We are nearly halfway through 2018 and my resolution to spend less time working and more time on my mental and emotional health has faltered. I am determined to get back on track; but first – in the spirit of evaluation – I have taken a moment out to consider one of the root causes of my failure.

I have been bitten: infected by a phenomenon I call, “zombie culture”.

Yes, despite my best efforts to protect myself, I was infected soon after returning to work in January. Over the past three months I have become a fully non-functioning zombie. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t been able to get work done. On the contrary, I have been particularly productive. Unfortunately, zombie culture has an irritating knack of making you feel as if you are going places when you are, in fact, standing still.

Zombie culture explained

If you are not familiar with the zombie trope of popular fiction, let me enlighten you. The Oxford dictionary defines a “zombie” as, “a reanimated corpse capable of movement but not of rational thought”. The zombie is characterised by its propensity for consuming human flesh: a trait which serves the dual purpose of both sustaining the creature and perpetuating the zombie virus. The contemporary “zombie” stems from the Voodoo “zombi”, which applies to both a person raised from the dead and a living person brainwashed by a sorcerer or “bokor”. Significantly, unlike the living dead of late, the Voodoo zombi is enslaved: cursed to perform it’s master’s bidding (managers, take note).

We all have days when we feel zombified, seemingly incapable of rational thought. But when the time spent “doing” begins to regularly overtake the time spent “thinking”, we are in danger of making the state more permanent. What’s more, like zombies, we infect those around us. The first sign of infection is repetition of tasks without pausing to consider a more effective, more efficient method of achieving the desired outcome. This mindless repetition not only undermines the culture of innovation many organisations pride themselves upon, it can have severe repercussions for the brand and growth

Workplace Zombie Survival 101

So how do we stop the virus in its tracks whilst protecting ourselves from future infection?

• Firstly, consider yourself Patient Zero. Regardless of whereabouts in the hierarchy the decay may have first set in, make a commitment to yourself to stop blindly performing activities and pulling in others along the way.
• Keep refreshed. Working through your lunch break may seem a good use of time, but in the long run it makes you more susceptible to the virus.
• Keep your wits about you! Allocate time to reflect and plan ahead. This may mean 10 minutes in the morning and after lunch. It may also include a couple of hours or more a week looking back and looking ahead. Whatever works for you, do it and keep at it.
• Only take the essentials. Get rid of everything that is superfluous to your working life. This may mean outsourcing print or design, or delegating tasks that are better performed by someone with more or less skills.
• GET OUT! OK, not literally. But do take the opportunity to get out of the office to attend a course, workshop or conference, or spend time studying your specialist area. Stand back and look at what other brands are doing and, most importantly, where they are going, then stand aside and look critically at your own activities in light of what you’ve learnt.
• Take a risk. Try something new for once. Veer out of the rut and do something differently. Just this week I heard an influential marketing director say: “Failure has to be an option. Otherwise, you are not innovating.” So don’t be afraid to simply have a go.
• Be prepared for a fight or a flight. Not everyone will agree with your way of working and you may be pressured to “just get on with it” instead of asking questions. Stand up for what you believe in, accept only constructive criticism, and don’t feel bad about hitting the road before you succumb once again to negative zombie vibes.

Apocalypse Not Now

The first step in avoiding an apocalyptic innovation stasis is to diagnose the virus in yourself. There may be external pathogens contaminating your work style but, ultimately, the power to survive lies with you. To prove that I practise what I preach, I’ll be using the next bank holiday as a chance to reset – avoiding everything work-related until I’m back in the office. I’m then going to take up one good habit at a time – starting with lunch breaks – and hope that, one day, I can consider myself one of the “survivors”.