Exercise: A Meeting You Should Take for Performance's Sake

There are so many blogs, articles and papers on how to improve your business performance. Health care executives have a plethora of resources on increasing employee satisfaction, improving the patient experience, reducing medical errors, designing efficient buildings and increasing throughput. But we, as leaders, tend to ignore the glue that holds all these initiatives, ideas and strategies together:

OURSELVES!

All too often, leaders put in countless hours of work sitting in their office, in the boardroom and walking the halls of their organization. The days are full of stress, decisions, frustrations and demands. “Can I take the afternoon off?” “Why is it that I can never find charts on your nursing units?” “The CT is down again.” “Our denials are up again.” What we tend to forget is that if we don’t take care of ourselves, all of those pressures and frustrations can break down our mental strength – and our physical health – to the point that it becomes detrimental to our business performance.

I remember a story on MSNBC a few years ago about how 60% of professionals who took the time for just 30 minutes of physical activity during their workday saw a 15% increase in their work performance. I’ll take a 15% increase in my performance any day – especially when it comes with the health benefits of exercise as a bonus.

So when they say “30 minutes of activity” I’m sure that you are like me: I come up with every excuse ever used as to why I can’t find those 30 minutes. Too many meetings, too many reports to review, too many strategies to develop.

And yet, if I told you that a three-hour meeting each week with one particular executive would increase your revenues 15% would you make the time to take that meeting? In this case, that executive is YOU and deserves priority time on your calendar.

In my 20s I was a competitive bodybuilder. I put in two hours a day in the gym because at the time I had three priorities in my life: college, a part-time job and the gym. Today, life is a bit more complicated, with a lot more priorities that all seem to fight for that No. 1 spot. So it takes a lot more intentional effort and motivation to carve out those 30 minutes a day.

Here are some of my strategies I have adopted recently for always getting in my exercise:

• I respect my exercise hour, three days a week, by placing it as a scheduled meeting on my calendar that can’t be missed. Just as I do with a meeting with some key referring physicians or with my operations group. If I have to miss my “exercise meeting,” I reschedule it on my calendar later in the day.
• I try to put in my exercise time early in the morning. Waiting until after work never happens because work extends into my evenings most of the time.
• Exercise doesn’t always mean a trip to a gym. Taking a quick, brisk walk around the office for 30 minutes and incorporating the stairs at each end of the building constitutes exercise. In fact, in that same news story I mentioned earlier, the professionals who simply got up from their desks and walked for 30 minutes noted a better mood in the afternoon and increased tolerance for stressful work situations.
• Get a buddy. You don’t have to do the activities together, but hold each other accountable and motivate one another through some healthy competition. My assistant and I check in with each other each day on how much exercise we did the day before and even keep score on who walked the farthest or did the most repetitions of a particular exercise; it keeps things fun and interesting. Nothing is worse than someone saying, “I walked for 25 minutes, what did you do?” and your answer is, “I was too busy.” 
• I keep a post-it note on my computer that says “Exercise is as important as whatever you are doing right now … put in 30 minutes NOW.” This is a daily reminder that if I can’t put in 30 minutes for my health and mental well-being, I won’t have enough energy or capacity to deal with whatever my day brings later.

These simple changes have helped me keep my exercise going for the past six months – and with good reward. My blood pressure has dropped to a more healthy range from last year and I don’t have the level of stress at the end of the day that I had before. And the innovation and creativity that has come from my desk has increased that expected 15%, too. That’s a reward that we all benefit from when my job is to help leaders like you make health care better.

Read Debbie’s full profile.