Hi, my name is Mike Ford, and if my question above has made you stop and reflect then maybe this is your wake-up call!
As an event industry veteran of almost 30 years, I was that leader.
My habits out of work and leadership habits in work were, unbeknown to me, leading myself and my team on a rocky road to burnout which caused me to fall out of the industry that had served me so well.
From that point, I set out to turn my mess into my message and I have spent the last number of years working with some of the best leaders in their respective fields of science, health, psychology, sport, and personal development, to identify how to inspire event industry leaders and their teams to build a foundation of sustainable human performance for themselves and their team.
By sustainable human performance, I don’t mean peak performance. Anyone can perform as a one-off at any moment. I mean sustainable high performance for the longer term that benefits the individual, the team, and the business.
In an industry whose prize asset is its people, making the connection between human performance and well-being is like Turing cracking the Enigma’ code in World War 2!
And how do we know that the problem is real?
With data from more than 2,000 event professional surveys and thousands of data points, our trend analysis tells us the worrying story…
Highlights include;
- 60% don’t get enough quality sleep
- 77% regularly experience overwhelm
- 81% skip taking regular breaks
- 73% struggle to focus
- 60% suffer from digestive issues
- 60% lack time for the activities they love (what we call “flow”)
What’s even more concerning is that when asked if they felt their personal trajectory was headed in a positive or negative direction, 80% said it’s going the wrong way i.e things have got worse for them.
So what follows is a series of blogs aimed to provide insight and ideas, and we hope to help you and your team build that foundation of sustainable high performance.
As a keynote speaker, founder of GratefulLemon , and Performance Lead at allpoints, I aim to provide real help for event profs that has a real impact on them in the workplace, on-site, and importantly away from work.
So let’s dive into the first in our series of Sustainable Performance blogs.
PART 1 – SLEEP
We can’t really start anywhere else than with the foundational pillar of human performance and indeed human existence. And that is with SLEEP
What does sleep have to do with performance at work? The answer is EVERYTHING
A common trait of high performers across the spectrum of business and sport (including Roger Federer, Jeff Bezos, Serena Williams, LeBron James, Beyonce to name a few) is how they priortise sleep . As Lebron James said, “ The thing I priotise, above everything else, is sleep”.
As our data shows, more than 60% of event profs do not get enough sleep.
Did you know that…
- Sleep deprivation is so bad for you it was struck from the Guinness Book of World Records.
- If you average 6 hours of sleep for 10 nights (and for many that is their regular sleep pattern), your cognitive performance is equivalent to being twice over the drink-drive limit
- Those deprived of sleep, consume on average 400 calories more every day. And this additional intake is usually from bad fats and sugars (high-carb foods). This is due to ghrelin the hunger hormone becoming overactive making us feel superficially hungry. A direct correlation between sleep and obesity (Obesity and sleep link, Study insight No2)
- If you are sleep-deprived, you will be 10% more stupid the next day. In all seriousness, your cognitive decision-making is negatively affected when sleep-deprived. (WHOOP, episode 176 and related study)
Also, leaders beware! The same study by Whoop showed that psychological safety amongst team members decreases by up to 50% when a leader is sleep-deprived. And that is more important than you might think. As Google famously found through its Project Aristotle, psychological safety was the single most important factor separating its highest-performing teams from the rest.
Taking a more positive look at sleep, WHOOP, the wearable health tracker device company, pays their staff monthly bonus if their sleep is “in the green”. Their data shows that their staff performance /output improves by more than 15% when getting good sleep (Business Insider, LINK).
In the world of events, that problem is a heightened one due to the habits and nature of what we do. Burning the midnight oil on site, and working around the clock to get a pitch done all encroach on our sleep patterns.
While I am not suggesting that we don’t do this or run away from late nights, what I am suggesting is that we individually and collectively move sleep further up our list of priorities and if nothing else, recognise the need for consistent and effective sleep.
So what can you do to start to prioritise sleep?
- Implement the simple 3-2-1 method.
- Remove all clocks and phones from the room. Probably the hardest but also the most impactful habitual change you can make to enhance your sleep
- Get daylight in the morning. This has an amazing impact and relates to our circadian rhythms and our relationship with light and dark. The earlier and longer you engage in daylight first thing in the morning, the better you sleep at night. This applies to on-site events too! How many events do you never see the light of day sitting in the conference room somewhere? Encourage your team to get fresh air and light, especially in the morning.
- Start a conversation at work and understand your team’s sleep patterns. While not your responsibility, it can be game-changing to understand their patterns as you might find out why they behave like they do at certain times or under pressure.
Sleep impacts it all and truly is the foundation of your, your team’s, and your collective performance.
Become champions of sleep and watch your performance fly!
Coming next in Part 2 will be a focus on FOCUS and why our inability to focus sits at the heart of overwhelm, stress, and our ability to perform creatively and consistently.
Stay tuned…
To find out more about what we do please contact hello@fromallpoints.co.uk.