MODULE 1: Are You on Fire?
The Four Principles of Managing Energy
.
Objective: To understand and begin putting into practice the key principles of managing energy.
.
This module provides an overview of the four energy management principles that lie at the heart of our work:
.
Participants leave this module committed to two initial rituals - one focused on expanding a specific capacity, the other designed to insure more regular renewal and recovery.
.
.
MODULE 2: Taking Stock. Taking Control.
Fueling Energy From the Inside Out
.
Objective: To understand the power and responsibility of every leader to cultivate and communicate the energy that fuels sustained high performance.
.
This module focuses on helping participants to face the facts in their lives and to take more responsibility for the stories they tell about those facts. Aided by narrative 360 feedback from colleagues, participants first illuminate the truth about how they are currently managing their energy across all four dimensions. Next, they learn how to experiment with different "lenses" through which to view the facts of their lives and to interpret them in ways that are more empowering and realistically optimistic. The aim of this module is to help participants shift responsibility for way they experience the world from outside themselves to inside themselves, and from playing the role of victim to becoming masters of their own destiny. In the process, immense energy is freed for more productive use.
.
.
MODULES 3-6: Charge and Recharge!
Expanding and Refueling the Tank
.
Each one of the following four sessions focuses on helping participants build and regularly renew capacity in one of the four key dimensions.
.
.
MODULE 3: Envisioning a Larger Mission.
The Power of Spiritual Energy
.
Objective: To help participants cultivate spiritual energy through a commitment to deeply held values and a mission larger than their immediate self-interest.
.
Much of our everyday behavior is expedient, responding to urgent demands at the expense of long-term sustainability and well-being. By moving from a preoccupation with our own needs to serving a mission beyond ourselves, we tap into a uniquely powerful source of energy that takes the form of passion and perseverance. Defining this larger vision is a critical first step. Building rituals that keep us connected to universal values such as integrity, compassion, generosity and courage further offsets our tendency to negative emotions and expedient behaviors.
.
.
MODULE 4: Stoking the Fire.
The Power of Physical Energy
.
Objective: To help participants increase and sustain the fundamental level of energy necessary to drive any action or behavior. Without sufficient physical energy, all other dimensions of energy are compromised. Physical capacity decreases with age, and dramatically so in the absence of systematic training. Participants in this module are helped to understand the key drivers of high physical energy
.
and to design practical rituals that fuel it. The focus here is on fitness, nutrition, sleep and rest, but also on the role of breathing, body language and personal presence.
.
.
SESSION 5: Cultivating Flexible Focus.
The Power of Mental Energy
.
Objective: To help participants cultivate the flexible focus necessary to sustain high performance.
.
In the face of rising demand, our focus is increasingly fractured. Effective task-based performance depends on the capacity for narrow focus engaging fully in one challenge at a time. Multitasking, by contrast, means being partially engaged in several activities at once and never fully engaged in any of them. In this module, participants learn to systematically build back the muscle of absorbed concentration. Open focus, by contrast, depends on the capacity to disengage fully from absorbed, analytic thinking. Participants learn to create the appropriate conditions for the sort of creative and big-picture thinking that is often sacrificed to more urgent priorities.
.
.
SESSION 6: From Survival to Abundance.
The Power of Emotional Energy
.
Objective: To help participants cultivate the positive emotions that serve optimal performance.
.
When people are asked to describe how they feel when they are performing at their best, they invariably use words such as happy, optimistic, confident, positive, committed and passionate. Under high demand, however, they often to default to survival-based emotions such as frustration, impatience, anger, fear, defensiveness and resentment. These feelings are energy draining, toxic to the body and infectious. This module focuses on helping people to exercise more conscious control over their emotional states and the resulting behaviors.