I am as always surprised that the best ideas in business come from things not going well, and my workshops on energy management certainly did!
I was exhausted recovering from a severe bout of pneumonia and decided not to get a full time job for a while and to do provide some Consultancy work to allow me some flexibility to get myself back on my feet
I was started work for a small business (who shall remain nameless), who were bidding for a large contract from a fortune 500 blue chip organisation. They wanted to provide services to them and they thought that if they could provide it from 7am – midnight daily for a great price they were in with a chance of winning the bid. They failed to get it and when they asked for feedback they were asked the question – what quality of service would your staff be giving at midnight? What arrangements have you made to ensure that your staff are in good shape at that time of the day or first thing in the morning – and that was when light bulbs started to pop for me and they asked me how to ensure they would get their next bid.
Firstly who can manage time – it ticks on regardless, so many time management courses fixate on time – when frankly we can’t control it but we can decide how we use our energy within the time we have available.
I started to investigate the culture of long hours and the quality of the service that was being provided when organisations did not look after the energy of their staff or at least provide them with some ideas of what they could do to look after it themselves.
Next came the fact that many organisations were focussed on time management for work and did not seem to ‘give a fig’ (the polite way of saying it) about the time away from work. I decided I wanted to work with businesses and organisations that considered a more holistic approach and cared ‘just a little’ about the person that went home every day wanting someone to go home more than a shell of themselves.
Having identified a series of clients that just might care I then wrote a one day and a 5 day energy management programme. They were really well received, the small business I worked for adopted it and were amazed when productivity increased, collaborative working rose and people went out of the door at the end of the working day – smiling and nice, not from relief at being able to escape but with a spring in their step because they had some spring left even after the busiest days. They found that staff were more prepared to be flexible and on the family barbeque evening they ran yearly they got amazing feedback from staff’s families about how different things now were.
Am I a hypocrite writing this, do I put my own house in order all the time and manage to look after my own energy levels and keep them to the optimum – no not always but I start to notice really quickly what I need to do and make the changes to get things back in balance. That and a knowing look from husband who only has to raise his eyebrow in a particular way and I know something is out of kilter. Failing that my lovely friend is not afraid to have courageous conversations with me which then starts one of my own with myself.
It’s true that most of us teach what we need to learn the most. That’s probably why I have just rewritten a newer version of my one day workshop and can’t wait to share it with clients in my studio this March….watch out world I will be in balance again.
