This time of year, holidays are the talk of the office. Some go to Disneyland with their kids, some take an Alaskan cruise, some take their RV and go camping on Vancouver Island, and some explore Europe for the first time. My holiday, on the other hand, was in Hamilton, Ontario.
I recently took some “vacation days” in order to volunteer as a judge at the Canadian National Trampoline Championships. Some might question my decision to take time off of my day job to volunteer to work somewhere else, but let me explain why doing this turned out to be a great holiday.
First let me convince you that flying to Hamilton to judge trampoline was very much “work”. Some days began before 9 am and didn’t finish until 9 pm. I had to get dressed up in a suit every day. My time was scheduled for me. I was assigned a “work area” (the specific apparatus I was to judge). My role was clearly defined and I was expected to produce “output” (scores for the athletes). And, I was accountable for my actions (if I gave a score that was out of line with the other judges, I would feel shameful).
Now, having described some of the expectations of me, I realize I’m not making this trip sound like very much fun, but it was. Without the “relaxing” that most people would include in their holiday objectives, I found my time in Hamilton to be completely refreshing. I think that what made it so refreshing was that judging all day made me unable to devote any of my mental energy to my day job. Having the distraction of the judging role seemed to be what was most effective at making me feel refreshed.
I propose that a holiday is not really about taking time away from work. It’s more about removing your emotional focus away from work temporarily so that you can return with a fresh perspective and greater energy. I also don’t think that holidays need to be about relaxing. That’s certainly not how I would describe my time in Hamilton, anyway. For many of us, our work is more emotionally exhausting than it is physically tiring. When this is the case, I think that an emotional break is what’s needed more so than a physical one.
What holidays have you had that were successful emotional breaks from your work?
Mike,
I think I just had a mini-holiday reading your blog! Nice job, and good suggestions for carving out that time.
Mike have you considered the relationship between trampolining and leadership. Many of the principles of turning and twisting in mid-air can apply to leadership. In trampolining the contact with the ‘bed’ before take-off is essential – as is a leader’s understanding of the base from which she launches a new initiative. The speed of rotation is dependent on the lenght of the ‘spinning lever’ – tucked or laid out. The speed of change in organizations is also influenced by how distributed the organization is. A tight, small organization can be very nimble and spin quickly. A multi-national company is much more laid out and spins relatively slowly. The twists in trampoline are achieved by transfer of momentum from parts to whole. The twists in organizations are also achieved by transferring momentum from business units to the whole enterprise. Engaging business units with stored energy and releasing energy into the system is the act of a systems leader.
So I think your ‘vacation’ was really a professional development experience that made you a better analyst of leaders and leadership.
Tony.
Tony, I’m impressed with your knowledge of trampoline. You must enjoy physics!
I had never thought of the parallel of trampoline to organizations in such abstract terms before. The comparison reinforces some ideas we know to be true for trampoline because it’s so cut and dry. It’s observable and it’s instant. In organizations, I believe the same is true, yet it’s so hard to convince ourselves and others that getting organizations to perform is that easy!