The small "energy leaks" of everyday life... and what they say about our leadership

There are friendships that are built around deep, meaningful conversations… and then there's my friend François and me. We share videos of old TV shows from the '90s during our workdays. Yeah … the life of freelancers working from home is also about socializing however you can.

And since last winter, a new playing field has been added to our exchanges: the Hilo! challenges.

For those who don't know, Hilo is a Hydro-Québec program that can control your home's thermostats to reduce energy consumption during periods of extreme cold. You even receive cash rewards based on how much you manage to save during challenges. And since you can track your consumption almost in real time… let's just say it opens the door to some friendly competition.

François and I, obviously, turned it into a sport.

It got so serious that I bought myself a thermos mug just to keep my coffee from getting cold too quickly during the big February challenges. (Okay… I'm exaggerating a little for show, but not by much.)

My (technical) defeat of the day

Today, I lost our first Hilo "match" of the season. Spectacularly. And for a reason I never would have imagined: my coffee maker.

I had the brilliant idea of making myself a coffee during the first official winter challenge… and forgetting to turn off the machine. Classic.

In my mind, a coffee maker uses… I don’t know… 100 watts?

No way. Mine consumes an average of 700 watts . Yes, seven hundred. (I'll let you judge how much of a geek I am for analyzing this with my home automation system.)

Roughly speaking, that works out to 5 cents an hour. A seemingly insignificant amount. Certainly not enough to dip into my RRSPs.

But after a quick calculation, I realized that if I left it on 24/7, it would cost me about $35 a month . It adds up quickly when you think about it differently.

Pennies that make dollars… and minutes that become habits

So yes, I reprogrammed my home automation system so that the coffee maker switches off automatically after use.

Well done. Case closed.

And that brought me back to an obvious point that's easy to forget and that I often discuss with managers in coaching sessions:

Our “energy leaks” rarely come from big gestures.

An oversight here. An automatic habit there. A small daily behavior that we take for granted.

And one day, we wake up realizing that these "cents" of energy dissipated here and there represent, together, a real cost, for us, for our efficiency, for our balance, or even for our relationships.

And what about leadership in all of this?

I didn't think of it right away, but as the day went on, I felt a parallel. In leadership, big decisions matter. But what truly shapes us are often the repeated micro-behaviors :

• saying "I don't have time" a little too often,

• arriving at meetings mentally overloaded

• to postpone an important conversation,

• not clarifying an intention,

• or allow a "temporary" irritant to take hold, which eventually becomes permanent.

  
  

These are not crises.

These are energy leaks .

Small deviations which, when accumulated, create an invisible cost on our ability to be present, to inspire, to take care of our relationships.

And, as with my coffee maker, it's often the smallest adjustments that make all the difference:

a clarified intention,

a deconstructed automatism

a repeated gesture that eventually becomes natural.

In short, today my coffee maker reminded me that we often underestimate the impact of small energy leaks, because they are hidden in everyday life.

So I'm curious to read your thoughts:

What are your current “energy leaks”?

And what small actions would you like to incorporate daily to modify your energy-draining micro-behaviors?