Vacation Roller Coaster
I met up with a former colleague for a drink a few days ago. We swapped stories about recent vacations. His included roller coasters. I found it interesting and said - tell me more! He shared that he liked the excitement and thrill where he can enjoy the ups and downs knowing that he is safe.
He also mentioned his wife's comment about how she likes the vacation version of him better than regular "him". On vacation when he sees palm trees, he allows himself to relax and unplug. Standard mode of operation currently involves working long hours, checking emails after hours, and being exhausted at home.
There are two ideas that emerge here: one that he can relax when he gives himself permission, and secondly, that happens when he feels "safe". He trusts the integrity of the roller coaster. Safety is a very subjective term or feeling that is different for everyone. You may feel danger or fear in losing your job, you may armor up to prevent negative feedback from your boss (even if you like them), maybe you are afraid of backing off and not getting a promotion. Some of may be real - many imagined. The list goes on and on.
What is it about the nature of your job, work culture, and mindset that prevents you from allowing yourself to relax? Whether or not you realize it, you are in control of this. Constant-vigilance is exhausting, and I could site dozens of articles of its impacts on mental and physical health. Burnout is all over the media. You may be stressed at work AND judging yourself because you "know you should" relax and unplug and it hasn't happened. The stress is compounding.
I'm not "should-ing" you. I'm asking you to examine what is in the way to doing something you know you need, want, and deserve. In changing your attitude about time off (or simply leaving work on time) to something as being essential for peak performance, you can focus on the reasons to take your foot off the gas instead of your reasons why you “can't” or “shouldn't”.
I worked with a client this week on the same note. He was going on vacation and was debating on taking his laptop. He'd had "vacation" in June and he ended up working through it. Reasons to take the laptop this time included things such as "I don't like being blindsided when I get back into the office" and "I might be up for a promotion later this year". I asked, "What's the difference between being blindsided on Wednesday morning of your vacation or reading that email when you get back into the office on Monday?" Client response "Good point!" In examining possible promotion, he shared that if it took him working through all his vacations and not taking time off to earn it, he was pretty sure that he didn't want it. And so the laptop stayed home.
A simple exercise you can do to examine the reasons that prevent you from allowing yourself to unplug is write them down and ask yourself "What's the worst that can happen?" and assess the likelihood. Prep your team. Let them know what's in their authority and who to escalate to in your absence. Don’t over think this! It’s a simple activity, not a FMEA (that’s failure mode effects analysis for non-engineering folk). A saying that has served me well is “I don’t have enough computational sophistication to extrapolate the likely trajectory of reality.”
And as a leader, how do you support your teams getting the rest they deserve? What kind of conversations are you having with team members when you see they’ve been online their whole vacation? If you’re working to cultivate leaders, they, too, need to empower their teams in the same way.
You may also embrace time off yourself as an opportunity to learn what your team doesn’t know. Have you ever worked for someone who never took time off and then retired or left the company?
If reading that gives you heart palpitations, what contributes to that? Sometimes it is a one-time critical timing point in a project. We will file that as special cause variation. Are there common cause variation items that are "always" in the way? Weakness in the team, communication, training areas to be developed... As a leader your objective is to empower your teams to do their work. If you don't think you can leave the team for a vacation because "they need you", it may be appropriate to assess your assumption and/or examine what the team needs for greater outcomes. You'll all be happier when you can take a vacation - for a whole lot of reasons.
