Welcome to Week 10!

This is our second deliberate break in the action. Use the time wisely to rest, reflect and get caught up on your special project, reworks, extra credit or other courses.

As you do, hearken back please to our Week 6 discussion of "work." What is work? Did we figure this out? We're not assembly line workers anymore; we essentially manipulate and add some sort of layer to data, information or knowledge throughout the day. This is hard to measure and understand... (or is it?).

In the "read this plz" section you'll notice brief discussions of how deliberate rest and reflection helps the brain and body assimilate new information, manage stress and help the brain and body stay productive and healthy. That seems like a pretty important thing to a knowledge worker, right?

Since the neuroscience behind this is growing and strong, it calls into question "work" as some sort of aggressive constant movement, either of the body or the mind. Would you be "working" by resting and letting the brain and body reorganize and grow from a period of conventional "work?" In my last Marine Corps job, "work" was fleetingly defined as "if you're in your chair, you're working." Within a few weeks of this "policy" being articulated, the technique of placing one's cubicle and monitor in such a way as to hide the use of Facebook seemed to exponentially increase! Shocking! This behavior in a disciplined Marine Corps command?

If you see the merit in thinking about "work" differently, how could you promote the concept? What are the natural and reasonable objections you would have to overcome? Is your present culture safe enough to bring these kinds of things up, or would you be viewed as "just too out there" if you did? Witness organizational inertia at its finest (worst...), when legitimate new information and perspectives on how to truly be more productive over time seem to exist outside a normal paradigm of a definition, you will see an strong resistance that is understandable but largely irrational.

Bias alert: the irony of organizational resistance in all forms can be quite striking. What would be healthier, over-consumption of caffeine to make a 8-12+ workday possible, where "work" throughout the day no doubt consists of a fair amount of Facebooking and "let's grab a Diet Coke" breaks, versus more deliberate use of neuroscience to increase alertness and productivity?

Your main challenge this week will be whether you embrace the opening provided to truly rest, or if you violate the concept by simply doing other work. Maybe my encouragement to "get caught up" sends a mixed signal? Thoughts?

...now...you'll have to excuse me, I have to get caught up on some grading...

(my TIC message is it's understandably hard to "rest" and still feel "productive"; do your best!)

Link to survey review:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12wD_G5jeWyuvMnJt5j99Nwx0MsH4_-5OxMssGr5...

Reading encouraged, not required! Hey, you might be the type who relaxes by reading up on neuroscience, work and sleep... : D

Neuroscience and rest:

http://neurosciencenews.com/mental-rest-learning-memory-neuroscience-1458/

The stress of workplace rest:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-20/napping-at-work-can-be-so...

HBR on overwork:

https://hbr.org/2006/12/extreme-jobs-the-dangerous-allure-of-the-70-hour-wo...

I cannot emphasize Critical Thinking enough as the bedrock of all good organizational life; this is the "teach a man to fish" piece we are well to return and review often.

Critical thinking video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg

Who is the thinker in the photo? How might he be helpful to us in a KM strategy class?

a: Stephen Covey.

Covey is the great author of the 7 Habits, one of the most influential modern self-help books of all time. This week, we are very much borrowing his "Sharpening the Saw" concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Covey

http://www.relationshipscoach.co.uk/blog/research-shows-our-subconscious-mi...