0:00
♪ [MUSIC] ♪. But therein lies the critical
observation. And I'd like to illustrate that by
pointing out that even if we have resonant relationships in, in our
leadership or managerial positions that one of the things that happen is over
time the build up of the stress gets to us and we start to experience what we
call the sacrifice syndrome. You know what that's like.
You get to the end of Friday evening and you're starting to go home and you feel
like someone's sucked the blood out of you and you can barely make it to your
bar at home and pour yourself a drink, or if you don't use alcohol, make some
strong tea. The problem is, the sacrifice syn-,
syndrome as I was saying, leads to cognitive perceptual and emotional
impairment, and you are not sustainable in your leadership.
So, no matter how effective you have been, you are less.
1:28
Medical research and psychological research has helped us to understand that
there are a number of experiences that invoke the parasympathetic nervous
system, the renewal process. For example, under mindfulness, we know
that meditating helps produce this. There have been many research studies
over 30 years showing this. For example, although people say
meditating 15-20 minutes, three times a week, once a day helps, most people, when
they learn to meditate, are taught that you should be meditating twice a day.
2:03
two studies have shown the power of yoga to produce this.
Two studies have shown the power of Tai Chi.
My guess is other forms of martial arts do it, if it's the centering parts of the
martial art, not the kick-ass parts, I think that they probably activate the
sympathetic nervous system. Prayer, two studies have shown that when
we pray, if we're praying to a loving God.
That was the interesting twist. If you pray to a loving God, it activates
the renewal system. If you pray to a vengeful God, it
actually activates the stress response. And I think I do a lot of work in
Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, in Instanbul and sometimes in Bahrain.
My Islamic friends have it all over the rest of us in the Judeo-Christian
tradition because if you pause three, most executives and professionals make it
to three prayers a day, not the full five, that's three times a day you're
pausing, centering yourself and engaging with a loving God.
And by the way, most of the Judeo-Christian sects do ask you to pray
twice a day, but we forget that very often.
3:12
So, mindfulness practices do seem to have a profound effect both in terms of the
research, and in terms of popular thought.
Another thing that has a huge impact is compassion.
Being in a loving relationship is very powerful, as it stimulates renewal.
Having pets, especially pets that you can stroke.
Dogs, cats, horses, monkeys. Doesn't work with fish.
Sorry folks. Because it looks like it, it is in the
stroking of the pet that you are building this sympathetic emotional bond that
engages in renewal. Volunteering and doing things for people
who are less fortunate than you helps. Care-giving helps.
One caveat here, there is something that has been identified in elderly
caregivers, social workers and nurses in particular, where those occupations where
compassion is drawn upon so much that they actually go into compassion fatigue
which is a syndrome that leads to stress. My wife who is an elementary school
kindergarten school teacher for for over twenty years.
I mean, she made the observation to me very often that when I, we would have
dinner or, or get-togethers with a lot of her elementary school friends it was
interesting that they didn't have that many children, if any, and, and some of
it might have been the compassion fatigue of what happens when you're around little
children and giving your all to them all day.
I just wanted to mention that as a caveat, because compassion usually helps,
but you can overload. Feeling hopeful about the future
activates the parasympathetic nervous system renewal process.
And although in out 2005 book, Resonant Leadership, I didn't go, we didn't go
into it and we can I, just focused on mindfulness, hope and compassion.
In the last three years the research has come out that I think is pretty con-,
convincing, that laughter, joy and playfulness also stimulates the renewal
process in the human body. So, one of the things that this says to
us is, it is hopeful, it is a hopeful message.
That yes, despite the amount of stress that we're under, unintentional or
intentional, we can ameliorate it, or the ravages of it, by practicing certain
things each day. Now, the dosage ends up being critical,
because you can't wait 'til the weekend and kind of try to binge rest.
For a couple of reasons, one, rest isn't the same as renewal.
Your body needs rest but that's not the same as renewal.
Secondly, if you worked two or three 60, 80 hours week or you're working multiple
jobs and all the sudden you get two days off, that is not going to make up for
three weeks of what you've done to your body and mind.
6:00
So, one of the hopeful things, though, is that we do know what you can do on a
daily basis. I've listed some of the things you can do
at home. In a, in another module we'll be talking
about a number of the things you can be doing at work to make this invay-,
invoked and more effective. Second, interesting if not very hopeful
observation, is that the same experiences that helped us, as we talked about in the
earlier module, build our resonant, our more effective relationships, are the
experiences that help us to build renewal into our bodies and minds.
7:01
Chronic stress is something that ends up making us less than who we are and who we
could be. I would like to ask you to consider, as a
personal learning assignment coming out of this module, to keep a diary, and you
really should do this each day. Don't wait till several days later and do
it. But at the end of each day, go back write
down the hour that you woke up, and go all the way through to the hour you are
about to go to bed. And write down things that happened
during each hour that were stressful, annoying stressful or things that
happened each hour that were renewing. In other words, were you interacting with
people who are a pain? Were you dealing with something really
annoying, were you dealing with something positive and, I mean really problematic?
Versus, were you dealing with something that was fun, engaging, positive,
hopeful, compassionate? Keep track each day in kind of a log or
journal, and at the end of a week look at it.
And then at the end of two weeks, sit back and take a longer look and ask
yourself, what could you do differently each day to reverse that balance, because
you're the one who makes the decision each day.
Richard BoyatzisDistinguished University Professor, and a Professor in the Departments of Organizational Behavior, Psychology, and Cognitive Science
