A famous but possibly apocryphal tale about Albert Einstein is that he dreamed up the theory of relativity when riding his bicycle. Warren Buffett is on record as saying that he reads for six hours per day and has very few scheduled meetings. Both of these examples stand in stark contrast to the ways in which most leaders use their time. Many are slaves to email (one CEO only half-jokingly defines his job as “answering 2,000 emails a day”) and have much of the remainder of their time filled with meetings. But a focus on information processing, reaction, and execution — while it may feel productive — causes the quality of our thoughts to suffer. We believe that corporate leaders in today’s complex world urgently need to recultivate the art of reflection.
Executives spend too much time on information processing, reaction, and execution, and not enough on slow, deliberative, reflective thinking. But some CEOs have managed to resist these tendencies. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg read extensively, safeguard time for personal development projects, and constantly seek new stimulus and perspectives. Leaders such as these purposefully cultivate the art of reflection into their workdays, and rely on a number of techniques to reclaim and protect their time. Among them: schedule unstructured thinking time — whether it is disconnecting for an hour a day or skipping the office one day a week — and generate a list of questions that prompt reflective thought. Reflective thinking routines can trickle down the organization with senior executives serving as role models. By reviving the art of reflection, leaders can reclaim their time, deploy their fully cognitive powers to the increasingly complex challenges they face and, by inspiring the same behavior in others, liberate employees from the corrosive effects of information overload and incessant reactivity.