People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1 - 19

a healthy mind? It is their behavior and decisions that trickle down.
Although exhaustion often comes with the
executive job, the impact of sleep deprivation
on cognitive performance and decision making is enormous and the resulting effect on
employee and organizational performance is
a worrying consequence. What about the
people further down the food chain that are
similarly challenged? The same principles
hold for them as well.
Several studies show how sleep-a highly
active neurological state important for memory consolidation, semantic integration,
learning, and emotional regulation-if
suppressed, will negatively impact cognitive
and emotional processing during wakefulness (Durmer & Dinges, 2005; Gais & Born,
2004; Tassi et al., 2006). Research suggests
that the average person needs eight hours of
sleep per night, and yet a 2008 National Sleep
Foundation poll found that 44 percent of
respondents get less than seven ("Sleep in
America Poll," 2008). Additionally, 29 percent reported falling asleep or feeling
excessively tired while at work. Considering
the standard workday structure, sleep deprivation can be detrimental to successful job
performance.
"Power napping" holds potential for improving workplace practices and individual
functioning. A 10-minute nap yields great
benefits in alertness and general performance
lasting up to three hours after waking (Brooks
& Lack, 2006). It may even help with cognition and emotion regulation more generally.
Providing sleep areas for short rests may
result in better mental clarity and better productivity overall.

stood this, setting up rooms for their
employees to play games and generally "hang
out." However, what is good for hip Californian techies may not be for serious financial
city types. HR professionals can add value to
identifying what is appropriate culturally in
terms of allocating time and space for joyful
experimenting. Play simply needs to stimulate pleasure, creativity, and laughter. This
facilitates people bringing their most innovative minds to work because it gives them the
opportunity to try new things and make new
connections without risk.
Downtime: Integration and Insight
Downtime activity intentionally has no predefined goal. It may seem contrary to working
efficiently, but this is scientifically erroneous.
Downtime is a necessary precursor of insight
in complex decision-making.
Deloitte Partner, John Binns, set up a program
to combat stress, led by trained Deloitte partners. Choosing to take downtime is now a
part of life at Deloitte. "Looking back, the
symptoms were clear: I couldn't make simple
decisions, such as who to call into the office
for a routine meeting, or where to start in
replying to emails-I was getting at least 200
a day. I wasn't sleeping, my energy levels were
low, I was losing weight. Everything seemed
pointless" (Wachman, 2011).
In today's demanding multi-media environments, downtime feels like a luxury. But

leaders must learn to value downtime as
essential, and implement downtime with
their team. One enlightened senior executive
actively warns his employees not to pick up
emails on holiday because he wants them to
have a complete break. The German automaker Daimler has introduced an optional
software for employees to use on holiday that
auto-deletes any incoming emails. The program is called "Mail on Holiday," and it
issues a reply to the sender indicating the
person is out of the office and the email will
be deleted, while also offering the contact
information of another employee for pressing
matters. "The idea behind it is to give people
a break and let them rest," says Daimler
spokesman Oliver Wihofszki. "Then they can
come back to work with a fresh spirit, not to
mention an empty inbox" (Gibson, 2014).
Downtime is an inactive state of wakeful rest
during which our brains activate integration,
the process of connecting previously unconnected information. This integration process
often precedes insight, an essential element of
high-level cognitive performance. Many decisions depend on complex and ever-changing
factors for which the sole use of focused,
analytical methods is insufficient. For those
who lack the opportunity or the time to consciously deliberate every issue presented to
them, regular breaks are needed to passively
sort and integrate thoughts and permit more
intuitive, sudden insights to emerge.
Insight has been defined as a "sudden compre-

Play Time: Joyful Experimenting
Play is not the antithesis to work. Play serves
an important role in establishing relationships and developing adaptive social behavior,
allowing us to test out and therefore better
understand different roles and power positions (Panksepp & Burgdorf, 2003).
Play stimulates learning as it allows us to
experiment with and practice motor and
social skills while simultaneously arousing
the mental state of play-joy that is important
for creativity (new connections) and memory
(lasting connections). It creates engagement
between employees and organizations.
Google, eBay, and Oakley have long underVOLUME 38/ISSUE 1 - 2015

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People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1
