“Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
My wife and I are back “seeing” things differently again as we begin the journey with our new 8-week beautiful black lab guide dog puppy we are raising for the blind.
Well, I’ve continued to learned a lot about “seeing†through some volunteer work my wife and I have been involved in for over 14 years–it’s with a wonderful organization here in Los Angeles called Guide Dogs of America. We have had the wonderful privilege of raising several guide dogs for the blind and have learned quite a bit about ourselves, others and life through our efforts.
We have also learned a lot of lessons about leadership (both leading and being led).
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the program you typically receive and get to name the puppies at about 8 weeks old and they live with you until they are mature (kinda like kids) which for most dogs is about 18 months. They then begin their structured training to serve their mission of literally being the “eyes†for someone who is sight impaired. When they are working they always were their “bibs†identifying as “guide dog in training.†Truthfully, our job is only to socialize the puppy and try not to make it harder for the professional trainers who will work with these dogs (so, no stupid pet tricks!).
Our community has been a wonderful supporter of the program over many years—in fact many merchants and restaurant owners in Santa Monica where I work and live  knew the names of our dogs but never ours! Good thing we have strong self-esteem. It has been wonderful to take our dogs everywhere, be recognized and have total strangers want to interact with us. Our first two were beautiful yellow labs and they were definitely just as big a draw as eharmony.com or match.com.
Lesson 1:Â Leaders are Pretty Ineffective Without Sleep
We picked up Ajax on Friday and I’m sure he has gotten more sleep than we have. It’s not atypical for a new puppy to adjust to its new surroundings, owners and routines.
Most leaders believe they can ignore exhaustion and the hall mark of successful executives is to thrive on stress and pressure. Actually, just the opposite–the best of the best manage energy and not time and thrive on renewal of their emotional, cognitive, physical and spiritual energy each day.
The general effect of sleep deprivation is pretty widely known. If you get less than just 2 hours of sleep than you need you are likely to have pretty significant decline of memory, decision making, and psychomotor performance. Miss an entire night of sleep and your overall performance is pretty much a bad as somebody legally drunk in the State of California.
And, as if decision making and psychomotor performance isn’t enough, new research by Sheldon Cohen and his colleagues found that those who get 7 hours or less sleep a night are almost 3 times more likely to get sick than those getting 8 hours or more sleep at night (they determined this by placing cold viruses in study participant’s noses).
How much sleep do you typically get?
It seems that American leaders spend about 8.5 hours a day sleeping which is slightly less than the French (9.0 hours) and quite a bit less than the Korean or Japanese leaders (7.8 hours per day).
I’m pretty sure I had about 5 hours total sleep and most if pretty disturbed the last few nights…guess I better check this Blog for typos.
All of our volunteer guide dog puppy raising work with Ernie, Elmo, and now Ajax have truly helped me to see myself and others in a brand new light….Stayed tuned for more leadership lessons with Ajax….Be well….
[tags]guide dogs, seeing eye dogs, Guide Dogs of America, leadership, executive, coaching, performance, sleep, sleep deprivation, leadership decision making, expertise, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack, envisia, deliberate practice[/tags]
Ken Nowack
Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)
