Navigating the New Workplace: Mastering Deep Work and Self-Awareness
How to Thrive in a World Shaped by AI and Continuous Learning
Are you playing in hard mode at work?
Hard mode at work doesn't have added benefits. It is just… harder than it needs to be. Symptoms of hard mode are:
Constantly being busy with no time to think.
Reacting to things and continuously firefighting.
A packed schedule with no room to breathe.
Neglecting your self-development and continuous learning.
🥇 - 21st-century superpowers and meta-skills for knowledge workers
I first wrote about the importance of self-awareness and deep work in 2021, when GPT3 was largely unknown, and to experiment with it, you first had to apply. Fast forward to today, three years later, when ChatGPT and LLMs are commonplace. In this new world where a bit of prompt engineering effort will lead to high-quality copy-edited writing in the style of your favourite author, professional pitch decks for your target audience, and insightful data analysis at our fingertips, it makes me appreciate that elevating your self-awareness and being able to carry out deep work is even more valuable today. Especially for knowledge workers who want a career in which AI can't readily imitate them.
So here are the key bits from my previous longer-form posts on the topics:
First: Embrace the superpower of the 21st century
Going deep and getting to the bottom of things has become an essential skill in combating AI and automation, which is driving a wave of restructuring.
In his seminal book Deep Work, Cal Newport presents the hypothesis that the typical knowledge worker's ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare and increasingly valuable. Cal's description of deep work aligns perfectly with getting to the bottom of things and not only staying on top of things:
Deep work is activities performed without distraction, so you have the highest levels of concentration possible that push your cognitive capabilities to the max. The reward for these efforts is to
create new value,
improve existing skills and develop new ones,
work that is hard to replicate - especially with the coming wave of AI.
So, are you staying on top of things or getting to the bottom of things?
Getting to the bottom of things and going deep.
If you are to develop your ability to get to the bottom of things and, therefore, thrive rather than survive, you need:
The ability to quickly master hard things. New technologies change rapidly, and the need to master hard things will never end. Therefore, we need a system and habits in place. If you can't learn, you won't thrive - we need to create a continuous learning environment for ourselves and our teams.
The ability to produce at an elite level (speed and quality). This means we need to be able to transform this learning into tangible results that people and organisations value.
Doing #1 and #2 depends on your ability to perform deep work. Deep work cannot exist alongside interruption and requires blocks of uninterrupted concentration.
Time for a reality check. It isn't possible for people to completely cut themselves off from their day jobs. Whether it is the many meetings, responding to incoming questions from your global team, tackling the pressing matters that came in overnight, chasing that client or supplier, or reacting to a regulatory request for information, the list is endless.
So, while it is not possible to perform deep work while simultaneously performing shallow (distracting) work, we need practical ways to help them coexist. That way, you can continue delivering the more visible, more readily measurable work while at the same time carving out precious time and energy for the more valuable, more future-proof, and likely more rewarding work.
Develop the tools, techniques, habits and discipline for Deep Work.
Here are a few ideas to help you make the necessary changes. We each need strategies and habits that will increase the probability that we can succeed in embedding deep work within our professional working lives. Different approaches will suit different people - no one way will work for everyone:
How deep, when, and how often? How much time can you carve out from your work and family commitments? Cal Newport describes several approaches:
Monastic - cut yourself off entirely from inevitable distractions.
Bimodal - dedicate clearly defined periods to deep work while leaving the rest open to your everyday life. Bimodal could take the form of batching your work. Set aside and protect defined monthly periods to focus exclusively on research or creative thinking.
Rhythmic - get into the habit of regular periods of deep work. Perhaps this takes the form of writing for 1-hour a day, every day. Or you could get up early and do 2-hours of deep work before your typical day begins.
Measure how much time you spend getting to the bottom of things - mark in your diary, calendar or journal each day and week. Keep the scorecard visible and hold yourself accountable. Being busy is not a valid excuse for why you are not continually learning and going deep.
Reduce distractions:
Quit or, at the very least, reduce your time on Social Media. Pick which one(s) provides the most value to you. Set a high bar. Take a sabbatical - you can always return; it's not like those platforms are going to disappear.
Audit the emails you receive and messaging threads of which you are a member. Ask yourself, "What is the purpose of me receiving this and being on the distribution?" If you don't know, then remove yourself. You can always get added again at a later date should it turn out to be necessary.
Remove the popups and notifications on your devices and screens - make them invisible. You don't need visible distractions, so schedule specific times to check each.
Imagine what you could accomplish if you weren't focused on being busy all the time.
Second: Develop self-awareness to be a more impactful leader
For years, I've been coaching leaders who are often on top of their game but find themselves tripping over one common obstacle: self-awareness.
A lack of self-awareness can be risky at best and disastrous at worst.
The term "self-awareness" can be as elusive as it is ubiquitous, but I like Dr Tasha Eurich's definition in her book Insight. She describes self-awareness as this:
The ability to see ourselves clearly – understand who we are, how others see us, and how we fit into the world around us.
