenges, can further de-energise us.
How can you unlock your mental energy and provide support to help your team do so too?
- Think about what brings you energy and when.
- Work simply, aim SMART, and set yourself up with the right tools, technologies, processes, systems and resources to support you and create efficiencies.
- Track what you are doing so that progress is visible as the brain is naturally goal-oriented and wants to move us toward our goals.
- While performing tasks, take note of when you experience highs and lows of energy.
- Schedule your day with the right activities and meetings at the right times with the right amount of focus and breaks to help optimise energy and raise productivity and efficiency. Problem solving, creative thinking and strategising are best at times when we can gain from the brain’s energy [like early morning] versus ‘draining the brain’ at times when energy is reduced.
- Clearly communicate outcomes or agendas to help avoid the experience of wasted effort and time.
- Social energy
Did you know we influence changes in each other’s nervous energy through interaction?
For example, by being with someone who is calm, our physiological response can become calmer through a reduced heart rate, ease of breathing, and slowing down the running thoughts to be more present. The converse is true. When a team member is agitated this can affect other team members negatively when experienced repeatedly since such behaviour may manifest itself as a threat to some or all of the team members.
In both Agile or Traditional project management environments, team leaders can encourage preferred behaviours to promote team energy through a coaching-style approach and daily reminders in meetings/messaging.
How can you create a team environment where people feel safe, and understand each other’s behavioural preferences and can adapt accordingly?
- Create opportunities where people can safely share their context: their situation/where they are coming from/how they are feeling.
- Encourage regular sharing of each other’s behavioural preferences, interactive experiences and learnings. This reveals a lot of personal context for team members to develop a deeper sense of empathy to practice both cognitive empathy: understanding another person’s thinking, and affective empathy: relating to another person’s emotions. Open sharing removes a lot of uncertainty and unnecessary social stress, and can enhance the social dynamics [relationships] of the team.
- Mindset energy
Opening up mindsets [our way of thinking and perceiving the world] to new experiences for new possibilities can positively trigger new ways of thinking and behaving, and can be a catalyst for harnessing energy.
Being mindful means being present and taking notice without judgement or worry. Building a trait of mindfulness by learning to be mindful [having insights/aha moments] is the golden thread of change, and innovation [personal development/growth], and therefore significant in changing mindsets and leveraging or creating energy.
How can you build mindfulness to raise awareness to transform your team’s energy through healthy behaviours?
- Check in with your team. When have you and your team felt most energised? What brings you that energy? What depletes your energy? Ask why.
- As a team, identify and label those behaviours that drain you, and then reframe these drains into gains by focusing attention [energy] on the behaviours you want to see more of in the team.
- In addition to continuing those behaviours that are aiding you, take a stretch further to commit to those behaviours that will add even more value [energy] to your team.
A final thought
STOP and listen to what you really need.
GO and check in. Create reminders for yourself to fill up your tank with the right dose of restorative energy. Regularly. Seek out support.
TOGETHER. Because teams are made up of living beings, whatever is good for you should be good for the team and vice versa.
About the Author:
The information shared by Mandy Carlson is done so with care and is educational without being academic for the purposes of bringing about positive change. The content is substantiated by scientifically relevant findings, as well as diverse experiential learnings of real people in their everyday lives [including the author] through the application of brain- and body-based coaching techniques.
Mandy, of carlson practices as a coach with mastery/effectiveness programmes designed for individuals, teams and leaders, as well as a facilitator of change, organisational development and learning. She is a certified Results Coach through Neuroleadership Institute as well as an accredited coach through Neurozone. Mandy is constantly learning through studies and practice of contemporary neuroscience findings, systems thinking, and positive psychology. She is passionate about empowering teams, leaders and individuals with simple tools and actionable strategies to learn and bring about lasting change for wellbeing and work/life effectiveness.
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