How long can you go without eating? I’m not asking about what the experts would tell you. I mean, how long can YOU go without eating? What is the longest you’ve ever gone without any calories?

As a way to manage my intake, I’ve been playing around with various forms of fasting. Mostly it’s just a couple days a week where I skip breakfast and lunch and try eat limited calories that night. Every now and then I go a full day, or two, or even three, without any calories at all. It’s been a very interesting practice and by not eating, I’ve been able to learn some things about my eating, things like I don’t really get hungry; I can go three full days and not feel any pain related to hunger; I have all kinds of cravings; I experience all kinds of reasons I want to eat, but none of them have to do with any kind of physical pain. All I need to do is drink some water and the emptiness in my gut goes away.

Now, my purpose for writing this week isn’t to talk about my eating—not really—but I’ve learned some things about fasting that apply to more than just eating. I think some of these insights are worth sharing—of course you’ll be the judge of that, not me.

Before I share some broader insights about organizational fasting, allow me just a few more thoughts about my food fasting. It is in my nature to eat too much. It is natural for me to eat a little more tomorrow than I ate today if I’m not paying close attention to my intake. Over time this creates a big problem—and I mean “big” literally.

When I fast, I start to see what’s going on with my intake. When I stop eating for an extended period of time, it helps me to re-boot my attitudes toward eating. It helps me to see how often I eat even when I’m not hungry. It helps me see some of the crazy reasons I desire food and how those desires are unhealthy and unproductive.

How does this relate to organizational leadership? 

I remember hearing many years ago about an experiment a large company did regarding the weekly and monthly reports they sent out. The top brass had become convinced that the level of reporting had slowly gotten out of control and they decided to stop sending reports altogether and wait to see who complained about not getting an important report. In effect, they fasted from reports. Once someone complained and could express why a certain report was needed, it was reinstated.

What they learned is that some high percentage of reports weren’t being used. I don’t recall the exact number, but my gut tells me it was 70 or 80 percent. They learned this information by fasting—by stopping something for a while to see what happened.

When you stop doing something for awhile, you gain a new perspective on that thing. You start to see it in a different light. You realize what really brings value and what was just being done out of habit—sometimes out of bad habit.

One of my many favorite stories is about the preparation of an Easter dinner—you may already know this one. It goes something like this: There was a big Easter meal with four generations attending. As the mother prepared the ham for the oven she cut a few inches of the ends off. Her daughter asked, “Mommy, why do you cut the ends off of the ham?” The mother replied, “I don’t know. Grandma always did it, so I do too. Go ask grandma why she cut the ends off.”

The little girl went to her grandma and said, “Grandma, why do we need to cut the ends off the ham before putting it in the oven?” Her grandma said, “I don’t know. Great grandma always did it, so I did too. Go ask your great grandma.” She asked, and her great grandma said, “Why did I cut the end of the ham off? My oven was too small to fit the entire ham.”

This story shows the power of habits and paradigms. Fasting is a way to test our habits and our paradigms.

Another corporate version of this kind of testing is seen through drastic cuts due to a crisis. I’ve seen organizations make very deep cuts to the point that the survivors believed there would be no way to get the work done because so many people were taken off the job, and yet somehow the work got done. It turns out, over time, we start doing things that seem necessary and yet, somehow, they aren’t.

This is the kind of thing that led to the expression, “Never waste a good crisis!” A crisis is the perfect time to choose to fast from some things to see if they are really needed. I’ve known good leaders who intentionally created a crisis just to get at these kinds of changes.

I think all of you know I’m a Christian. I know not all of you are, but I want to share a faith-based expression that I think captures the essence of what I’m trying to get at today.  J.D. Greer said in one of his books, “Until God is all you have, you won’t realize that God is all you need.” I like this expression a lot.

Knowing that many of you may not have this same belief in God, maybe a revised expression could go something like, “Until you choose to operate with way too little, you won’t realize how little you really need.”

For me, fasting is a way to test what I really need. And while I’m not anywhere close to being physically lean, I am making progress in that direction. I suspect that corporate fasting is a way for organizations to fight getting fat, too. And staying lean is very important for organizations who need to operate in a highly competitive world.

I hope these recent musings have gotten you thinking. If you try some kind of fast—either personally or organizationally—I’d love to hear about it and what you learned from it.

Thanks for being a leader worth following! Have a great week.

Rodg

Image by qmnonic. Used under CC By 2.0 license.