Management Leverage Blog

The concept of a 4-hour work week is certainly appealing, especially to those here in the USA who, on average, work more hours than those in any other industrialized nation.

But Archimedes wasn’t working when he figured out how to calculate the volume of an irregularly shaped gold nugget. He was supposedly lounging in the bathtub. That paints an alluring image. Just relax in your Jacuzzi and you’ll become a more successful and innovative manager.

But research reveals that the 4-hour approach is not advantageous or conducive for creative tasks that rely on managerial brainpower and innovative thinking. You have to first invest a sufficient amount of time on task. Otherwise your brain will not feel the urgency to work overtime on a solution while you are on the golf course or in the shower. Unless and until you put in the time, in other words, neither will your neurological pathways.

A 4-hour week may be appropriate for certain repetitive tasks. Think 60-minute yoga classes, for example, that produce great results on an every-other-day schedule. But not so for creative or tasks.

The best managers leverage their efforts to get more done through others. Only then can they enjoy the necessity of more time to enjoy the leadership aspects of their responsibilities, such as dreaming up new creative and strategic solutions. People who work in think tanks, for instance, are much more likely to come up with the answers they seek if they do not have to first accomplish time-consuming tasks that distract from mental focus.

They may not necessarily arrive at the solution while on task or in the office, mind you. Perhaps it will come to them while strolling along the beach or doing a sun salutation.

Photo credit: simpologist

I first experienced what I now think of as real French bread at a German Market. In Munich I lived about 6 blocks from Viktualianmarkt , where I often purchased the ingredients for one of my many dinner parties. These parties would continue until well into the night, where we would boisterously defend our ideas and pick at French bread crumbs that had embedded themselves into our elbows.

Though likely not under-appreciated, there is still much we can learn about our ideas from French bread.

1. “Hurry, while supplies last”-French bread grows stale in less than 24hours. You really have to eat it immediately or it hardens into crumby toast. Like French bread, you are more likely to have your best ideas implemented when you give them a limited shelf life. It’s the difference between “I think we should do X” and “I think I can squeeze in X if we start before the recruiting cycle picks up again in a couple months.” Think of it as a culinary implantation of the scarcity principle.
2. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: My bread pudding recipe (or bread puddin’ as I was often corrected) remains one of  my prized accomplishments in the 10 years I spent in New Orleans. Like they do with Gumbo, most New Orleanians have completely different ideas as to what constitutes the perfect bread pudding.My hypothesis is that the perfect bread pudding is the one most similar to the one mother’s. Despite the variety, all bread pudding recipes start with the same ingredient: stale French bread. That’s right. You intentionally let perfectly good bread grow stale. Like French bread, your ideas may be best saved for a sweeter use at a later date. The trick is to find some way to organize them. I use delicious and Evernote.
3. Pride goeth before fall: French bread is pretty boring by itself. But it is the perfect consistency for sopping up sauce, or the supreme vehicle for a slab of cheese. Our ideas aren’t much different. As proud as we are of our ideas, we can always improve them when we mix them with  someone else’s. You can also add flavor by paying attention to domains unrelated to your idea. The ingredients of this post came from a combination of the hunger pangs of first day of my diet (again) and seeing a picture of French bread.

Photograph courtesy of ianturton