Better collaboration, well-being and productivity by empowering yourself and your people

Regardless of whether you are a manager of an SME or a CEO of a large organization:

the way you and your company deal with change or crisis is enormously under your influence. Your personal energy management will drive this for your people and organization.

In this newsletter article:

> The numbers: ROI of building the human capital of yourself and your people? click here

> How exactly do you do that? Strengthen your human capital: click here

> Why Personal energy management as CEO, manager, manager? click here or watch the video here

One person can handle change better than another, but it always requires an adjustment and this requires cognitive/mental energy. Ideally, we rest more during change to nourish our brain for all these adjustments and decisions. In reality, however, change usually means the opposite: stress and workload increase and there is less time for relaxation or fun things such as hobbies or time with loved ones.

A call for managers and managers to first manage their own energy, and from there, that of their business and people.

Personal Energy Management as a manager/CEO starts with managing your five personal batteries of well-being and your five organizational vitality batteries. You'll hear more about it in this video.

Recharge yourself, your people and your organization

As a manager, your own well-being is always related to that of your organization and people. This is why, in addition to your five batteries of well-being, there are also five other batteries of organizational vitality. You can see this depicted in the image of our "House of well-being and productivity".

Charged batteries provide a strong foundation: your work resilience, performance and capacity for change is high.

Moreover, a good result comes from a well-functioning house: the smoke from the chimney symbolizes good personal productivity and contribution to achieving the organizational goals together. To achieve this, the workload must be at a good level: not too low, otherwise you will get a bore-out, but not too high, otherwise there is a risk of burnout. In other words, the roof of the house, which symbolizes the workload, should not weigh too heavily on your shoulders

House of well-being and productivity, copyright House of Vitality

How exactly do you do that?

Ask yourself the following questions:

HRM & career well-being

Are people satisfied with a fair wage, acceptable working hours and workload, and do they receive sufficient training opportunities? Do people have sufficient autonomy and "their say" in how they perform their job?

Mission vision; strategy and meaning

Is the mission, vision and strategy clear and inspiring for the people? Do they know what they work for and how their job contributes to achieving the larger organizational objectives? Is the work meaningful and valuable to them personally?

Culture and social well-being

Is there a good atmosphere in your team of openness, trust, transparent communication and helpfulness? Is there a shared culture in your company of “this is the way we do things around here,” where everyone is pulling in the same direction?

Leadership, communication and psychological well-being

Is there management presence at the workplace, e.g. a frequent short visit and word? Is there smooth communication between different departments, for example do they have the right contact person to complete a project properly? But also: do people receive sufficient attention from their manager for their well-being and how well they feel. Do they feel support, acceptance, help and guidance for who they are uniquely?

Operational processes, systems, procedures and physical well-being

How smoothly can you and the people do their jobs without too many practical and operational problems? For example, is the necessary information shared on time, clearly and collectively so that people can work well together, perform their jobs correctly and be on the same page?

Do people also receive the right tools, such as a good internet connection, but also an ergonomically adapted workplace and technical tools to do their work properly and without physical complaints?

Correlation batteries, employees and organization

The batteries on the left 'employee well-being' and on the right 'organization vitality' are not necessarily correlated, but it is an easy way to shape them in the visual and discuss them together in terms of examples. It is therefore not the case that if your HRM practices are high, the career well-being of an individual employee will be high, or vice versa. However, in terms of conceptual discussion, they are easy to cluster together.

The idea behind it is that a fundamental fact such as your physical ability to do your work on an individual level is the same as the organizational equivalent of a foundation in operationally smooth processes. A higher-order element such as "purpose" is then similar to an organizational higher-order element such as "vision, mission, strategy", "inspiring communication" and "clarification".

We do see that organizations or people who do not get around to the basics of physical or operational matters will often also have problems devoting sufficient time and energy to higher-order matters. However, this is not a certainty.

The bottom batteries are therefore not necessarily more decisive for work resilience, well-being or productivity than the top ones. On the other hand, "purpose" appears to be one of the most important factors. While psychological well-being often turns out to be the 'most difficult' thing to maintain during a crisis.

“Thanks to Personal Energy Management, I no longer push myself as a business leader to an unattainable maximum, but I shift my goals to what gives me satisfaction.” (4)

Interchangeability of the batteries

You can also compensate for the loss of how well you feel (physical pain or psychological discomfort) because you really enjoy your work (you can use your talents and this gives you energy and you can work for a goal that you find extremely meaningful). The batteries are also interchangeable in other ways. You can compensate for loss in an area, such as not really enjoying your work or difficulties with cooperation in your team, for example by ensuring very good health and that your working hours and location make it possible to maintain a lifestyle. lead that gives you enormous energy and joy.

