Why Executives Need Space to Think Clearly

Research & Sources / Leadership & Decision-Making

Take a glass of water with some mud in it and stir. It stays cloudy as long as you keep stirring. Stop, and wait a few minutes. The mud sinks, and the water becomes clear enough to see through. A leader’s mind is like that glass. The constant stirring of meetings and messages keeps it cloudy. Clarity needs stillness.

The calendar with no gaps

Look at the calendar of most senior leaders and you will see the same thing: meetings from morning to evening, often back to back. Michael Porter and Nitin Nohria studied how CEOs use their time and found that the large majority of their working hours went into meetings, with little left for quiet thinking.¹

The strange part is that thinking is the main thing executives are paid for: seeing patterns, making judgement calls, deciding direction. Yet it is the one activity with no appointment in the calendar.

What constant stirring does

Gloria Mark and colleagues studied what happens when people are interrupted. They found that people compensate by working faster, but at the cost of more stress, frustration and effort.² You get the work done, but you pay for it.

Sophie Leroy showed that when we switch from one task to the next, part of our attention stays behind with the first one. She called it attention residue.³ A day of thirty-minute meetings is a day of constant residue. You are never quite fully in the room.

Paul Graham described the same thing from the other side: work that needs deep concentration is badly damaged by meetings scattered through the day, even short ones.⁴

What space does

When the stirring stops, the mind starts doing its own work. Connections appear. A problem that looked impossible suddenly has a simple next step. Many people know this from the shower or a long drive.

Stanford researchers Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz even found that walking increased people’s creative idea generation compared with sitting.⁵ Sometimes the best strategy meeting is a walk alone.

How to create space in a full calendar

Book thinking time like a meeting. Two blocks of 90 minutes per week, with a title. If it is not in the calendar, it will be taken.

Bring one question, not a to-do list. “What is the biggest risk in our plan for next year?” is a good thinking question. Checking emails is not thinking time.

Leave the building or the screen. A walk, a café, a notebook. A change of place changes the kind of thinking.

Create buffers. Five or ten minutes between meetings give the mud a chance to settle.

Say no to some meetings. Ask: does this meeting need me, or just my presence?

What this means for you this week

• Book two 90-minute thinking blocks and protect them.
• Choose one question for each block in advance.
• Turn three meetings into 25 or 50 minutes instead of 30 or 60.
• Take one walk without your phone and with one problem in mind.

The water does not need cleaning. It needs a moment of stillness.

Sources

1. Porter, M. E. & Nohria, N. (2018). How CEOs Manage Time. Harvard Business Review. hbr.orgStudy of CEO time use: most of a CEO’s day is spent in meetings, and protecting time for strategy and reflection is a constant struggle.
2. Mark, G., Gudith, D. & Klocke, U. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress. Proceedings of CHI 2008, 107-110. doi.orgInterrupted people compensate by working faster, at the cost of more stress, frustration and effort.
3. Leroy, S. (2009). Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109(2), 168-181. doi.orgPart of our attention stays with the previous task after switching, lowering performance on the next one.
4. Graham, P. (2009). Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule. paulgraham.comWork that needs long stretches of concentration is badly damaged by meetings scattered through the day.
5. Oppezzo, M. & Schwartz, D. L. (2014). Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(4), 1142-1152. doi.orgWalking increased creative idea generation compared with sitting.