What's Your Keystone Habit?

Keystone habits, a term coined by Charles Duhigg (author of The Power of Habit), are habits that automatically lead to multiple positive behaviors and positive effects in your life. When you anchor your day or your week with such a habit, it becomes the keystone that has a ripple effect into your activities and behaviors.

 “Keystone habits say that success doesn’t depend on getting every single thing right, but instead relies on identifying a few key priorities and fashioning them into powerful levers.” Charles Duhigg

Colleagues sometimes perceived Sven* as threatening. His direct, no-nonsense communication style made him a powerful and productive asset to the sales organization. Due to the global nature of his team, he’d be on calls as early as 6am and again at 8 or 9pm after a full days work. He prided himself on working hard, but his personal life suffered and he internalized much of his stress. Before coaching began he already implemented healthy changes to his diet but it wasn’t enough to prevent the sharper interactions he had with peers and even a direct confrontation with his boss. Over the course of our coaching engagement, Sven experimented with changes to his day, both by saying no to added meetings and engagements – like volunteer boards. But the real change occurred when he resumed swimming on a daily basis. Even if it was just 20 minutes, starting his day this way made all the difference. He had more energy, could think clearly, became better at prioritizing and he even slept better at night. At times when he was on the road for work, he’d stop swimming and immediately his stress levels rose. So honing in on exercise no-matter-what was essential as a keystone.

In time Sven was able to keep his calm under stress. His ability to listen more deeply and empathize with others increased. A key turning point was during a high stakes sales implementation. The tech team felt demoralized and bullied by the sales groups who promised the world without having to shoulder the intricacies of building it out. Sven focused on becoming an ally for the tech team, naming the issues, ensuring voices were heard and then became arbiter for a solution that worked for the customer, sales and tech teams. Because he was no longer under-water himself - well, at least now only intentionally - he had a sense of humor and had time to think through meaningful ways to connect and appreciate others. He was proactive rather than reactive and this allowed his sincerity and thoughtfulness to shine through. In the final days of implementation he gave chocolate to each member of the tech team with a hand written note saying thank you. His victory was felt by his immediate teams and was also noticed by the most senior leaders of the company who tapped him for even bigger and exciting projects. He was promoted a few months later.

*In any case study, names are changed for client confidentiality.

Time Management Trick for New Habits

As we kick of a new year and a new decade, many of us gear up for personal and professional improvement. In order to improve something in your life a typical approach is to make time for a new practice. You have to add time to make it happen. If you want to lose weight, you start going to the gym. To make more money, you increase the amount of work. To be more present, you wake up earlier and meditate. But if you are a leader in any capacity your life is already full of things to do. For the perpetually busy, what could be more stressful than adding yet one more task?

An alternative approach would be to subtract. If you want to lose weight, eat less. If you want more money, spend less. If you want to be happier see what Bob Newhart says in this SNL skit. (If only it were that easy.) 

But what if there’s another option; something neither additive nor deductive. Rather than starting something new, or stopping something old just shift what you’re already doing.

You already have to breathe, eat, drink and transport yourself from one place to another. You already attend meetings and have 1-1 conversations.  How can you make the most of these moments? Here are a few examples of what our clients have done:

A seasoned VP felt constantly edgy and combative with the less experienced co-founders of his startup. A shift in his morning commute made all the difference. Instead of a news packed radio hour full of the latest shootings and world problems he listened to his favorite up-beat music. The music made him smile and he naturally felt more at ease and happy when he entered the office each day. He was less tense right out of the gate and therefore more open to their fresh ideas and perspectives. 

For an engineer who wanted to speak more clearly and succinctly it wasn’t as simple as stopping his habit of speaking fast or rambling. For him, the shift was in posture, from slouching to standing straight instead. First, this unraveled patterns of tension and anxiety in his body. Second, it signaled to his brain that he didn’t need to be casual, slouchy or buddy-buddy with his co-workers. He needed to stand comfortably tall and in alignment. He practiced improving his posture daily during regular meetings. Nothing changed in his schedule, he just used meeting time more productively by practicing posture while listening and engaging. This micro shift practiced repeatedly over time led him to a game-changing conversation with a top level exec. He calmly and succinctly shared his idea and his skip-level superior quickly adopted it and rolled it out to the rest of the organization.

A new partner in a firm wanted to increase engagement with her team. When a move from the city to the suburbs increased her commute time she used her drive time as a valuable time to shift gears, connect, and have important conversations with her directs. She learned things about them and issues for the company as a whole that she would have missed had she not invested the time in connecting with them.

But wait, this sounds too simple. In Legacy, James Kerr tells the story about the famous All Blacks rugby team famous for their haka - a mighty ritual they use at the start of a match. According to Kerr such shifts are game changing. The All Blacks take their shifts to a new level by making them rituals. “You must ritualize to actualize.”

Step back…consider the flow and pattern of your day. Where could you simplify, slow down and be more deliberate? What small shift in effort will generate maximum return for you?  What purpose are you trying to fulfill right now and what’s the easiest way to integrate that purpose into things you are already doing?  This is where rubber hits the road. Cultivate habits that are uniquely powerful for you based on your specific purpose and your daily patterns. Then chart a path that starts where you are.