Sleeping Your Way To the Top

Many top performers have quietly discovered the same secret weapon: 

consistently getting eight hours of sleep.

Time and time again; we've learned that our brains go to work as our bodies rest - thinking differently than they do when we're awake:

• Broadening the tunnel vision that develops after concentrating on something for a long time.
• Making new connections among previously unrelated ideas and memories.
• Practicing and ingraining recently learned concepts and skills.
• Strengthening our ability to sustain our attention span and engagement when we're awake.

Although aggressive company cultures laud 24/7 availability and Type-A personalities boast about getting by on just a few hours of sleep, research has demonstrated that the less sleep you get the worse you perform. 

The National Sleep Foundation reports that Americans are averaging only 6.9 hours of sleep a weeknight - and think that they're getting by just fine.  But, in fact, they're not

 Thinking as clearly,
 Learning as quickly,
 Coming up with as many new ideas,
 Or performing as productively as they think they are.

They've simply lost their edge.

Unlike resilient achievers like Arianna Huffington, who have learned how to "Shut your eyes and discover the great ideas inside us."

Take Your 'Swing Thought'

You'll communicate with more impact when you are crystal clear about

-  What you're trying to accomplish, and

-  How you need to show up to accomplish it.

Author Scott Eblin compares creating this clarity to the "swing thought" professional golfers practice before taking a shot, mentally rehearsing their process and outcome.

When communicating, 'what you're trying to accomplish' includes more than just your point of view, and the points you'll make to support it.

It also encompasses how you will convey your points:  the energy, emotion and body language you'll bring to bear.

'How you need to show up to accomplish it' includes envisioning what you want others to be thinking and feeling, during and afterwards.

And what they need to know or experience beforehand for this to occur.

For example, watch how Sir Ken Robinson and Raghava KK prepare for and deliver their successful TEDTalks. 

See if you can spot these considerations, and pick up a few additional pointers, during this 11 minute insider's glimpse: "Behind the TEDTalk 2010."

Communication is a life-force running through leadership and innovation.  Take your swing thought, and then enjoy the exchange.

Speaking Like a Leader

In the English language, we expect the subject at the front of the sentence ... how often do you begin sentences with "I"?

Leadership is not about the leader. It's about challenges, opportunities and empowerment. It's about the people to whom you're speaking.

As communications expert Phyllis Mendell points out:

- The Gettysburg Address contains no "I" statements.

- Tony Blair's brilliant 3,500 word "A Fight for Liberty" speech used the word "I" only 1/2 of 1% of the time.

- Even Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech used the word "I" to give a voice to the stories and aspirations of his audience. He wasn't just speaking about himself.

A stronger way to talk and write replaces "I" with the shared topic of interest, followed quickly by an action that relates to it.

This shifts the focus to what's most important, often increasing brevity and clarity.

Notice how the focus shifts when Ralph Nadar's statement:

"I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."

is simply edited to,

"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."

Intelligent Memory

Conventional wisdom says that turning off our analytical, logical left brains and turning on our creative, intuitive right brains helps us come up with new ideas.

After all, Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize for his right/left brain theory.

But Eric Kandel also won the Nobel Prize - for research disproving Sperry's theory. Kendal found that we don't think with a two-sided brain. We use recall and learning, throughout our whole brain, as we exercise "intelligent memory."

A strategy+business article explains:

From the moment you're born, your brain takes things in, breaks them down, and puts them on shelves.

As new information comes in, your brain does a search to see how it might fit with other information already stored in your memory. When it finds a match, the previous memories come off the shelf and combine with the new, and the result is a thought.

The breaking down and storing process is analysis. The searching and combining is intuition. Both are necessary for all kinds of thought. Even a mathematical calculation requires the intuition part, to recall the symbols and formula previously learned in order to apply them to the problem.

When the pieces come off the shelf smoothly, in familiar patterns ... you don't even realize it has happened. When lots of different pieces combine into a new pattern, you feel it as a flash of insight, the famous "aha!" moment.

To mine "intelligent memory" when your team needs better ideas:

Together, define and describe your challenge.

Separately, everyone researches, "Has anyone else in the world ever made progress on any piece of this puzzle?"

Continue this treasure hunt, alternating work with relaxation to encourage the subconscious use of intuition.

Bring your ideas back to the team. Work together to highlight, experiment with and improve the best ones.

Here's to your next "aha!"

Today's Work

What percentage of their time does your team spend doing things they know will be effective?

How much of their time is spent finding better ways to do things?

What's the balance of time you spend on each?

Sustaining success is a good outcome, it's just not good enough to stop there.

The question that shapes the work of today's leaders is, "Is there a better way to do this?"

The answer is almost always "yes."

Asking the question regularly increases the odds that you'll find increasingly powerful ways to do so.