Self-awareness isn't one truth. It's a complex tapestry woven from various threads of information.
Dr Eurich explains what it means to be self-aware. There are two elements to it:
1 - Internal - do you see yourself clearly? This is inward - do we understand our values, what drives us, what work environment we prefer, and what gets the best out of us?
2 - External - do you know how other people see you? We will likely build more robust and trusting relationships if we can better see ourselves from another's perspective.
The good news is that self-awareness is a skill that we can develop through consistent practice, changing our behaviour, and developing new habits. Dr Eurich's research identified distinct pillars that make self-awareness:
The first is about us:
Values and Passion: what guides us, and what do we love to do?
Aspirations: what do we want to experience and achieve?
Fit: the type of environment and team that engages us the best and makes us happy rather than making us feel drained at the end of the day.
Reactions: the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, especially regarding how we react to being under pressure and feeling stressed.
The second is about our impact on others:
Impact: the effect we have on others. Do we instill confidence and motivate our teams, engendering trust, or do we constantly micromanage or criticise their work?
To be genuinely self-aware, we need to know how people perceive us, which we cannot do just by looking inward. Feedback is the only truly reliable source of information about how we come across.
How to develop your Self-Awareness
Here are four ways to develop your self-awareness and help you on the path to mastery of the meta-skill of the twenty-first century:
Reflect - firstly, carve out time every day to reflect. Whether at the start of the day or the end, try to write down your thoughts. A daily check-in can help us be more aware of our thoughts and feelings. Therefore, we can better control our behaviour, quiet our emotions, and react more intelligently, leading to better decisions. How did your day go today, and how do you feel about how it went? What went well? What didn't go well? What did I learn? These are just some of the questions you could use to guide your reflective practice.
We are all different - just as there are various types of coaching and leadership styles, there are different types of people and elements to an individual's personality. The "big five" are considered to be the key underlying traits that make up an individual's personality. Also referred to as OCEAN (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism), this is a powerful way to help you understand yourself and the people you interact with. There's no correct answer. There's no perfect personality. We can better understand the people we interact with by understanding the underlying personality traits that can lead to different behaviours. Their actions that may be a source of frustration may arise from their default position based on their personality type and the traits hardwired into them. Personality assessments, often referred to as psychometrics, can be powerful tools to raise self-awareness. When shared with your teams, the results provide a common language to understand each other better, leading to more productive teams.
Feedback - The best way to improve your performance at almost anything. Busy, driven people are often missing a systematic feedback mechanism. Feedback is essential to know what to start doing, stop doing and do more of something. In my article about the value of feedback, I share how to become a role model who proactively seeks feedback and constructively acts upon it:
Proactively ask your current boss. Specificity is essential. Don't just ask, "How am I doing?" What could you be doing more of, starting to do, or stop doing to be more helpful/impactful in the team?
Ask a previous boss. Ask specific questions such as "What did I do that used to drive you up the wall or that caused you to cover for me or put out fires that I inadvertently caused and was unaware of?"
Find a mentor at work who will observe you in action and provide timely and constructive criticism.
Listen carefully to what people are saying. Pay attention to what people are saying, what they aren't saying and how they say it.
By considering self-awareness foundational to leadership competencies, companies can reap the rewards of more differentiated leaders with thriving and motivated teams.
📫 - A quote that I am currently pondering
"Provocation not prescription."
This is something I heard Seth Godin saying on a recent podcast with Tim Ferriss.
It instantly struck a chord with me.
So, I did what I have learned to do when my curiosity surfaces while exercising. I paused my workout to make a note on my phone (usually in a draft email) before my mind moved on to the next thing.
In this case, my thoughts whet directly to my new book, "Before You Step Into The Office", which I will publish in May 2024.
The book is relatively short, at 12k words. I don't see why most self-help leadership books need to be any longer. My point isn't to lay out all the tools and exercises you need to succeed. Why? Because there is no one-size-fits-all! There is rarely a silver bullet that applies to everyone across all industries and jobs.
In a world where every knowledge worker has access to search engines and LLMs, I aim to provoke. I dissect and distil topics to provide insight and education and challenge the norms, thereby enabling people to tilt the odds in their favour.
🧾 - An absorbing and insightful (short) read
Missing the big picture, from May Contain Lies - Alex Edmans.
Everyone is busy; everyone is in a rush. But don't let that be an excuse for not correctly questioning what is presented to you - especially if it appears to corroborate your existing point of view at first blush.
I read so many books that to support the author's claim, they reference research that it is doubtful the authors have read and analysed. If they had done so, they likely would not have built the foundations of their points using it. Examples include old data from many decades before, data collected only on laboratory animals, tiny sample sizes from different countries, etc.
🤔 - If you did have the answer to this question, what would it be?
Is your behaviour moving you closer to what you want or further away?