I have been feeling ungrounded lately. By that, I mean that I have been exhausted and grumpy, which is not normal for me. I went into scientist-mode and started experimenting to see what would help me feel better.

I started with physical things. I adjusted my CPAP settings, increased my exercise and focused on eating more healthy foods. Those things helped me feel less tired, but the grumpiness remained.

This meant that I needed to address my intentions and core motivations. I explored what might be happening with two trusted advisors—my executive coach and my husband. Both were helpful.

My executive coach gave me a summary of the Mastering Leadership model developed by Bob Anderson that has helped me immensely. You can learn more about this model at www.leadershipcircle.com.  The main point in the leadership model is that transformational leaders experience a profound shift of mind and character as they focus on outcomes rather than problems.

When we are problem-focused, our main goal is to reduce our anxiety when a problem occurs. This is fear-based and moves us away from our desired outcome. Being outcome-based involves being driven by a purpose, translating that purpose into a vision, and fully committing to that future. This means that because there is a gap between our current reality and our desired outcome, we need to EXPECT creative tension in ourselves and our teams.

The conversation with my husband was also illuminating.  He observed that I had stopped talking about my purpose to unleash the potential of every person and wondered why I had shifted my focus.

I am still working through this and am trying to figure out how to fully commit to my purpose but already feel more grounded and know that this is a lifelong journey, not a destination.

What helps you feel grounded?

Uninterrupted time to reflect and focus is hard to come by and absolutely necessary if we want to be innovative. I think of innovation as systematic improvements to any part of our processes, services or systems and want every person on our team to feel empowered to innovate.

Knowing we need uninterrupted time to do this, our leadership team has committed to each other to block meeting-free zones on our calendars that we will all respect so we can reflect and focus.

The times we have committed to are Meaningful Mondays from 8 to 11 a.m. and Fabulous Fridays from noon to 5 p.m. 

This is how I am planning on using the time.

On Meaningful Mondays, I will use the time to write this blog, which is a reflective exercise that helps me reground and reset for the week.  Then I will give myself space to think about the most strategic and important initiatives that I need to move forward. After doing that, I will usually, but not always, identify concrete work I need to do during the coming week.

On Fabulous Friday, I will use the time to complete commitments I have made during the week. Part of this will be evaluating whether I made progress on the most important items. I will also read articles that I have collected during the week that I want to explore. This time will set me up to be able to let ideas percolate over the weekend when I can start the process over again.

We will be checking in to see whether this practice is helpful through short surveys with our team. This is an experiment that we invite others to join if possible. If it is not possible, we invite you to block Wonderful Whenever on your calendar to make sure you have uninterrupted time for reflection and focused work so that you can innovate.

One of the joys of my move to Columbus for a new job has been an unexpected friendship with a young family who I met through my church. The friendship started when they invited my husband and me to the zoo with their two young children.

We loved being with them and their children and that trip blossomed into a deep friendship with many shared meals and outings. They both just graduated, and their beautiful family is leaving to go back home to Idaho. We will miss them so much.

It would have been so easy for any one of us to not take the energy or time to connect. We all have very busy lives and we all knew that they were leaving at the end of the school year. But the friendship enriched all of our lives and I am so grateful that our paths crossed and we took the opportunity to deeply connect.

My experience is that these deep connections are rare and wonderful and don’t happen very often because they require openness, authenticity and time.

We all crave deep connections. How do you invite them into your life? How do you create them at work?

One of the most difficult things for me is saying no. This is true both personally and professionally. The volume of work, the desire to please others, and the number of interesting and great ideas makes it difficult to decide what should be done first and what should not be done at all.

DevOps has a principle that has helped me understand the cost of doing too many things simultaneously. The principle states that to get things done faster and with higher quality, you must limit your work in progress (WIP).

To illustrate why this is true, it is useful to play a simple game. I have played this game with my team and at conferences and it is highly effective way to learn this concept.

The Name Game

Each person playing the game needs to have five crayons/markers in different colors and this worksheet with 5 customer names. The goal of the game is to write the five customer names as quickly as possible after the timekeeper starts the clock.

• Round 1
  • Each player estimates how long it will take to write the five names and records their estimate at the top of the page.
  • Before starting, gather requirements:
    • Each customer wants their name in a different color.
    • Mark the desired color next to each customer’s name.
    • You must handle all customers’ expectations to their satisfaction.
    • Never keep a customer waiting because that is bad business.
    • The earlier you start something, the earlier you finish.
  • In this round:
    • As soon as the stopwatch starts, begin all customers’ projects.
    • Write the first letter of the first customer in their desired color, then write the first letter of the second customer in their desired color, etc.
    • When the first letter of each customer is written, go back and start writing the second letter of each customer in their desired color, etc.
    • Keep writing all customers’ letters one at a time in the desired color until all customers have received their name.
    • Once you are finished, check your work! Fix any names that are incorrect.
    • If all names are complete and correct, look at the stopwatch and write down your time on your paper.
  • Round 2
    • Before starting, gather requirements:
      • Each customer wants their name in a different color.
      • Mark the desired color next to each customer’s name.
      • Your organization has implemented a DevOps practice and limited the WIP to 1.
      • You are only allowed to work on one customer name at a time.
    • In this round:
      • As soon as the clock starts, you start the first customer’s project.
      • Write the customers’ name in their desired color.
      • After writing the first customer’s name, check your work. Make corrections as necessary.
      • You can only start on the next customer’s name when the previous customer’s name is complete and correct.
      • Once all names are complete and correct, look at the stopwatch and write down your time on your paper.

• Reflection
  • After playing the game, talk about the experience and examine what you learned and how you can apply what you learned to your work environment.

Whenever I do this game, people acknowledge that the ground rules in Round 1 are much closer to our normal work environment, and it is very stressful. The biggest revelation is that no one has a better outcome in Round 1 over Round 2. Round 1 takes 4 to 5 times longer for every customer, produces sloppier outcomes, and stresses out the person doing the work.

The name game shows the effect of switching when performing a simple task. The projects we ask our teams to do are much more complex with high cognitive switching costs.

I would encourage you to do the exercise with your team and ask, “How can I limit the work in progress for me and my team?”