Spiritual well-being: giving meaning to your business

A concrete example of the interchangeability of the batteries comes from my original article during corona for business managers who are having a very difficult time psychologically.

A concrete tip for those who are less or no longer interested is to reframe the situation so that you rediscover meaning or purpose: "What do you live for? What do you work for? What choices do you make and for what?"

In addition to your IQ, it is best to use a large dose of emotional and spiritual intelligence (EQ and SQ). In the cases in my environment of business managers who were on the brink of illness or burnout, this is a welcome pause and an invitation to reassess how much this business still matches their life purpose.

For example, you can ask yourself questions such as: “ What will help me and my loved ones to live a healthy, happy and meaningful daily life?”

Perhaps the financial loss can be compensated by a better life with more quality of life and less focus on business success?

Good choices that are sustainable and make you happy require a degree of emotional intelligence, with which you empathize with yourself and others and respond well to those feelings, as well as spiritual intelligence, with which you decide what makes sense and what is of value to you. is.

Too often, our choices depend solely on rational questions, such as: “ What will help me achieve my goal (e.g. income, growth) next year?” However, a healthy person in a healthy body with a brain that can "breathe" uses its IQ, EQ and SQ. This requires connections between the left and right brain hemispheres and between different parts of the brain (reptile, limbic, neocortex). You can train this by, for example, asking yourself and your people questions about this visualizing meaning or desired future perspectives, but also meditating introspectively.

This changes your brain towards more empathetic communication, better stress coping and more resistance to negative moods (1).

Spiritual well-being can therefore partially compensate for difficult psychological, physical or career well-being. Below you can see all batteries listed with their meaning.

What is strongest for you at the moment? What needs help?

🎯Strengthen the well-being of the CEO or manager & the people pay off.

Focusing on your energy management and therefore that of your people and organization pays off.

1/3rd to 50% of both employees and C-levels are constantly or often exhausted, stressed and overwhelmed - 1/4th depressed. (Deloitte-'22)

Research shows that health-conscious managers can effectively make a difference and strengthen the well-being of themselves and their people (3).

However, 81% of top management think they are health conscious, while only 31% of their people agree. Similarly, 91% of top management believe they truly care about their people, while only 56% confirm this. (Deloitte 22)

A point of attention is therefore to increase your awareness as a manager or manager through your personal leadership. From there you can influence your people so that they effectively see that you invest in their well-being and also believe this. From there the positive effects will flow, the ROI of your investments and efforts in their well-being.

Focusing on well-being can help your organization achieve savings of up to 12.6% of your turnover, increase productivity by 1.45% and reduce absenteeism and turnover (PWC '22).

In addition, increasing the well-being of the CEO or manager will have an exponential effect on the company's results through the increase in productivity (5&1).

For example, research shows improvements in personal productivity and performance of up to 45% by focusing on health and well-being with personal energy management (6).

More specifically, the investment in personal well-being, especially for CEOs, will more than pay for itself, due to the enormous impact on company results:

For most employees, an increase in productivity has a limited effect on company value. A CEO has a multiplier effect (5).

Research also shows that everything starts with a good scan (2). A good analysis of what exactly is bothering your people is essential for a high ROI on your wellbeing investment.

“Thanks to this scan, we can fulfill our promise to the people for the first time ... now we have a group that likes to work and also works much more efficiently.”(4)

👉Would you like an introductory conversation about:

an in-depth scan of your organization
how you can strengthen your personal leadership and from there your organization and people?

“The results from the scan are immediately usable……… together we convert points for improvement into action points and help realize them.” (4)

"The most positive experience was the open and confidential conversations." (4)

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with kind regards,

Sharon

"If I had used this book earlier, I probably wouldn't have given up my management job. This book is a "must have" for anyone who wants to get the best out of themselves." — Tatjana Vandenhouweele, former IT manager Daikin Europe NV

"This book provides crystal-clear insights into the most recent data about the brain and communication. Highly recommended" ― Dr. Luc Swinnen, Stress Management Consultancy

"The Personal Energy Management exercises make me softer and calmer." - Philip Vanwynsberghe, owner VB Parts Hydraulics