Rest and Recovery are Part of the Work — We Need To Start Treating Them That Way
A Critical Leadership Lesson from Elite Performers
Imagine an elite athlete showing up to a key competition, completely exhausted from back-to-back performances in the previous days and pulling an all-nighter to work out in the gym the previous night in order to “prepare.”
This athlete would certainly get crushed by competitors, and reprimanded by the team and the coaches.
Yet for professionals in most other fields — from doctors, lawyers, and consultants to leaders, entrepreneurs, and creatives — this seems to be almost the norm, and in far too many cases even something to brag about.
I recently saw a room on the social media app Clubhouse for “hustlers who sleep late and wake up early because we love what we are doing.”
I get the sentiment. I’ve been there myself. And I still sometimes get this wrong.
But to those who truly love what they are doing, I’d say if you’re not well-rested and give your work the space it needs, you’re not doing the love for your work justice. You’re not showing up with your A-game.
Worse, you’re fooling yourself with busyness, but sacrifice efficiency, sustainability, and — maybe worst of all if you really care — quality.
While this is certainly true for individuals, leaders also bear a large part of the responsibility for instilling and enforcing this mindset in others.
Elite Performers Know the Importance of Rest
LeBron James is considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
Since 2011, he has been ranked the best player in the NBA by ESPN and Sports Illustrated. His accomplishments include three NBA championships, four NBA Most Valuable Player awards, three NBA Finals MVP awards, and two Olympic gold medals.
There is no doubt that he has put in his practice time on the court and in the gym. But it’s his trainer Mike Mancias, who ensures that James’s performance, skills, and longevity are also nurtured outside of the basketball arena.
“With any elite athlete,” Mancias believes, “the one thing that we all, as trainers and therapists, have to keep in mind is that recovery never ends. Recovery never stops.”
Mancias knows that the “always-recovering” mindset allows a player like James to be successful and provide longevity and optimal performance throughout his demanding, high-stakes career.
His experience is backed up by science.
A 2011 study published in the journal SLEEP found that Stanford basketball players could increase their performance by getting more rest.
After a baseline was established, they were then asked to sleep for a full ten hours per night — significantly more than their usual six to nine hours — for five to seven weeks. At the end of this period, their accuracy had, on average, improved by 9%. They could sprint faster, and they reported overall better performance during practice and in games.
Imagine what many people would give for 10% more performance in their field?
Maybe all they have to do is take some more time off.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious here: people like James are operating at a very high level. And at this level, rest is not just a nice-to-have — something that happens in the calendar white space when you’re not working. It is a core part of the work, something that is planned, tracked, refined, and enforced.
Not following the recovery program outlined by your trainer essentially means not performing your work.
And Mancias emphasizes that this is the approach any person operating at a high level should take.
“You can be a businessman, a doctor, lawyer, etc., you need your sleep, guys,” Mancias says. “And you must sleep in order to recover from whatever it is, either playing an NBA game or a big day in the courtroom, in a hospital room or whatever.”
As much as we always like to be pushing, we need to acknowledge that this can easily become counterproductive. Instead, it is through rest, and turning time off into a deliberate practice, where we can develop our competitive edge as professionals.
The Implications for Companies and Leaders
I recently wrote about the work my business partner John Fitch and I are doing with business leaders to help their companies establish better time-off cultures and policies that emphasize the importance of a rest ethic.
One of the core principles I shared in this article is our belief (which is backed up by plenty of examples) that policy changes that do not take a company’s culture into account or aim to adjust the culture to the new policy, are doomed to fail.
Worse than just failing, such changes can easily backfire.
A typical example is the increasingly popular policy of unlimited paid time off (PTO).
On paper, it sounds great. Everyone gets as many days of time off as they want, and it’s completely up to the individual when and how to use them.
This can work. If the culture is right for this, it can indeed be a great option.
But the truth is in many cases the prevalent culture does not fit this policy, and in practice, it often leads to the opposite result than what was intended.
Leadership doesn’t set the right example, barely taking time off themselves, adding to the guilt people experience when taking time off. The prevalent language doesn’t help either, with people taking pride in how busy they are. Without mutual trust among the workforce, no one wants to be the person taking the most days off, which quickly leads to a race to the bottom.
The result: for most companies, implementing unlimited PTO actually results in people taking considerably fewer days off.
Handing over all the responsibility to the individual is flawed. As leaders, it is our responsibility to ensure that people take enough time off.
If a manager notices that someone on their team is not performing as expected, it is his or her job to coach that person and get them back on track.
We need to accept that time off is part of the work, and treat it as such.
As leaders and managers, we are essentially the trainers and coaches of elite performers, and it is our responsibility to not only track and coach their “active” work, but also their rest and recovery work.
Recovery Is the Responsibility of Leaders
Instead of unlimited PTO, John and I are big fans of minimum or mandatory PTO.
Rather than completely handing over the responsibility to the individual, this form of policy acknowledges that it is at least partially the company’s responsibility to make sure their employees get enough rest.
The practical details can vary widely (and should of course take a company’s prevalent culture and circumstances into account), but the basic idea is to mandate a minimum amount of time off within a certain timeframe, or even completely take the choice from the employee when time off occurs, for example prescribing X days off every Y weeks.
While this might sound strict, it comes with many benefits.
It eliminates a lot of questions, paperwork, and — most importantly — guilt.
Being asked to take a mini-sabbatical, say one week off every eight weeks, also encourages people to explore passion projects and hobbies (which will ultimately help them to upskill and stay motivated) rather than falling into their usual “vacation routine.”
Mandatory time off also leads to a much more robust disconnect from the work, not to mention more proactive communication leading up to it, improving the often difficult handover of responsibilities.
Mandatory or minimum PTO is a clear statement from the leadership that says time off is important, and in everyone’s best interest. It is part of the job.
Some companies have even successfully taken this a step further.
John and I have heard from leaders who have established and enforced disincentives for not taking the mandatory time off.
For example, people who are found to work or check their company email or Slack during their days off risk not being paid for that time. Once you agree that time off is part of the work, there are consequences for not performing the work.
Again, this might sound drastic (and is probably not the approach everyone should take), but our current culture is so heavily focused on busyness and hustle that it often needs drastic measures to be disrupted and to establish a more balanced alternative, and to remove the all too prevalent feeling of guilt.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Many details — the optimal policy, when people should take time off, for how long, how to document and hand work over to team members, how to reintegrate after time off, and how all of this fits into the culture — need to be worked out.
Unfortunately, we are often so busy working in our business that we forget to work on it.
But it’s important to start thinking about these things seriously (and John and I are happy to help), rather than leave the responsibility to take time off with the individual.
Whether we are leaders who are responsible for the performance of our teams or just care about our own performance, we need to recognize that performance happens when we develop a work ethic and a rest ethic that complement and support each other.
When you are facing a big surgery, wouldn’t you want your surgeon to be as well-rested as an elite athlete in advance of a big game, rather than be sleep deprived and exhausted at the end of a long shift?
When you hire a creative to work on a big project for you, wouldn’t you want them to have full mental clarity and the space to incubate on the important ideas and concepts, rather than pulling back to back all-nighters to fit your project into their packed schedule?
When you put together a leadership team for your company, wouldn’t you want them to be sharp and empathetic, rather than burned out and irritable when leading your employees towards your company’s goals?
Whatever your discipline, if you want to play at the highest level — or lead others to do so — make sure you take rest and recovery as seriously as elite athletes do.