The value of strategic side gigs

For clarity, stability and better mental health, meditation (or mindfulness) is a universally recognized training activity.

Breaks and time-outs lead to better productivity, as they allow the mind to form connections and help in creativity and even relationships.

One approach for recharging leads to balance and recovery. It suggests you use your downtime for something unrelated to your job that will refresh you. Think about it in terms of detachment, relaxation, autonomy, mastery, meaning, and affiliation.

You first have to understand which of your needs are least satisfied by your work, then choose hobbies which fulfill these needs. If your work does not offer enough social interaction, pick a social pastime. If your job is not challenging, choose a hobby where you can learn new skills.

Enrichment Theory offers a perspective from work psychology and points out that the skills and experiences we build in our free time can complement our work performance.

It suggests that you find a hobby that touches on your job in some way. If you want to use your leadership skills, play the role of team captain for your local soccer team.

Many training initiatives assume that the same group of skills or leadership styles are suitable without considering the strategy or organizational culture of a company.

An excellent leader in one situation does not necessarily perform well in another. Focusing on context means equipping leaders with two or three competencies that will make a distinction to performance, rather than a list of leadership standards that is of no specific benefit.

Companies face a challenge when it comes to planning the program's curriculum.  Adults typically retain only 10 percent of what they hear in classroom lectures, but nearly two-thirds when they learn by doing. 

The answer seems straightforward: tie leadership development to real on-the-job projects. While it is not easy to create opportunities that simultaneously address high-priority needs, companies should strive to make every major business project a leadership-development opportunity as well.

Immediately move obligations out of your inbox and into role-specific archives.

Moving and prioritizing things into specific compartments or zones helps us organize our thought process and workflow. It also helps us focus and does not let different kinds of activity(of our many different roles) overwhelm us.

Having fixed working hours (while at home in your pajamas) makes you concentrate better, and be more productive. You need to switch off from work once the office hours are over.

In this ever-changing marketplace, chances are you’ll never feel 100% prepared. 

If your next step is unclear, the best way to find clarity is to move forward. Your view of the situation and potential solutions will be clearer when you're in the middle of it rather than when you’re on the outside looking in.

Pay attention to those activities that feel scary - they're usually your next stretch goal waiting to be tackled.

You might make mistakes, but your other option is to do nothing and remain stagnant.

The pace and scale that technology disrupts is a social, political and business challenge.
Employers are best placed to make a positive societal impact, for example, by upgrading the abilities of their employees and equipping them with new skills. Employers will also reap the greatest benefit if they can successfully transform the workforce in this way.

Talent is the largest barrier to the successful implementation of new strategies.

Many leading businesses realize that it is quicker and more financially prudent to look internally and develop the talent they already have. Yet only a third of global executives report that their organizations have launched any new reskilling programs.

There's only so much that you can achieve working on your own, that's why it's important to delegate effectively. To successfully delegate:

• Explain what your team's role and goals are. Or even formalize it in a team charter, which can also be useful for keeping the team on track.
• Think about the skills, experience and competencies within your team, and start matching people to tasks. 

Whatever approach you prefer to adopt, you also need to bear in mind that different people have different needs when it comes to motivation. 

One size does not fit all. Some individuals are highly self-motivated, while others will under-perform without managerial input, and you need to be able to handle both. 

An executive needs those she leads to translate strategic insights into choices that drive results. For people to commit to carrying out an executive’s strategic thinking, they have to both understand and believe in it. But repeated explanations don’t necessarily increase people’s understanding and ownership of strategy. Making them discuss the pros and cons of it make it so the problem is better understood and flaws are identified and fixed increasing ownership for success.

When someone is promoted into a function that requires strategic leadership it’s easy to spend time fixing what was wrong in their previous function but that often isn’t what the strategic leadership position requires. So, identify the strategic requirements of your job and focus on them.

Don’t create unnecessary conflict with your co-workers, but don’t run from it, either. See it as an opportunity to better understand someone you’ll be spending 40 hours a week around. 

Chances are, the other person will respond the same way. Goodwill is taken for granted less often than you might think.

At first, asking for help might sound like the opposite of creating your own opportunities. 

Opportunities are tied to personal relationships. Consider the Ben Franklin effect: By asking someone for a small favor, you endear them to yourself. The reason is that, when you help someone, your brain rationalizes your actions by assuming that you must like that person.

Run slow enough that you're pretty sure you could overtake yourself at a brisk walk.

The point of running is endurance, and to manage that, you have to keep your heart rate elevated for the entire period of every training run. That means erring on the side of caution and only speeding up when you hardly break a sweat 20 minutes in.

Slowly build up stamina over the first few weeks and months. To start, run three times a week for eight weeks, beginning with sessions that involve more walking than actual running, and ending with 30 minutes of non-stop jogging.

• Your first session, run for a minute, then walk for 90 seconds and repeat the pattern eight times.
• Four weeks later, running has increased to three sets of five minutes, with three minutes of walking in between.
• At the end of week five, the training wheels come off, and you run for a full 20 minutes non-stop.