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#Leadership : 3 Ways Walking Away From Your Desk Makes You Smarter…When the Body Moves the Brain Functions Better.

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Exercise can improve concentration, learning, creativity and memory. Basically, moving more makes you smarter, mentally faster and more creative. And all of that helps you to grow your business.

Man at Computer with Boss

When you’re running a business, you need to think clearly, learn fast and find creative solutions to pressing problems. While you’re probably pretty good at these things, it’s likely you could be better. You can improve just about every mental power in your entrepreneurial arsenal by doing one thing – moving more.

Most people believe that sitting at a desk for hours on end gets loads of work done. We certainly live in a culture that valorizes putting in long days at the office. Which often means, putting in long days in our chairs. Unfortunately, we’re learning that our productivity declines as our sitting increases. Those long hours at the desk have diminishing returns. The brain functions better when the body moves.

Here are three huge mental benefits to moving more.

1. Think clearer.

A recent study showed that by working at standing desks, students could improve test scores by 20 percent. Think about how that could translate to your daily performance.

The more you can move around during the day, the more focused, alert and mentally capable you become. Why? Because you’re increasing blood flow – nutrients and oxygen — to the brain. No wonder those test scores went up.

Another study revealed that children who did aerobic exercise for 20 minutes before writing math tests improved their scores. It also showed that children, who regularly exercised, had larger regions of their brains related to attention, controlling their thoughts and restraining impulses. These mental strengths help us maintain focus, and follow through on our intentions. These results were confirmed in young adults too, so it’s not just children, who benefit from exercise before mental tasks.

Take a walk or climb some stairs before you meet with a new client or make an important presentation. You will be more focused, attentive and mentally clear.

Related: 7 Reasons the CEO Should Get Outside to Exercise

 

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2. Learn faster.

Another study of children in the UK found that 15 minutes of exercise improved learning in math by about a quarter of a grade and that the increments in performance continued right up to 60 minutes – meaning that 60 minutes of activity made it possible to boost learning and academic performance by a full grade.

And a recent study, focused on adults, showed that as little as 20 minutes of yoga can improve brain function.

According to Neha Gothe, it appears that following yoga practice, the participants were better able to focus their mental resources, process information quickly, more accurately and also learn, hold and update pieces of information more effectively.

Our brains are more receptive to learning; learn more quickly; and maintain our learning over time when we move our bodies more.

Related: Exercise Is One Thing Most Successful People Do Everyday

3. Be more creative.

Bob Marley did some very interesting things to supercharge his creativity and performance. Before concerts, Marley and his band would play soccer in the stadium, where they were going to perform. And before recording sessions, they would go down to the beach for soccer and a swim before heading into the studio. They found that if they played outside before playing music, they were better.

Exercise boosts creativity because it reduces stress, fear and anxiety, all of which interfere with our ability to imagine new possibilities. It’s hard to tackle an emerging problem, rethink a presentation or invent a new solution when distracted by stress or anxiety. Moving more opens your mind to creative possibilities and allows you to see things in a new way. Walking appears to be particularly effective at boosting creativity.

Exercise can improve concentration, learning, creativity and memory. Basically, moving more makes you smarter, mentally faster and more creative. And all of that helps you to grow your business.

Entrepreneur.com |  September 28, 2016 | Greg Wells

#Leadership : How To Make Your Company’s Culture of Innovation More Than Just A Nice Idea…In the #Workplace, Encouraging Creative Problem-solving is far easier in theory. By Taking the Needed Steps to Alleviate any Overpowering Fear of Failure, You can Steer your Team Onto the Right Path.

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Here’s what I Did to Turn our Office Culture Around & Encourage Employees to Share their Ideas Without Worrying about Rejection. – Manpreet Singh, Founder and President of TalkLocal

Develop an Effective Knowledge Transfer System

As a startup founder & investor, it’s not enough for me to merely value innovation and creativity: I must also manage the hazards associated with new ideas. After all, employees who routinely bring novel ideas to their colleagues are likely to experience more rejection, failure and even embarrassment than others in their career. The question is, how do you encourage your team TISI NaN% to innovate despite the risks?

Ultimately, I’ve learned that my personal values alone can’t create a robust culture of innovation. For example, at my company, a social media editor recently started noticing a persistently dismissive attitude coming from certain quarters regarding her collaborative projects. In one extreme case, she was mortified when a project (a stylized promotional video) was scrapped over what boiled down to the employee’s editing choices. Team members lambasted the video, getting it pulled without offering constructive criticism beforehand.

Imagine if that were our response to every lost sales lead or dip in quarterly performance: it would be both paralyzing and counter-productive.

In the workplace, encouraging creative problem-solving is far easier in theory. By taking the needed steps to alleviate any overpowering fear of failure, you can steer your team onto the right path. Here’s what I did to turn our office culture around and encourage employees to share their ideas without worrying about rejection.

Lead by Consensus: Put Feedback on the Meeting Agenda

My team used to email one another to get feedback. Besides being inefficient, emails offered an easy out for those who preferred to avoid confrontations. Ironically, this silence only increases the risk of failure and can still hurt feelings. To nip this communication method in the bud, we’ve placed all projects on the weekly meeting agenda to mandate those uncomfortable conversations. There are now face-to-face discussions about each project, which makes the office a safe space for critical engagement with one another. This in turn also produces shared clarity on project design and purpose while generating ideas for improvement and greater results. And with more engagement comes more shared responsibility for both successes and failures.

 

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Have the Last Word

Another barrier to direct critical feedback among team members was my own presence. I’m less risk-averse than most, yet my very vocal feedback made some team members too reliant upon me to catch every possible pitfall. Given my position and involvement, it was easy for team members to bring their concerns to management rather than have that possibly awkward dialogue with the project leads themselves. Now, my silence during meetings opens the door for the voices of other team members. Of course, I maintain the last word at every step of the process, but the emphasis is on last – and that makes all of the difference.

Make the Non-Starter a Conversation Starter

Most off-the-wall ideas never get implemented, so giving a constructive response to unviable suggestions early on can help your team members come up with more effective plans in the future (as opposed to shutting down their creative thinking). It’s critical that everyone has an evolving understanding of company goals, priorities and resources. At TalkLocal, we now deliver more frequent and detailed reports on our analytics, resource allocation, and where improvement is most needed. As a result, team members feel more empowered to offer informed feedback, and rather than falling silent, they are ushered towards a new way of critical thinking that allows them to produce more sophisticated and viable ideas over time.

Highlight the Anonymous Idea Box

As employees grew more seasoned, I saw fewer of those enthusiastic but naive suggestions, which was a problem in and of itself. In order to encourage new employees to not fall into a similar trap, we decided to dust off our suggestion box and encourage the team to bring up and discuss any anonymously submitted ideas. Through this process, we’re bringing new employees into our growing culture of innovation, while still helping them shape their thinking as they grow with the company.

Today, our social media editor remains creative, recently reducing our e-marketing costs while increasing click rates through better targeting, proving that one success is worth a dozen failures. Furthermore, not a day goes by that a team member doesn’t propose a way to change the company for the better — which makes us better regardless of whether the idea is implemented or not. As the inherent value of an innovation-powered workplace continues to energize and inspire our team, I’m confident that our tangible value will continue to grow as well.

Manpreet Singh is Founder and President of TalkLocal, a home services marketplace that turns online service requests into a live conversation with the right available business in minutes.

 

Forbes.com | August 7, 2015 |  Young Entrepreneur Council