How to Use Your Vacation to Strengthen Your Team (and your organization)

 

It’s not uncommon to return from vacation feeling like you need another vacation. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If you approach your time away with the same level of thoughtfulness and intention that you do with any project you undertake, you can turn that around.

Three strategies will help you create vacation experiences that not only revitalize you and supercharge your performance but also increase the strength and effectiveness of your organization. I posted about the first strategy last week: Make the decision to completely disconnect from work.

This week, we’ll move to the second strategy…

(2) Prepare people in your organization to handle things in your absence.

Most executives would benefit by delegating and empowering others more in general. Often senior leaders find themselves unable to act strategically because they get bogged down in operational tasks that they really shouldn’t be involved in. So, creating a plan to prepare others to run things in your absence will yield dividends for you (and your organization) long after your vacation is over.

Take some time to identify what is most likely to hijack your relaxation, and plan accordingly.

Identify people in your organization whose skills, experience, and passion are a good match for things you would normally handle yourself. Then take the steps necessary to bring them up to speed and put them in charge while you are away.

Create and communicate guidelines that will help them know what to do in situations that would cause you the greatest stress, so they can make solid decisions without you.

Taking these steps not only helps ensure consistency and effectiveness while you are away.  It also develops key players on your team that, given the right opportunities, can make a bigger impact.

When you return, follow up to help your people integrate what they have learned and build on it.

In addition to increasing their own capability, their fresh perspective may yield insights into how things can be handled more effectively in the future. And the confidence you place in your staff can go a long way toward making them feel valued and appreciated.

Implementing this strategy for how to disconnect from work on vacation will allow you to open doors to new levels of performance that benefit your entire organization.

Next week, I’ll share with you the third strategy for disconnecting from work, so you can enjoy your vacation, return feeling refreshed and ready to reengage at a higher, more effective level, and set a powerful example for your people about how to maximize their own performance.

If you want to learn to infuse your work year-round with the same freshness and inspiration you feel after a good vacation, message me to learn about a new program I’ll soon be making available to a limited number of executives.