Manage energy: Time isn’t your most precious resource

The simple truth is that each of us only have so much time. While utilising the finite resource that is time can go some way toward influencing our success, far more powerful is our ability to deliberately generate and expend our energy. Optimal outcomes are unquestionably achieved when we harness energy to optimise opportunities.

Any team’s potential is encapsulated in both the talent and energy of its people. People’s capabilities, in addition to the amount of vitality they are able to invest, influences their success. The energy levels people have in reserve influence the behavioural choices they make in each moment of every day, which ultimately informs the standards they achieve.

Managing energy requires you to undertake these 7 essential steps:

1. Understand the link between energy and behaviour

How the people on your team choose to behave determines the extent to which their potential is realised. Reflect for a moment on how much more likely you are to behave successfully if you are energised. How much more likely are you to choose to behave in ways that undermine success if you lack energy and therefore motivation? Energised people typically strive to succeed, push through obstacles and confront challenges. When drained, people are more likely to procrastinate, hesitate and avoid responsibility.

2. Prioritise energy

While energy is essential to any organisation’s ability to thrive, quite often more needs to be done to deliberately influence the strength of a team’s spirit. Make it an essential role of every leader in your business to energise their team’s spirit. Teach leaders how to leverage energy to drive better results.

3. Hold people accountable

Every member of your team has a role to play in managing the strength of their own spirit as well as ensuring they have a positive impact on the people around them. While some people bring positive energy to a group, others have a draining influence. Expect leaders to coach people to think, feel and behave in ways that enable them to become a healthier contributor to the team.

4. Invest energy wisely

All too often people expend energy on pursuits, debates and priorities unrelated to achieving the organisation’s vision. Ensure the energy in your business is channelled toward achieving an inspiring vision for the future. Set clear and reasonable expectations, communicate priorities, and allocate resources effectively. Remove roadblocks to success, enlist support, and coach others to think and behave successfully, and you will go a long way toward ensuring your team’s energy is invested wisely.

5. Develop a strong sense of personal value

Feeling valued is an important energiser for most people. The reverse is equally true: feeling undervalued has the potential to drain people of energy. We all need to feel we are capable of making—and do, in fact, make—a valuable contribution. It’s important that people aren’t left wondering whether or not they—and what they do—matter.

6. Nurture quality relationships

Every person with whom we interact in the course of doing our job has the potential to energise or drain our spirit. The impact other people have on our energy reserves depends on the trust and respect we feel from and toward them. It is every leader’s role to influence healthy relationships with and among their staff. Take steps to positively influence the emotions people feel, and ultimately, the impact they have on one another.

7. Build belief

How people feel about the future, and about their ability to influence that future, has a profound influence on the strength of their spirit. A great source of strength and resilience comes from feeling optimistic and in control. Hope coupled with confidence enables people to believe in possibilities and strive to achieve. However, hopelessness due to powerlessness can have a debilitating impact on a team’s spirit.