Map before you cut
List the real work from two weeks of calendars, rate it privately, then place it together. A shared picture replaces the argument about who is busiest.
Resilient TeamRelational Game
Energy Mapping for Impact
from doing more→to doing what matters
The Goal
Reveal where team energy is wasted and redirect it toward impact.
Ideal For
Overloaded teams, post-growth chaos, quarterly resets, and any moment when “we need more people” feels like the only answer.
The Shift
From doing more to doing what matters.
The Science
People tend to overlook subtraction as a way to improve things, so overloaded teams default to adding. Switching between tasks tends to cost time and accuracy, and heavier meeting loads are associated with more fatigue. Alertness and focus rise and fall across the day, and short breaks tend to restore energy, so where the important work sits in the week matters.
The Energy Map, step by step
- Bring two weeks of calendar (pre-work)Each person lists the team’s recurring work, meetings, reports, reviews and hand-offs, grouped as Strategic must-dos, Run the business and Special projects.
- List (8 min)Put the merged inventory on the wall, one sticky per item. Be specific: “Monday status meeting”, not “meetings”.
- Rate privately (7 min)Everyone rates the items they know firsthand: impact high or low, energy high or low. We rate the work, not the person.
- Place together (13 min)Place each item on the map: Protect, Optimize, Automate or Eliminate. Where ratings split, run the Three-Test Audit: does it serve the people we serve, create value for the business, and justify its human cost?
- Stop one, protect one, install one (7 min)One item to stop, with the person who decides; one thing to protect in the team’s best hours; one new ritual with an owner and a start date. Check in at 30 days and return to the map at 90.
The techniques, and why they work
Subtract first
Ask what to stop before what to add. People systematically overlook subtraction as a way to improve things.
Protect the peaks
Put the highest-impact work in the team’s best hours and protect them. Focus rises and falls across the day, and protected time has been associated with more productive work.
Selected research
- Adams, G. S., Converse, B. A., Hales, A. H., & Klotz, L. E. (2021). People systematically overlook subtractive changes. Nature, 592(7853), 258–261.
- Rubinstein, J. S., Meyer, D. E., & Evans, J. E. (2001). Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27(4), 763–797.
- Luong, A., & Rogelberg, S. G. (2005). Meetings and more meetings: The relationship between meeting load and the daily well-being of employees. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 9(1), 58–67.
- Perlow, L. A. (1999). The time famine: Toward a sociology of work time. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 57–81.
- Schmidt, C., Collette, F., Cajochen, C., & Peigneux, P. (2007). A time to think: Circadian rhythms in human cognition. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 24(7), 755–789.
- Albulescu, P., Macsinga, I., Rusu, A., Sulea, C., Bodnaru, A., & Tulbure, B. T. (2022). “Give me a break!” A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance. PLOS ONE, 17(8), e0272460.
Also runs as a half day · P2.3 HD
Energy Mapping for Impact – Half Day
Half day (3 h 30 min) for a team resetting its whole workload, with a 30-day check and an optional 45-minute return at 90 days.
from we need more people→to we’ve freed the time for what matters
The Goal
Reset where a team’s energy goes: map all of its real work, cut or redesign what drains it, and protect the hours that matter.
Ideal For
Leadership offsites and quarterly resets for overloaded teams, especially after growth, a reorg or a change in strategy.
The Science
People tend to overlook subtraction as a way to improve things, so overloaded teams default to adding. Switching between tasks tends to cost time and accuracy, and heavier meeting loads are associated with more fatigue. Alertness and focus rise and fall across the day, and short breaks tend to restore energy, so where the important work sits in the week matters.
The techniques, and why they work
Audit every item
Run the team’s whole inventory through three tests (serve, value, energy), with the person who decides in the room. People systematically overlook subtraction, so the audit makes stopping a real option.
Redesign before you drop
For high-impact work that drains the team, keep the part that creates the value and change the rest. Fewer switches and lighter meeting loads tend to mean less fatigue.
Protect the peaks
Agree a shared window for the team’s most important work and keep meetings out of it. Focus rises and falls across the day, and protected time has been associated with more productive work.
Selected research
- Adams, G. S., Converse, B. A., Hales, A. H., & Klotz, L. E. (2021). People systematically overlook subtractive changes. Nature, 592(7853), 258–261.
- Rubinstein, J. S., Meyer, D. E., & Evans, J. E. (2001). Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27(4), 763–797.
- Luong, A., & Rogelberg, S. G. (2005). Meetings and more meetings: The relationship between meeting load and the daily well-being of employees. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 9(1), 58–67.
- Perlow, L. A. (1999). The time famine: Toward a sociology of work time. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 57–81.
- Schmidt, C., Collette, F., Cajochen, C., & Peigneux, P. (2007). A time to think: Circadian rhythms in human cognition. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 24(7), 755–789.
- Albulescu, P., Macsinga, I., Rusu, A., Sulea, C., Bodnaru, A., & Tulbure, B. T. (2022). “Give me a break!” A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance. PLOS ONE, 17(8), e0272460.
From the research
The thinking behind this lab, published in full: