Teamership: Missing inaction
Many of us are missing inaction. Photo by devn on Unsplash
When do you do your best work?
For some of us, we do our best work under pressure. We find ourselves pulling a piece of work together as the deadline looms and it can bring out a focus that we can’t seem to recreate elsewhere - no matter how hard we try! For others, our best work comes when our minds are not fully consumed by pressing tasks. Great ideas often come as we are going for a walk, in between meetings or having a casual conversation with a colleague without a specific agenda.
It’s possible that both of these approaches are relevant to you and your colleagues. In both instances, there is a case for valuing inaction.
If we work intensely at the last minute, we know this is unsustainable. A period of intense effort needs adequate recovery or we will send ourselves down the path of burnout. If we need cognitive and calendar space to create something valuable, there is a need to create that space.
As I mentioned last week, the challenge many leaders and teams are facing is that they go missing in action. They are busy and overcommitted. As a result, they are missing inaction. They are missing cognitive and calendar space without a specific outcome attached. It feels like we are being lazy like it is a luxury or like it’s not the best use of our time.
The opposite is often true. Inaction is an important component of resilience. Having spare capacity is an important element of achieving resilience across our multiple teams. We can’t adapt to the inevitable additional or new challenges if all of our energy, attention and time is being consumed by existing demands.
Inaction can also be an engaging experience. In fact, a recent study highlighted by the British Psychological Society points to the value of inaction. It found that “we consistently underestimate how enjoyable and how engaging just thinking can be.” We undervalue it, so we choose to do something else - like send another email, have another meeting or cross another task off our list.
There is no simple solution to this. I have had the current school holidays earmarked for some deliberate inaction and struggled to make it happen as various commitments have arisen. Awareness is the starting point. I realise now that creating large spaces is valuable and so too are the micro breaks that I can build into every day, week and month along the way.
Here are some questions for you to consider this week.
Are you missing inaction?
How do you give yourself cognitive and calendar space?
Would inaction help you show up better in your roles across teams?