Executive Burnout, Rethinking the role of the manager using AI & Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity
28 May 2023 Newsletter
“Every time a company doubles, it breaks half its systems and loses half its people.” Robert Glazer
Hope you’re Thriving!
It’s been a productive week with four workshop days and sending my next book, “Onboarded for Managers”, to the book designer. I’m currently aiming for an August release.
Executive Burnout
In the past three days, we’ve seen two shock AFL resignations attributed to burnout: Richmond coach Damian Hardwick and Hawthorn chief executive Jason Reeves.
Motivated people tend to push themselves harder, and regardless of how good they are, no matter how strong, anyone can succumb to burnout and equally, everyone is one or two major life events away from a mental health episode.
This week on The Growth Whisperers podcast, we discuss building your resilience to help deal with executive burnout in the second of this two-episode series. What it means, what to look out for in yourself and your team, and when it might be time to get some help. More details listed below.
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity
I’m close to finishing the book Outlive by Dr Peter Attia, and I can understand why it’s been described as the best nonfiction book of the year. It’s a science-backed approach to longevity and living better longer.
I took a few key points from the book, broadly, in two main sections.
1.Exercise is the most powerful longevity drug
To live well into your tenth decade, you must avoid the four aging diseases: cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and metabolic disease. Insulin resistance is the lead domino for all four aging diseases.
“Studies have found that insulin resistance itself is associated with huge increases in one’s risk of cancer (up to twelvefold), Alzheimer’s disease (fivefold), and death from cardiovascular disease (almost sixfold).”
You can avoid insulin resistance and prolong your life by committing to a longevity training program that includes the following:
Zone 2 training
Zone 2 training involves any aerobic exercise on a stationary bike, treadmill, rower, or outside for 45 minutes, four days a week at a pace you can sustain while barely being able to have a conversation with someone.
VO2 max training
People who increase their VO2 max from below average in your age group, to above average, experience a 50% reduction in all‐cause mortality.
Strength training (with a focus on developing grip strength and hip‐hinging exercises).
“I think of strength training as a form of retirement saving. Just as we want to retire with enough money saved up to sustain us for the rest of our lives, we want to reach older age with enough of a ‘reserve’ of muscle (and bone density) to protect us from injury and allow us to continue to pursue the activities that we enjoy.”
2. Eating for Longevity
No diet is proven to prolong life for everyone. But there are three eating rules anyone without kidney damage can follow to extend life:
1. Consume enough protein to match your weight in grams
2. Don’t eat within 3 hours of bedtime
3. Stick to an eating plan that keeps average blood glucose in a safe range
It’s one of the best books I’ve read; you can buy the book here: Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity and watch a 9-minute video about the book here.
Rethinking The Role Of The Manager Using AI
I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about AI lately.
Let me be clear; I’m not an AI expert, I’m not a novice, I’m not a commentator. But still, I’m trying to get some kind of guardrails on what the swift-moving changes will mean for business and leadership.
I don’t think it will be everything, but I don’t think it will be nothing. It’s hard to avoid a conclusion that is as big or bigger than the internet has impacted society but in a much faster timeframe. With societal implications.
While it is making some jobs redundant as you read this, others will become much more productive, as I’ve discussed in previous weeks.
As leadership and management have transitioned from directive and technical based to leader as a coach, AI could further evolve those same leadership skills.
Consider the quote below from an HBR article I read this week:
“When choosing an analytics approach, we must rethink the role of the manager: from the person who has all the answers to the one who asks the right questions.”
And so, considering AI in a complimentary fashion, the best managers and leaders are the ones who listen, who understand, and who are asking the right questions.
The article outlines three approaches where AI can help managers. Descriptive, Predictive and Prescriptive. They’re used in different scenarios but are good use cases.
From the article:
“Humans and machines excel at different tasks: humans at dealing with limited data and applying intuition in unfamiliar contexts, and machines at making decisions, however granular and sparse, that are repeated in time or space or both, and in environments flooded with rich data.
Provided with too little data, in highly ambiguous situations, or in the presence of conflicting objectives that limit what can be inferred from data, machines struggle to produce relevant outcomes.
But for complex problems that have abundant relevant data and whose solutions could significantly improve business performance, managers should buy or build the right machines and set the right goals for them to do what they can do so well.”
Read the article here: Analytics For Marketers
I Was Never In It For The Money
This Week on The Growth Whisperers Podcast
163 Executive Burnout: How do you know when you need to get some help? (2/2)
Executives are often more driven than the average person. We run hard all the time, and it usually works. And then, it doesn’t work.
We persist and push harder than the average person, and that’s why we win. But it’s also why we can crash harder and sometimes even put everything at risk.
This week we talk about executive burnout in the second of two episodes. What it means, what to look out for in both yourself and your team, and when it might be time to go get some help.
Episode 163 The Growth Whisperers Podcast
Listen to The Growth Whisperers
Or watch it on YouTube
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Keep Thriving!
Brad Giles
