Happy Tuesday,

Breaking the rule and sending my blog out on Tuesday. Our topic is taking time to heal.

Last week I mentioned that when the doctor diagnosed me with a stress fracture that he then shared a plan to help me get back to doing what I wanted to do.  The first part of that plan was REST.  He looked me in the eye and said, “If you continue training and doing what you’re currently doing, you are going to cause more damage.  Damage that will be longer lasting.  You need to rest.  If you need crutches or something we can do that.” He then outlined what I could and couldn’t do for my health.  Eventually he gave me a plan to ease into running.  It felt weird resting.  It felt like I was doing nothing.  However, it was the best training move I made,  and now I feel better than I have in a long time.

What does this have to do with anything?  Think about work for a minute, how often do you give yourself time to recover?  How often do you truly unplug and do what you need to heal from a day, a week, a month, a quarter, a year of running HARD?  This rest is essential if we want to keep performing at a high level.  Now I want you to think of the doctor.  He came into this situation and did a few great things.  He saw me and my pain.  He took things off my plate (no impact on the leg).  He offered resources (crutches).  Even as I returned to running, he gave me clear parameters on what I should focus on and how long I should run in order to avoid reinjuring the leg.  Now think of work.  As a leader, are you doing what this doctor did?  Are you acknowledging where your people are mentally/physically/socially?  Are you seeing their struggle and pain?  From there, are you putting a plan in place with clear priorities that removes things from their plate?  Are you giving people the appropriate resources and support to do what they are being asked to do?  We need these all these things, not only to do our jobs, but to give us the space, freedom, and opportunity to heal and recover.

The challenge:  Are you taking the time to heal?  If you are an official leader, are you creating the space/culture and are you putting in the support, so people have time to heal and recover?

Bonus: Even if you’re not a leader, as we work on projects, we could all do a better job of finding places and spaces where we can encourage folks to slow down and work at a more suitable pace vs. sprinting on fractured legs.  I’m proud of myself, because I recently told a person, “Don’t do any more work.  This will wait, and we will be fine with waiting even though it’s late.”  I gave them permission and space to recover.  I’m also disappointed in myself, because I’ve also ran colleagues into the ground lately with some projects that were overwhelming fires that consumed so much time at work and beyond.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry