The 34,000-Hour Opportunity

Emma Vallin, Organisational Consultant

We spend a staggering amount of time on social media platforms—143 minutes per day, on average, according to 2024 research from GWI. That’s over 36 days per year spent on social media. Some of the time is of course well spent (we are connecting on LinkedIn around this topic after all). But imagine the potential if we reclaimed even a fraction of these hours.

A study from Lund University found that reducing social media use to 30 minutes a day significantly improves mood, focus, and reduces stress. In addition it could free up 687 hours each year—over 34,000 hours over the next 50 years. That’s more than 2 years of our lives we could dedicate to things that truly matter: meaningful work, deep friendships, picking up that guitar or writing that book.

By shifting our mindset and being intentional about how we spend our time, we can achieve more balanced, fulfilling lives without sacrificing performance.

Sustainable high-performance isn’t just about optimizing for wellness or productivity. It’s about adapting your effort and ambition levels intentionally toward your long-term goals. This means focusing on what’s important to you, rather than being driven by socially fueled overachievement.

❓ What would you do with 34,000 hours of reclaimed time

I’M CRAZY BUSY RIGHT NOW


I hear many people saying that work is crazy busy right now. It usually is this time of year. On top of the end of year frenzy, many of us struggle with pressure to deliver more with less resources, often with less clarity.

I listened to a talk by an emergency physician about Triage – a sorting system to allocate limited resources to do as much good as possible. The criteria differ between country and situation, but in essence: when disaster hits, there should be no doubt about whom to treat first.

Without in any way comparing corporate pressure to emergency care, wouldn’t it be great to have a clear-cut way to allocate our personal resources (time, energy, and cognitive capacity) when things get ‘crazy busy’?

As a starting point, ask yourself:
1️⃣ What are my top 3 priorities? (the easy part)
2️⃣ How are they reflected in my calendar? (the painful part)
3️⃣ How can I design my work, so that my most productive time is spent on my top priorities? (the game-changing part)

Or as Steven C would say: When you have too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities.

NOT ENOUGH MEETINGS?

Emma Vallin, Organizational & Leadership Consultant

Knowledge workers spend on average 85% of their time in meetings, which studies show negatively affects well-being. Not surprisingly many organizations are opting for meeting-free days.

But how does this effect cooperation and productivity?

A study* of companies who had implementing meeting-free days, found that:

ONE meeting-free day a week resulted in:
✅ Autonomy: +62%
✅ Cooperation: +15%
✅ Engagement: +28%
✅ Productivity: +35%
✅ Stress: -26%

With TWO meeting free days, the numbers jumped to:
✅ Autonomy: +78%
✅ Cooperation: +43%
✅ Engagement: +32%
✅ Productivity: +71%
✅ Stress: -43%

Is there such thing as too few meetings, I hear you ask?

THREE seems to be the optimum number of meeting-free days, according to the study. After that, metrics like productivity and satisfaction start declining and micromanagement starts creeping up again.

❓ What if anything, surprised you about these numbers?

❓ What is your experience of meeting free days?

📈 Take the poll: how many meeting-free days do you prefer: https://lnkd.in/dEJErM85

* The Surprising Impact of Meeting-Free Days. Benjamin Laker, Vijay Pereira, Pawan Budhwar, and Ashish Malik. MIT Sloan Management Review, January 18, 2022

Similarities between running a businesses and raising a toddler

Last month I celebrated my 3rd anniversary as a fulltime entrepreneur. Happy birthday to me!

Emma Vallin, Executive Coach & Leadership Consultant

In some ways you can compare starting a business to parenting a child. It’s an exciting idea to bring a child into the world but few of us were prepared for the toddle tantrums and a 3-year old’s talent for accidents. (My youngest son went through a period of putting peas, sweetcorn, and anything small enough up his nose 😫).

What parents learn, often a bit too late, is that their toddler isn’t trying to drive them crazy nor kill themselves. They are simply learning and developing by testing boundaries.

A small business goes through similar growing pains. It can be equally challenging, unpredictable, and full of ups and downs. Just as parents can draw strength from watching their cherubs sleep peacefully after a day of food attacks, entrepreneurs can find energy from reflecting on their experience.

– We need to remind ourselves of why we set out on the journey in the first place.

So, as my ‘third child’ turns 3, here are my reflections:

🎂 My BS ratio (Nonsense work/ Meaningful work) has dropped from about 10-1 to 1-10 since I left my corporate career. Back then my days were filled with ineffective meetings, impression management and producing endless amounts of PPT presentations. Today most of my time is spent on what I consider meaningful work, things that help me achieve my mission.

🎂 The freedom that comes with being your own boss is even greater than I imagined. Perhaps the greatest freedom for me is being able to choose whom I want to collaborate with.

🎂I’ve grown and developed a lot in these years. It’s incredibly rewarding to be able to use all your talents and experience to create something of your own.

A big thanks to my supporters, clients, partners, and the amazing fellow entrepreneurs I’ve met along the way.

Here’s to the next 3 years, hoping they will be as fun and rewarding, but perhaps a bit less crazy.

#reflection #entrepreneur #businessdevelopment

The Importance of Rethinking

Emma Vallin, Leadership Consultant & Coach. Photo: Janine Laag

Decisive, bold, assertive, fast, consistent – these are traditionally highly valued traits in the corporate world. Many of us have heard them in performance reviews, either as qualities we have or should develop.

In brand management, where I spend most of my career, we were trained to know our data, do our research, then to commit to an idea and stick to our plan. Often spending most of our energy convincing the world about its brilliance. There was little room for honest reevaluation or rethink.

Why is changing our minds so hard?

I recently read Think Again by Adam M. Grant. Grant starts by describing the concept of Escalation of Commitment –

“When we dedicate ourselves to a plan and it isn’t going as we hoped, our first instinct isn’t usually to rethink it. Instead, we tend to double down and sink more resources in the plan”.

If we’re collaborating with others on this plan, it can be ever harder to change our minds. We are social creatures and challenging the direction of our team comes with risk. Nobody wants to come across as arrogant, stupid or indeed insecure. Most of us want to fit in. It takes a very open and inclusive team climate to accommodate this kind of risk taking. A psychologically safe environment in which candor and half-baked ideas are welcomed. With leaders who encourage us to rethink, relearn and challenge truths.

The ability to change our mind is more important today than ever

In stable and predictable industries and markets, like the ones I worked in at the time, being consistent and sticking to your guns is often a good thing. It inspires confidence in stakeholders and gives your brand consistency. However in uncertain, fast-paced and ever-changing corporate environments, the courage to reevaluate and change direction becomes business critical.

To do this we need people with the right cognitive skills. We often think of mentally fit people as intelligent people. The smarter you are, the more complex problems you can solve, faster. But in a rapidly transforming world, there are, according to Adam Grant, cognitive skills that could matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.

“Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything – George Bernard Shaw”

The value of reflection

For those who dare to be indecisive, there’s a lot to gain. Kahneman’s work on Thinking, Fast and Slow gives us another take on the virtue of the slower, more deliberate System 2 thinking.

Reflection is also important for developing our self-awareness. Professor Daniel Newark, who studies decision-making, identity and behaviour, claims that pondering over outcomes of two or more options allows us to be introspective and gain unique dimensions of self-awareness. He says: “The contemplations and conversations characteristic of indecision may help construct, discover, or affirm who one is.”

For me, this speaks to the theory of ‘slowing down to speed up’ and the value of reflection.

Invite others to rethink with you

There is lot to gain from opening up about our doubts and inviting others to reflect with us. Otto Scharmer talks about self-reflection as one of the prerequisites for new thinking. We cannot go from disagreement to generative dialogue without being curious about our own views and willing to challenge them.

So why not invite your collegues to reflect with you? Newark also found that when you seek advice before making a decision it can inspire conversations of meaning and build professional connection. Quite a nice side effect.

What ‘truths’ are you holding on to?

What do you need to rethink in your work?

Is there room for candor in your team?

Photo: Janine Laag
Emma Vallin, leadership consultant, coach

Open Conversations

First up in my series of blog posts on psychological safety is the dimension of open conversations and dialogue.

Defined as:

‘the degree to which difficult and sensitive topics can be discussed openly’ –

open conversations help your team take advantage of opportunities. It gives you invaluable insights into each other and can help you move past challenges. Quality dialogue is necessary for the team to learn and stay engaged.

In contrast, if the quality of the conversation is low it can stop you from speaking up about risks or challenges. As an organization you might lose out on business-critical information and miss opportunities. One of the symptoms can be that your meetings are very short or often rescheduled.

“The quality of your conversations will determine the quality of your outcomes” – Amy C. Edmondson

Here are some tips for encouraging open conversations:
    • Share your learnings or take-aways from conversations
    • Ask twice as many questions as you tell. Replace “I think” statements with “what if” statements to invite voice and limit self-promotion
    • Make yourself available and listen with curiosity & empathy
    • What meetings do you reschedule regularly? What is causing that change and what is the impact on the team?

Next up: Attitude Towards Risk & Failure
Photo: Janine Laag

Building Psychologically Safe Teams

Have you ever been on a team where:

    • you spoke openly about difficult topics
    • you viewed mistakes as a chance to learn
    • colleagues went the extra mile for each other, and
    • you capitalized on everyone’s differences?

Then you’ve probably experiences the potency of psychological safety.

Defined by Amy C. Edmondson as “a belief that the context is safe for interpersonal risk-taking – that speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes will be welcomed and valued”, Psychological safety is a critical ingredient for groups to be engaged, to learn and to succeed.

Why psych. safety matters more than ever

Today the work many of us do is highly cognitive. It requires us to solve complex problems and find creative solutions to new challenges. Collaboration and the ability to get the best out of a diverse group is one of the biggest leadership challenges we face. In this uncertain and fast paced world, everyone’s voice could be business critical. Leaders who fail to create a climate where that voice can be raised freely, without fear of the consequences, risk missing out on opportunities and disengage the organization’s best people.

Employees who are not engaged or who are actively disengaged cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report. That’s equal to 11% of global GDP.

On this flipside companies that report high psychological safety experience:

    •  76% more engagement
    • 50% more productivity
    • 74% less stress
    • 57% workers more likely to collaborate

 “No one comes up with a good idea when being chased by a tiger”

How to build Psychological Safety in a team

Psychological Safety is gained over time through intentional actions. It is something that is built in drops but lost in buckets.

I work with vastly different teams who want to improve their collaboration – from leadership teams to startups and global HR teams. In my experience, teams can significantly improve their level of psychological safety in just a few months by making it a priority.

I’m certified in the Fearless Organization tool – a method for measuring and developing psychological safety, based on over 30 years of research.

The work I do with teams usually follows these 4 steps:

1.   1-1 meeting with the team leader

2.   Team completes the online Fearless Organization Scan

3.   Debrief workshop when we look at specific areas for improvement and develop an action plan. The team then works intentionally with the identified behaviors.

4.   A follow up online scan after 2-4 months followed by a new workshop to discuss and learn. Regular measurement, support and dialog.

“Start with the common goal. Then make psychological safety a common project.” Amy C. Edmondson

In the coming weeks I’ll post about the 4 dimensions of psychological safety, highlighted in the Fearless Organization book by Amy Edmondson, and tools to improve them:

    1.  Open Conversation
    2. Attitude Towards Risk & Failure
    3. Willingness to Help
    4. Inclusion & Diversity

I hope you’ll join me in discussing ways we can build open, engaged and effective teams.

First up next week is: Open Conversations