I have been thinking about the idea of “sleepwalking” through life for several years. When I consider what this means, I keep returning to a few important questions:
- Who benefits when the rest of us sleepwalk through life?
- What happens to us and our evolution when we stop actively shaping our lives?
- What is the organizational cost when our employees bring sleepwalking to work?
We sleepwalk when we engage in an activity without full consciousness of what we’re doing. If we sleepwalk at night, we might get up and move around unconsciously. We might wake up with a bruise but have no memory of how it happened!
Sleepwalking at work
So what happens when we sleepwalk at work? Sleepwalking is also a great metaphor to explore how our employees behave. For example:
- Does our staff work without full consciousness, only thinking about each task?
- Do they focus primarily on getting through the tasks on their to-do lists?
- Do managers feel like nothing will happen without their direction and supervision?
Take a moment to think about the answers to these questions for your organization and teams. This is a first step to understanding if and how your organization is unconsciously rewarding sleepwalking at work.
Rewarding our employees for sleepwalking comes with significant costs.
The myth of obedient employees
Every manager or positional leader has experienced a time when they wanted their employees to simply follow the directions they were given. This is a major myth of management and leadership. The myth unfolds with the fantasy that their job as a manager would be easier if no one resisted, challenged, or thought for themselves. This fantasy is anchored in the belief that employees interfere with productivity when they question leadership directions or think for themselves. It also assumes that the manager or positional leader has all the necessary information and strategic skills to assess priorities accurately, and that if everyone follows passively, nothing bad can happen.
There are two major flaws in this fantasy. First, it doesn’t account for the leader’s ego. Our egos can direct employees to do things that serve our personal interests, not the goals of the organization. Next, it doesn’t account for the massive energy drain that happens when a group is filled with people who either can’t or won’t think for themselves. This dynamic can tire out managers and leaders very quickly. I’m sure there are many of us who have experienced this first hand!
When a team is filled with people who wait to be told what to do—or constantly ask what to do—the manager often has a constant line of people outside their office door needing their time. Other staff sit idly at their desk, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for instructions or worse, gossiping and fueling discontent. There’s no initiative or self-organization when your staff is sleepwalking at work. Productivity goals won’t be met without the manager working many long hours to make sure everyone is doing what they want.
The energy cost of sleepwalking employees
If an organization wants to thrive, it helps if leaders create conditions that encourage employees to bring positive energy to their workplace.
Employees choose to bring either positive, negative, or neutral energy to work. Any change, innovation, or productivity requires positive energy to drive it. When our employees sleepwalk at work, energy is quickly expended and never regenerated. This means that all the energy necessary to fuel the work must come from the manager or positional leader. This drains their energy and worse, leads to dysfunction within the organization. Eventually it will erode the quality of life of whoever is “in charge” both professionally and personally.
No one wants to burn out at work, and it’s a major risk when our employees sleepwalk at work. Think about how much of this is happening for your team, and you might be unconsciously promoting this scenario. Next time, I’ll offer some ways to combat this common problem.
