by Dr Trish Riddell
I have recently moved house and have gone through the stress of dealing with all the hassles and decisions that have to be made along the way. I noticed that, on some days, dealing with a whole host of hassles was easy and actually quite enjoyable. But there were times, especially towards the end of busy work days, where I just felt that it was all too much, and I never wanted to make another decision, or chase another solicitor, again! In fact – I wanted to escape to a comfy chair with a good book and a bar of chocolate! The challenges were no greater, but I just felt I lacked the resources at that point in time to deal with them. While conducting some neuroscience research on a leadership course with colleagues at Ashridge Business School, I learned a lot about why this might be …
Each decision we make, whether it is which house to buy or whether to have fruit or a chocolate biscuit with our coffee, uses up a limited resource within our brains. This can be described as having a rechargeable decision-making battery that is used up during the course of a day. Making decisions that use up charge is known as ego depletion. Some people will have decision-making batteries which are the size of the battery, say, in a mobile phone. This will probably last a couple of days without recharging, so long as you don’t use it too much. Others will have a decision-making battery the size of a car battery. It will last much longer before needing a recharge.
There are three important consequences of having limited decision-making batteries. The first is that we can use this knowledge to plan when we might want to make our most important decisions. These should be saved for times when we have the highest charge in our batteries. Which begs the question – how do we recharge the decision-making battery? Well – this is one of the important functions of sleep: We recover resourcefulness during a good night’s rest. Glucose (especially slow release glucose in fruit), laughter, socialising, sitting quietly with a good book, going for a run, are also great for restoration. Different people will have their own ways of replenishing – and it is definitely a good thing to know how to restore your own battery quickly.
When you are leading, it is also really important to know how to restore other people’s batteries quickly. And here’s the golden nugget… Constructive feedback (both in the form of well-placed compliments and in the form of builds that allow people to improve performance) is great for decision-making battery restoration. Companies that have a culture of giving great feedback are providing their staff the opportunity to recharge their decision making battery on a regular basis.
Call to Action:
- What steps can you take to make sure you have opportunities during the day to recharge your own battery?
- How can you improve your acuity so that you become aware of when your colleagues and team have depleted their batteries?
- What will you do to build great battery recharging moments into the culture of your workplace?
Try this out – I would be delighted to hear how it goes, and what improvements you see in your own decision making and that of your teams!
