Stop and Think

“Stop, think, and don’t do something stupid!” are Dr. Robert Bea’s words of wisdom for his Civil and Environmental Engineering students at the University of California. According to Dr. Bea accidents like BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil-exploration platform could have been avoided if the organization would have created and organizational culture in which it valued reflective thinking time. Apparently there were many warning signals that were ignored because none of the employees took time to stop and think.  However, the sad reality is that most organizations don’t create and appreciate reflective thinking space. Most companies attitude towards employees work day can be stated as follows: If you’re not busy “doing something,” you’re wasting an organizations time and money.

 

In Daniel Patrick Forrester’s book, Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking In Your Organization, he argues for the importance for such reflective thinking time that benefits both employer and employee. Forrester notes, “Just as Dr. Bea suggests that his students must learn to stop and think again, so too must every organization. [….] We are living in an age of immediacy that can’t be singularly managed with instantaneous responses. For these reasons, stepping away from the problem – and structuring time to think and reflect – just may prove the most powerful differentiator that allows your organization to remain relevant and survive. All risk can’t be eliminated and all decisions can’t be made in the blink of an eye. But major risks must be managed, especially when there is evidence that the unthinkable is slowly unfolding before your eyes.” (3-4) Costly accidents could be avoided and new innovations made if organizations create a culture of a structured time off to think. Throughout the book Forrester demonstrates via real stories and examples how “the best decisions, insights, ideas, and outcomes result when we take sufficient time to think and reflect.” (4)

In chapter eight Forrester talks about the significance that sabbaticals can play within organizations and how they have the potential to unleash a person’s reflective capacity. So many times we only feel like we are doing something productive and meaningful when we are working. This behavior is reinforced by our culture which pays respect to those who work endless hours and don’t take their vacation days. At dinner with friends the conversation often is about who works the most and the hardest. In most cultures it is a batch of honor to be a workaholic. What we do and how much we work is closely tied to our identity and self-worth. However, this relentless drive to work, to be needed and to be significant has its down side – It does not allow people or organization to participate in contemplative and reflective practices which are important for the organizations and individuals well-being. Even though deep down we know that our need for reflective thinking time is crucial, we are overwhelmed by petty immediate needs that keep us from structuring our work (Christian lives) around rhythms of time off to think. Thus like all other good things in life we need a discipline that can help us implement this reflective time because it will not happen on its own.

 

Sabbaticals might be that solution to our lack of discipline. If we build sabbaticals into an organization or an individual’s lives we can create regular space for reflexivity. Sabbatical time allows people to “spend thinking and reflecting about what they choose to and not what they are told to focus on.” (162) However, for the sabbatical time to work organizations need to commit to four practices:

 

1. The program must have unambiguous objectives that define why the company is doing it.

2. Top management must sustain and support it.

3. The sabbatical program must have a well-crafted policy.

4. It must have structured support and clearly defined communications. (166)

 

These four guidelines help make sabbatical practices work and meaningful.

 

There are compelling reasons for organizations to implement the benefit of sabbatical time into their organizational culture. YousSABBATICAL.com provides us with seven benefits that sabbaticals can provide:

 

1. Talent is measured and leaders are developed. When a person goes away on sabbatical, it puts their previous work into a context that reveals needs and gaps within their teams.

2. Succession planning occurs. The forced time off means that those in waiting must ‘set up’ and have their work take on new significance. People can actually take on a ‘stretch role’ for a short period of time.

3. Cultures of collaboration and trust are built. While employees are away teams develop new approaches that may not have existed before and may continue once the person comes back.

4. Opportunity to live their stated core values. Companies with stated values linked to such time off get the chance to ‘walk the talk.’

5. Customers actually love it. Evidence suggests that people like to buy from companies that nurture their employees in such a holistic way.

6. A company’s brand is strengthened. A sabbatical program can be a strong indicator that a company is a ‘great place to work,’ thus helping attract and retain top people.

7. A boost for employee engagement. Sabbaticals allow for the integration of personal goals (desire for time away from work) and corporate sustainability. Highly engaged employees outperform their disengage colleagues by 20 to 28 percent. (166-167)

 

Forrester provides McDonalds and Stefan Sagmeister (Design Studio owner) as two examples that have implemented sabbaticals into their organization’s culture.

 

Do you have the courage to stop and think?