Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, an intelligent Chief Executive Officer finally wakes up to the fact that he's loosing unprecedented loads of money in productivity every day. No one else could see where this productivity leak was happening because nearly everyone was making it and thus it remained hidden.
The gaping hole was the lunch break. Officially he didn't have to give it to most of his employees; however, he established a social expectation within his company to be at work for at least 9 hours a day with the understanding that you can take a lunch break if needed.
As he studied the trends of his employees he found that over a 10 year period his employees spent about 15% less time on lunch breaks and when he prodded more deeply into the issue he found several interesting more nuggets of data.
- more than 50% of his workforce took 30 minutes or less to eat.
- a sizable portion of his workforce regularly forfeited their lunch break because they were too busy.
- another segment of his company used their "lunch breaks" to run personal errands.
While he digested this information he was shocked by the data he found of his worker's productivity following the "lunch break." He looked at the findings of his worker's cognitive impairments from skipping meals as well as eating unhealthy fast food meals under stressful time constraints.
His company, a strong agile highly productive community of selectively chosen talent stumbled every afternoon for 2 or more hours. Complex decision making plummeted like the internet bubble bursting, memory recall slowed down and in some cases disappeared altogether, reaction times became sluggish and other general cognitive skills were additionally compromised.
"But I hired knowledge workers, I need knowledge workers" he thought to himself staring out his window. Realizing the urgency of his discovery he brought in his executive team to study the cost of this gaping hole and in a few hours had a report.
His team estimated that on average following the traditional "lunch break" the company operated at approximately 67% capacity with the company's employees ability to act strategically hit the hardest. On average the company's employees became more reactive by 72%, multitasking increased by 40% lowering overall productivity by 75% within this group, stress increased by 38% and employees pushed harder for longer resulting in more long term productivity losses.
Most of his executive team scoffed at the data as they criticized its validity. "There's no way I'm loosing that much of my ability to make complex decisions" said one executive. Another interjected, "look at all that we've accomplished last quarter, this can't be correct. Besides, I feel fine right now and I missed lunch today working on the new operations innovation strategy."
He listened quietly to the criticisms as he felt sympathetic to many of them as he also found himself being skeptical of the data. However, a part of him kept on repeating, "but you don't have any data to verify this information isn't correct." He reflected on his own schedule, demands and life and saw missed meals not only at lunch, but at breakfast. He saw himself compensating with trips to the coffee machine and the vending machine for snacks. He thought to himself, "what if I'm trying to make a decision right now and I am really impaired? What if how I'm thinking right now isn't my best?"
His COO touted in, "but this is just the nature of business today, we're all busy, we're all under immense demands. None of us have time to take full lunches and execute on all the critical tasks that need to be completed..."
"Or is it?" He interjected, "is this the nature of business itself, or is this the nature of how we do business when we aren't properly fueling ourselves and our employees to perform at their best?"
The room went silent.
He stuck to his intuition and to his most current data and called in a consultant as no one in house had the experience, knowledge and track record to work with this problem.
The question posed to the consultant was this: "How can my company use the lunch break efficiently and effectively such that we're able enhance and improve our performance?"
The consultant pulled out a slick package from his briefcase just larger than the size of his hand.
The consultant started, "this is a nutrition shake. It's a perfectly balanced meal specifically designed to fuel your body and mind."
"Aren't these nasty gritty protein shakes for athletes?" asked the CEO.
"No, this is a perfectly balanced meal designed to deliver all the major nutrients you're body and mind need to perform optimally. And it tastes delicious, but that's not the point. The point is this. The nutrition shake you're holding right now provides what I call Mid-Flight Refueling. It keeps the body energized and the brain fueled to ensure your best cognitive performance and requires little energy reserves to digest and use the nutrients in the shake. Thus instead of food dragging you and your performance down as food is digested, this shake elevates everything you do.
For example the neurotransmitter precursors in this shake stimulate the brains cognitive functions literally minutes after you've had your first sip.
I'd like to suggest that your executive team consumes two of these each day at their convenience. To make a shake takes all but a few minutes and when coupled with a short 5 to 10 minute strategic break from work, it's possible to sustain higher levels of performance throughout the day."
"I'm sold" replied the chief executive.
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