D.energise: when energy dissipates

One person’s energy is another person’s d.energy.

I have to admit, administration has been anything but a thrill for me.  Annual property schedules were amongst the worst of experiences.  Six pages of tightly packed questions for about fifteen properties, having to be summarised into another schedule.  I asked someone who acted as a secretary to a meeting I chaired if he would be my property secretary, to go through these fifteen or so property schedules in order to make sure we did this properly.  He agreed but we still needed to spend ninety minutes summarising the reports.  I had an inkling he would do it well.  I’m really glad to say he loved it, but I’m sure he could hear me deflating in my chair: pfffftt.

We might call these “drainbow moments,” at the end of which we have lost the will to carry on.

A weakness is not something we’re incompetent at but something that de-energises us – it’s our kryptonite.

We can’t turn this around head on.  If we work really really hard to improve something that de-energises us we might raise our experience and performance to mediocre.  Who wants that?  A lack of curiosity and interest and motivations and thousands of hours of practice that led to the things that weaken us.

What we must do is identify what these things are and stop doing them, or, if we cannot, manage them by our strengths, the things which energise us, the things in which we are most imaginative and innovative.  I had to do the property reports but I also loved the possibility of people doing what they love to do, hence my invitation to someone I thought would do it really well.

Marcus Buckingham remarks on how identifying what de-energises us is even more important than identifying our strengths.

SOMETHING TO DO: Here’s something you can try over the next two to three weeks.  In the same notebook you’re carrying with you to note your energising moments, also keep a list of what dE-energises – usually during the activity as you know you want to be anywhere but there – write it down with these details: what were you doing?: why were you doing it?: who were you doing it with or for?: and, when were you doing it? – as in at the beginning or end, or had to see something happen from beginning to end.

RESOURCES YOU MAY ENJOY:
The One Thing You Need to Know by Marcus Buckingham