Creating a Thriving Workplace with Cognitive Budgeting

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Hi everyone,
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Malu speaking.
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I'm the author of Life's Notebook.
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Welcome to the Elevation Grid.
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I speak about career,
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science,
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and well-being.
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Okay,
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enough.
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Let's stop.
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Today we're talking about cognitive budgeting.
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So what is cognitive budgeting?
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It's about creating a personal plan to proactively direct our energy.
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What does this mean?
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Because neuroscience is clear.
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We have only a limited amount of energy.
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We have not infinite.
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It's like budgets,
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like financial budgets.
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You don't have infinite money.
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You don't have infinite energy.
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It's just exactly the same thing.
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And why am I talking about this?
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This is quite clear,
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well known.
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It's because we are currently in an environment of remote and hybrid working where it's particularly important to manage your personal energy.
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Why?
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Because there is lack of peer pressure.
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In this environment there is insufficient cross-fertilization and also isolation.
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You are sitting in your office by yourself and you have the tendency when you're sitting by yourself about ruminating because previously you would go to the water cooler,
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take a coffee,
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talk to someone,
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knew what the rumors were in the corridor and this would...
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kind of alleviate your rumination.
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But now that is not the case anymore and as I mentioned no peer pressure,
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no cross fertilization,
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all of this is subject to leading to ruminate.
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So what could for example in this kind of work environment
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a boss do or a leader do with his team to actually direct their energy to the best version of themselves ultimately and to increase team performance accordingly.
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So the way he could do is to set a cognitive budget for each team member.
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So it's kind of like taking a table.
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Taking two columns,
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what task am I good at,
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what task am I not good at?
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Because the task where you're good at,
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you have not so much tendency to ruminate.
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It's when you have to enter these dumb results in this company budget,
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which is so boring that you start ruminating.
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So why not use the best...
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the best attributes of each employee so that they have no time to ruminate,
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they are so happy to work.
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So let's take the example of the team leader who is creating a cognitive budget for each of his team members to help their employees to direct their mental energy towards
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the activities they perform best.
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So he has,
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for example,
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three team members and two are very good at strategy.
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Even so,
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one is better at conceiving the strategy and the other one is putting it in practice,
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implementing the strategy.
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And the third person is better at timelines and...
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practical things like budget entries,
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etc.
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So in order for them to perform best as a team and to be motivated by their work rather than by ruminating,
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it's good that everyone has his personal budget according to what they are best at.
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So...
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The creative people will take care of the creative stuff and the practical people of the practical stuff.
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This way...
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This way,
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the workflow is redistributed in a way that everyone works at his best,
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based on the task preferences.
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And so work becomes more flexible and the group dynamic is changed.
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Now they are really in a...
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It's fostering team spirit,
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actually.
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So...
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Everyone is motivated to work,
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and even the discussion,
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which is now three days,
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four-day weeks,
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I'm sure that five-day weeks,
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they don't care so much about the number of days they come to work because they're really energized by the work they do.
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They are excited,
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and everyone does what he wants to do.
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And this doesn't mean that this can't change in the future,
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because for different projects eventually team members will become new activities to take care of.
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And eventually the strategist has learned from the operational people things which he can apply later on,
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and so they learn from each other.
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And eventually he will like it better to do it better later because he can do it now.
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He has learned to do it.
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So it's not written in stone.
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Things can change.
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But it's a way of really optimizing the team spirit and optimizing the teamwork so that everyone can work in their respective comfort zone.
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And they are not plagued anymore by these ruminating thoughts and why did I miss out on the promotion,
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or what is going on,
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I have no idea what's going on.
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And believe me,
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this can have a considerable impact on team performance.
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And so it would be a good idea to...
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to think about cognitive budgeting to really use the strength of each individual in the best possible way.