Welcome to the latest in a series of brief interviews with guest experts from KnowledgeBrief’s Innovation Programme, providing a window into the experts’ latest ideas and new advice for executives.
Following the Innovation Day in February, Dr Gavin Weeks (GW), Psychologist and Leadership Development Consultant, gave us an interview to discuss his latest insights on how we can play ‘the long game’ in the age of overload.
KB: What’s the key business challenge that organisations need to address, that your research tackles?
GW: I’m interested in a wide range of big trends, changes that are coming for the way we live and work, and how organisations and people can adapt to them. There are a lot of challenges so here’s three of the biggest at different levels:
- At the organisational level: the combination of the climate crisis and technological change – how can organisations adapt quickly to be part of the solution and how can they make the best of uniquely human capabilities as machines get more intelligent?
- At the leadership level: how can leaders help their people to focus and grow during a time of information overload? As a colleague of mine puts it, leaders need to be ‘timelords’
- At the individual level: how can we stay physically fit and keep developing, stay relevant for the long term and bring more meaning to work? This links to the bigger picture of global change and I think exploration and experimentation are crucial here.
The thing that ties all of these challenges together is what I call ‘the long game’ – getting fit for the future whilst still performing in the present. I’ve narrowed down to three main topics: fitness, focus and future growth.
KB: What advice would you give to executives, based on your findings?
GW: I’m going to concentrate mainly on the individual here, since that was the theme of my talk.
- Perhaps unexpectedly, given that I’m a psychologist by training, start with the physical foundations. Physical fitness is associated with better mental health and cognitive efficiency. Time away from the desk and from meetings allows us to think more freely and moving the body is often a way of recovering from the stresses of modern organisational life. In the long term, if we are going to be working for longer, I think we need to take much better care of our physical health. If leaders could only make one change, you could make a strong case for fostering a culture of physical fitness – in my experience, whilst most people know how much exercise people need (150 minutes per week according to NHS guidelines), it is rare for more than half of the people in a group to hit that target. On this topic, I have great admiration for Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis: despite the intensity of his job, he focuses more on managing his energy than his time, with physical fitness and wellbeing among his top priorities.
- Think seriously about attention. Executives are often spread pretty thinly, yet, strategic work demands that we think deeply and creatively. Added to that, we’re in the midst of a war for our attention online as we carry addictive devices around in our pockets all day! I think that leaders have to be judicious about what gets their attention and focus, as well as how to create environments that enable deep work and thinking.
- Development for the future isn’t always a clear, linear path. The world is complex (see our exploration of this here) and technology will continue to change the way that we work and the most valuable roles that people can play. As well as formal, focused development programmes, leaders also need to make time to follow their curiosity, and enable junior colleagues to do the same. I explore this topic more in this blog
KB: How does your latest research approach this? What do the results indicate?
GW: My ‘research’ is mainly practical. Whilst I bring research and data into the work I do, I mostly develop and facilitate leadership programmes, often using ideas about vitality and resilience at work. When I’m not doing that work, I love to read and write, so I’m researching in that way. From the many conversations that I’ve had with leaders from a diverse range of sectors and industries, they are experiencing overload – too many balls to juggle, too much information to process and too little time for deep work and creative thinking. My reflection on this is that it is easier to think about doing more but rarely do we think about what to do less of. More accurately, we might think about doing less but habits are hard to break. I have written more about this here.
KB: What did you learn or take away from meeting with the executives at the KnowledgeBrief Innovation Day?
GW: I learnt a lot. The main thing was that organisations are trying different ways to enable people to think and work deeply and to collaborate outside of typical business meetings, but that behaviour can be slow to change. There’s also a real awareness that the world of work is changing but that it is difficult to prepare people for this when it is challenging enough to keep up in the moment. Lastly, I was struck by the recognition that, when it comes to resilience and health, leaders need to be role models. There’s no point saying that we need to focus and to recognise our limitations if senior leaders are overworking and trying to do too much.
With thanks to Dr Gavin Weeks, Psychologist and Leadership Development Consultant.