From sports that are easy and objectively to measure in seconds or centimeters, like athletics, swimming, speed-skating, cycling, we know that the ability to handle and process the load, or our ability to cope with mental and physical stressors, fluctuates during a life time, a year, a months or during the day. In summer the results of training are better than in winter, Morning types get more out of their training when it is performed in the morning whereas for evening types training in the evening is more efficient. As coaches, we try to listen to these biological rhythms and waves that control a relevant part of our daily functioning. It appears that companies and organization all have their own specific dynamics and rhythms.
But how does this work in companies and organizations? Could it be that there are certain distinct periods or phases in which the work load or changes are absorbed and processes better than in others? And what about the speed of organizational change: is it too slow or too fast?
Truus Poels, Ph.D, has done very interesting research of this phenomenon and has written a book based on this information: Handbook of Organizational Change and Organizational Rhythms (in Dutch).
It was interesting to learn that also outside of elite sports people start to think about the role of rhythms and planning based on these specific rhythms. Maybe this is one of the common links between performance in business and in sports.
In the meanwhile, we have published a first article about this phenomenon in the magazine Management and Consulting.
More information:
Poels, Truus: Handboek Organisatieverandering en Organisatieritmiek
Sdu, Academic Services, 2011. ISBN. 9789012 582834
Truus Poels en Henk Kraaijenhof: Biologische ritmes in organisaties; Management en Consulting, Nr. 5, 2012, bldz. 44 – 47. http://www.vortx.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Biologische-ritmes-in-organisaties-10-2012.pdf
