Page 10 - Harvard Business Review, Sep/Oct 2018

whether you’re overestimating your ORGANIZATIONS SUCH embrace this form of rest. Tony Hsieh,
sleep (we often forget about periods of the CEO of Zappos, is a nap proponent,
and organizations such as Google and
wakefulness in the night) and whether AS GOOGLE HAVE NAP PriceWaterhouseCoopers have nap pods for
there are patterns you can change. For employees, understanding that 20 minutes
example, you might find that although PODS FOR EMPLOYEES, of downtime can make people more
you’re in bed for seven hours a night, effective and productive for many more
you’re getting only five hours of sleep, UNDERSTANDING THAT hours that day.
fragmented into small segments. Or As a leader, even if you fail to get enough
perhaps you notice that your bedtime 20 MINUTES OF DOWNTIME sleep yourself, you should be careful to
drifts later on the weekend, leading to CAN MAKE PEOPLE MORE promote good sleeping behavior. Your
“social jet lag” on Monday, when you employees are watching you for cues about
have to return to your earlier waking time. PRODUCTIVE. what is important. Avoid bragging about
With this information, you can make your own lack of sleep, lest you signal to
adjustments, such as taking a relaxing your subordinates that they, too, should
bath before bed in hopes of getting more deprioritize sleep. If you absolutely must
sustained rest, or hitting the sack earlier compose an e-mail at 3 am, use a delayed-
on Saturday and Sunday nights. delivery option so that the message isn’t
Leaders often overlook two other sent until 8 am. If you must pull an all-
tools. The first is treatment for sleep nighter on a proj ect, don’t hold that up as
disorders. By some estimates, up to 30% exemplary behavior.
of Americans experience insomnia, and For pro-sleep role models, look to CEOs
more than 5% suffer from sleep apnea. A such as Ryan Holmes of Hootsuite (“It’s
large majority of people with these issues not worth depriving yourself of sleep for
are never diagnosed or treated. If you are an extended period of time, no matter how
overweight, have a thick neck, snore, and pressing things may seem”); Amazon’s
spend adequate time in bed at night but Bezos (“Eight hours of sleep makes a big
still feel tired, you may have sleep apnea. difference for me, and I try hard to make
Partners or spouses are often the first to that a priority”); and Huffington, the CEO
notice the symptoms, but official diagnoses of Thrive Global, who wrote a whole book
are typically made after a sleep study that on the subject.
measures oxygen levels and brain waves. It is clear that you can squeeze in more
You might then be prescribed a continuous work hours if you sleep less. But remember
positive airway pressure (CPAP) mask to that the quality of your work—and your
wear at night; by keeping nasal and throat The other overlooked tool for getting leadership—inevitably declines as you do
airways open, these devices greatly help more rest is napping. Too often, leaders so, often in ways that are invisible to you.
sleep apnea patients. view nap breaks as time spent loafing As Bezos says, “Making a small number of
As for insomnia sufferers, they’re instead of working. However, research
typically aware of the problem but may clearly indicates that dozing for even key decisions well is more important than
making a large number of decisions. If you
not know how to fix it. Jared Miller, Sophie 20 minutes can lead to meaningful shortchange your sleep, you might get a
Bostock, and I examined an online program restoration that improves the quality of couple of extra ‘productive’ hours, but that
that uses cognitive behavioral therapy work. A brief nap can speed up cognitive productivity might be an illusion.” Even
to combat this disorder. We found that processing, decrease errors, and increase worse, as my research highlights, you’ll
participants who were randomly assigned stamina for sustained attention to difficult negatively affect your subordinates.
to the program experienced improved tasks later in the day. One study found If instead you make sleep a priority,
sleep, more self-control, better moods, and that as little as eight minutes of sleep you will be a more successful leader who
higher job satisfaction, and they became during the day was enough to significantly inspires better work in your employees.
more helpful toward colleagues. The improve memory. Don’t handicap yourself or your team by
treatment cost only a few hundred dollars Many cultures outside the United failing to get enough rest.
per participant, indicating a substantial States have embraced naps as a normal
return on investment. I’m currently in and desirable activity. In Japan, inemuri, HBR Reprint R1805K
the early stages of another study that will or napping at work, is typically viewed
measure the effects of this treatment on positively. Midday siestas have long CHRISTOPHER M. BARNES is an associate professor
leader behaviors and follower outcomes, been part of work life in Spain. Now of management at the University of
and I expect similarly beneficial effects. some American leaders are beginning to Washington’s Foster School of Business.

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