"Hey, Boss, I'm Not Sleeping I'm Learning"

"I wasn't really asleep I was just meditating on unconsciousness."
--Author unknown (but I'm so jealous it wasn't me)

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My experience with many companies is that, under stress, they actually increase the number and length of meetings. There appears to be a sense that if people meet more, analyze more, and crunch the numbers more, the situation will change.  One can only imagine the meeting schedule at the Big 3 automakers right now.

Consistent with this is a somewhat Western work ethic that has as part of its foundation: More Work is Always Better. I think the Pilgrims brought it with them.

My mother's ancestors came to America shortly after the Pilgrims and as a child I recall, during a close-knit family Thanksgiving filled with pumpkin pie, cranberries, and whiskey sours turkey, mom waxed poetic about how Priscilla Alden had stitched a sampler for the Pilgrim eCommerce site that said, "Thy Lifestyle Shall Be Governed By Mo' Better Hard Work." Or maybe she said 'Spike' Alden.

Hard Work, Sleep, and More Proof of What You Already Know

Either way, I'm a proponent of hard work because, with the right focus, it's how successful people become successful. (It also simply keeps a lot of people out of trouble).

And: Everyone knows how important it is to sleep. Sleep refreshes, allows the body to prepare itself for the hours ahead, blah, blah, blah. We've only known this since the beginning of recorded history. It's common sense.  That, however, doesn't stop the human condition from trying to defy what it knows to be true.

Thus, I give you what the new, socially-engineered human condition demands: Research!

From Neuroscience 2008, the words of Dr. William Fishbein,

“We remember to sleep so we can sleep to remember!”

Here 's what the research shows:

An afternoon nap could boost your associative memory skills. Dr. Fishbein and Hiuyan Lau (City University of New York) tested participants' ability to remember the English meanings of familiar Chinese characters they'd learned earlier and to determine the meaning of unfamiliar characters that shared graphical elements called 'radicals' with the learned characters. Participants who took a nap between the learning and testing phase of the study were better able to identify the meaning of the unfamiliar characters. The findings suggest that a nap helps people connect separate and discrete pieces of information and to extract general concepts. "The role of sleep in memory formation is not passive; rather, it is a period that actively fosters deeper processing of what we learned during wakefulness," said Fishbein.

How To Use This In Business

1. Giving out information at the end of a long day and then asking participants to immediately make decisions won't get you the best decision. "Sleep on it" is a heck of a good idea.

2. Design meetings so that there are opportunities for relaxation and synthesis in between sessions.

I'd like to hear from folks on this one. My recent corporate interactions around meetings have been less than fruitful. The reason? The "cost-effective" mantra is being acted out by stuffing people into rooms for longer periods of time with fewer (or in some case, no) breaks. This is designed to allegedly show efficient management. My observation is that it shows a great deal of expertise in how to stuff people into rooms.

3. Presentation development.

Putting together important presentations is becoming a last-minute affair. I just watched a client give a stack of financial data to a secretary who plugged it into a PowerPoint template so the executive could retrieve it on the way to his presentation the next morning. However, the executive will not have seen the product until he's standing in front of a crowd. He knows what he gave her. He has not had a chance to review, ponder, relax, and synthesize how the flow will play out visually.

Readers here are very much attuned to learning and learning organizations. So, I have three questions that I hope will help the community. Feel free to respond to one or more:

• Is this hunker-down, sleep deprivation approach getting played out in your organization?

• If so, what is the visible impact?

• What practical suggestions do you have that can make use of Dr. Fishbein's research?

Bonus: My friend Dr. Ellen Weber has a terrific new brain-related site at Brain Leaders and Learners.

photo attribution: http://www.caption-this.com

Comments

[Beth Robinson]

I know that we recently had an R&D staff meeting that focused on increasing communication, collaboration, and visibility. But looking at it through the lens of this blog post made me wonder a bit.

Part of communication is having group project meetings every two weeks. We've never done this before. Maybe it's team-building and will improve our ability to collaborate - or maybe it's hunkering down and increasing the number of meetings.

Part of visibility is making sure that as much work as possible gets put into some sort of completed state. Maybe it will help us focus on what's important and increase product development successes via more iteration - or mayby it's a more work is better type of thing.

I do believe that the first reason I gave in each paragraph is what my management has in mind. These actions relate to initiatives that have been discussed now and then for most of the year. It's possible that the second set of reasons ties into the timing of the implementation.

