There's great new research that shows we get our best ideas - the spark of innovation, insight and creative thinking - when we're well rested, in a positive mood and on a break. Our brains have two thinking systems - focused, good for analytical, concentrated work - and diffuse - that's the expansive, spacey, mind-wandering where our brains can actually make connections and leads to out of the box thinking. We need both to be both truly productive and innovative - which is exactly what companies need in this increasingly knowledge-based economy.
And new, rigorous research on the health effects of burnout and work-life conflict show that when workers feel overworked, they're sicker, they make more mistakes, they're less motivated, more depressed and more likely to leave - so that's a huge cost to business right there. So much for the always on Ideal Worker.
FAN lecture, where I heard Brigid, New Trier High School
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I think it's important to say that I'm a big believer in hard work. This isn't a call to slack off. But it is a call to be smart. To work effectively. (Believe me, I'm a recovering workaholic - so I'm trying myself!) And if we work effectively, you'll get saner schedules, which will not only help families better handle the demands of work and life, but lead to more gender equality. Because right now, men are able to work more hours, because women are still seen as primarily responsible for all home and child care and elder care duties. If work becomes more about performance, rather than hours, if home tasks and caregiving become more fairly shared - you've got the beginnings of a HUMAN, more egalitarian society.
And I saw hopeful signs in companies large and small and even at the Pentagon! In the middle of two wars, the policy shop implemented a flexible work policy and began to retrain the culture to value work product, rather than long hours. The effort was led by two young fathers and seen not only as a work-life issue, but a human capital and productivity issue. The work got better. People saw their kids, volunteered in classrooms, went to the doctor. I mean, the title of the chapter where I recount that story is called, "If the Pentagon can do it, why can't you?" I mean, come on!
I just heard from Rich Sheridan, the head and founder of Menlo Innovations, a company I profile in the book, who founded his company based on the principle of Joy. They don't allow telecommuting, preferring an intensive, collaborative facetime culture. But Rich wants people to be fully authentic. He believes that when people have time for their families, their lives, their interests outside of work, they'll come to work refreshed, well rested, and have had time for that "diffuse" thinking that leads to creative connections.
He also allows people to bring their babies to work, a program they've dubbed "Menlo Babies." There are six current Menlo babies with two more on the way. This is what he wrote to me this morning: "I can't help but wonder if we are having so many babies at Menlo because we've made it so natural for them to integrate into the current lives of the parents."
I also spent time at law firms blowing up the billable hour culture and practicing in an entirely new way - they call themselves The New Normal. The key is that each company in different industries figured out what worked best for them - their culture, their business model. But the best and most successful made it company wide. That's something that Millennials are certainly pushing. And I find it so refreshing that we're no longer talking about this as a "mommy issue." It never has been.
I've continued to search for innovations and solutions and companies doing interesting things as a staff writer at The Washington Post - and I found a really cool start up company in Portland, Oregon that has figured out how to streamline communication, set strategic plans, minimize interruptions and get five days worth of work done in four. What I found fascinating about that was finding research out of Harvard that found that 95 percent of all start ups fail. We like to think of Silicon Valley as leading the way in work culture - and it's true - they have "20 percent time" for exploring creative projects without fear of failure, they have cool work spaces where you'd want to move in and live - and that's part of the problem - people DO practically live at work. And with a 95 percent failure rating - I think it's time to ask - what's all that work in the service of? Some studies have found that they're more about proving one's macho and bad project management - operating in crisis mode that require hero hours - than truly necessary to do excellent work.
the other thing I find hopeful about Millennials - I wrote a piece I called The End of the Corner Office - about how office spaces are redesigning to be much less hierarchical and flatter - which fits with how Millennials want to work. And the spaces allow for working in different areas, collaborating and technology for people to work from wherever they feel they can work best. But this is most interesting - surveys show that what Millennials want is really what we all want. We just never thought to ask for it, or thought we could. As much as technology has contributed to feeling overwhelmed, I do feel like it's part of the answer for getting out of it as well. So I find that very hopeful.
JB: I admit that it is encouraging. What haven't we talked about yet that you'd like to before we wrap this up?
BS: One thing: Go Play!
The Greeks said, far from being soft, fluffy, unnecessary or stupid, leisure time, time to reflect,to be and not do, is that place where we are most human. It's the time of flow. And play, something that we do in our leisure time, helps us humans, unlike any other species, to create the space for us to imagine - a future, possibilities, dreams - to wonder. Play shapes our brain - we learn to adapt, to be flexible, to create. And that, in turn, leads to adaptive, flexible and creative civilizations. It is in that third space, in leisure, where we dream a better future, and come back to work, to love, and make it real.
JB: Thanks so much for talking with me, Brigid. This is such a relevant topic for so many of us, for our quality of life individually and as a nation. I hope Overwhelmed gets a huge amount of attention and sparks a national conversation.
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