Stop Coming to Work Drunk

I love the title of this blog-post because I find it a great piece to publish the day after Halloween. Before I frighten anyone, or mislead you to believe that it’s a common (or acceptable) practice to come to work drunk, I should provide the disclaimer that I do not mean physically coming to work drunk, but rather, the cognitive function that happens in your brain when you are sleep deprived.

The keynote speaker for the LinkedIn Talent Connect 2014 event in San Francisco was Arianna Huffington. For those who may be unfamiliar, Huffington is founder of The Huffington Post, and not only is she an incredibly talented writer and journalist, but she has started an important conversation about avoiding burnout in the workplace.

After the 2013 Lean In empowerment movement, women are becoming increasingly more passionate about pursuing engaging work that both accommodates their personal lives and enables them to advance. While we are instructed to “lean in” by Sheryl Sandberg, Huffington counter-instructs “leaning back” to avoid burning-out.  This does not mean that she is proposing that men or women should be less engaged in their work. However, she is saying that people need to do a better job taking care of their health and not sacrificing important things, like sleep, for working at a reckless pace, working late into the night, and not taking time to rest.

Now, back to coming to work drunk. Huffington shared that scientific evidence now shows that in terms of cognitive performance sleep deprivation has the same impact as coming to work drunk. She shared in her speech, “I had dinner recently with a man who bragged ‘I had 4 hours of sleep the night before.’ I wanted to say, if you had slept 5 this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.” Huffington continued to draw parallels between the importance of sleep and clear decision making. I have included a graphic from Harvard Business Review, above, that shows the relationship between performance and alcohol consumption, and performance and sleep deprivation (additional links below).

She continued with examples when leaders, like Bill Clinton, admitted to making terrible mistakes while operating on sub-optimal amounts of sleep. She provided examples of hard working Talent Acquisition professionals with aging requisitions, desperate to find their perfect candidate (very relatable).  She confessed that her own worst hiring decisions were made when she did not have enough rest. When we are not well-rested, we “shut up the intuition, that voice that is telling us things about the red flags that may not be in the resume, that may not be in what the candidate is saying, but that you know, in that sense that we call intuition, that goes beyond our rational brain that something is not quite right, that is not the right fit. Every time I have overruled that part of my mind I have made a mistake.”

As a Talent Acquisition professional I can absolutely relate to these examples. But, I don’t think that you have to be in my field to take away a good lesson from this talk. Many of us have been overworked, burdened with more to do than time in our day. Instead of working longer, what if we made the best of our productive time, instead? What would happen if we prioritized self-care and sleep?

I imagine you are saying you don’t have time to sleep a full seven or eight hours per night. I get it, I have felt that way, too. Several months ago I decided to give it a shot, though. I read Huffington’s book, Thrive, this past summer, and when I decided to give myself the gift of a full night’s rest, I realized that I woke up refreshed and productive. When I sat down in the morning, I accomplished more work in less time than when I was dragging myself in after a sleep-deprived night. I would encourage others to also try this practice. I know that we all have a lot of work to do, and creating a consistent sleeping pattern does take time, but it also provides a bounty of rewards for increased productivity, creativity and clear cognitive function.

Check back tomorrow for Take Away #5 from LinkedIn Talent Connect San Francisco 2014.

To view Arianna Huffinton's keynote speech Click Here

For additional information on performance related to sleep deprivation and drinking, Click Here and Here