Recent blog post: Yup, We're All Wrong

[Steve Roesler]

Beth,

You are one of the most consistently clear-headed and discerning people I know.

It sounds as if the intentions are on target and meant to produce solid results. So the real trick here is to make sure that each element of the meetings is critiqued at the end with a simple "What worked well?, What didn't work so well, What do we need to do differently next time?"

If the intent is right and the format is right, then it's a matter of making sure the quality of the meetings is up to snuff as well.

Recent blog post: "Hey, Boss, I'm Not Sleeping I'm Learning"

[Meg Bear]

Love this post. I require a lot of sleep myself, always have. I feel that good sleep makes me so much more sharp and grounded. I know for myself it is critical to cement thoughts and work out complex problems. I am not sure how it can best be employed in a meeting context other than putting some break between the delivery of information and the taking action from that information.

Recent blog post: The leadership cop-out, the employee hot potato

[Steve Roesler]

Meg,

Please to know that this rings a bell with you.

What jumps out at me is the "grounded" part. Decisions made with a sense of peace about them are much desired and contribute greatly to whatever the situation. Not much good happens when there is frantic mental activity surrounding choices.

Here's to a restful and grounded weekend. . .

Recent blog post: "Hey, Boss, I'm Not Sleeping I'm Learning"

[Jo]

Academics who write every day but for .75 to 1.5 hours only, achieve 7x more than those who 'binge' (Boise).

Ericsson, quoted by Malcolm Gladwell and in an article in today's Harvard blog, found the same with top class violin players. The top class violin players also napped in the afternoon!

Recent blog post: CEO and Me

[Marsha Keeffer]

The basics - sleep, exercise, and nutrition - are often ignored when we're fearful or under stress. This post is a great reminder. We're all smarter after 8 hours of sleep than trying to get by on 6.

Marsha
http://mintresumes.wordpress.com

[Ellen Weber]

Steve, this post and discussion says it all! And the image you placed here has me laughing at it's story that bigger even than words!

When we sleep on an idea we tend to grow in places we thought we'd arrived. Did you know the research that shows we can bank sleep and pay back it's debt when too much is lost?

Thanks for the smile and wisdom packed into one delightful punch, Steve.

Recent blog post: Can you Downsize a Call?

[Robyn McMaster]

Steve, this post reminds me that I need to get my zzz's.

Recent blog post: What I Learned from Uncle Earl's Generosity

[Eric Carlson]

Steve,
Jo quotes Ericsson via Gladwell on the fact that top class Violinists nap. I would propose that low brass players are even more skilled at the processing of information via sleep, in that they tend to begin the sleep/processing stage long before the presentation phase has even ended.
I would also suggest that the only reason for the lack of studies on low brass players and napping is that no one has ever been able to keep a group of them awake long enough to provide a control group.
I'm exhausted. Time to go do some high quality information synthesis.

[Joe Raasch]

Hi Steve,

Two tips I have used to advantage:

1. Know why you're invited: Do not attend a meeting that doesn't have a pre-published agenda. I typically decline meetings that don't have an agenda.
2. Reduce redundancy: My boss and I rarely attend the same meeting. In fact, it happens just twice a week: our senior leadership staff meeting and our operations leadership staff meeting.

Ah to sleep, perchance to Blackberry...

Cheers,

Joe

Recent blog post: What Do Your Eyes See?

[Steve Roesler]

Jo,

Thanks for more data related to this. Harvard + Gladwell usually leads to more folks taking notice.

Recent blog post: "Hey, Boss, I'm Not Sleeping I'm Learning"

[Steve Roesler]

Marsha,

That line is added value for your resume clients before they head for the job interview:-)

[Steve Roesler]

Ellen and Robyn,

Does this mean that there is going to be an official nappy time at the Brain Based HQ?

Recent blog post: "Hey, Boss, I'm Not Sleeping I'm Learning"

[Steve Roesler]

Eric,

I believe that the low brass phenomenon is known only to those in low brass sections and, of course, to those musicians around them who are actually required to be awake throughout an entire concert. This is a career path that would be coveted by many if only they knew that it existed.

Perhaps we could wake you long enough to do a guest post here at All Things Workplace.

Recent blog post: "Hey, Boss, I'm Not Sleeping I'm Learning"

[Steve Roesler]

Joe, those are the kinds of straightforward, practical tips that can keep a lot of people awake and out of meetings that aren't going to add much to the mix. Thanks.