The 4 Cs

A simple way to reduce energy drain in life and work.

An Idea Born

I remember the exact moment when I first came up with the concept of “The 4 Cs”. It was September 2020 and I was at a church council meeting, outdoors in lawn chairs 6 feet apart, trying to answer the question: “When do we come back?”

As we were discussing the merits of a flexible “decide each Saturday” versus set “schedule a month at a time” setup and the triggers we’d be using, I remember Pastor turning to me saying, “Matt, you work with people dealing with this same thing in the corporate environment. What would be your advice for us?”

My immediate thought was “Hmm, good question. What HAVE I been saying?” And as is my way, I started verbally processing a response (aka talking before I knew what I was talking about). And in the midst of that I remember stating “the two things that come to mind are the need to be consistent and the need to have clarity because when you have these and share them with people it (1) shows you care and (2) allows people to be frustrated with the choice, but less with the process.”

And from this the 4 Cs (Care, Clarity, Consistency & Communication) had their beginning. And of the concepts I’ve shared over the past two years, none has shown up more consistently in my response for how people can address whatever it is they are facing. And the reason I’ve found for this is that what these four do is reduce our energy drains, allowing us to put more into what matters.

So here’s an overview of each C.

1: Care

This is the foundational C because as item because people as the Teddy Roosevelt quote goes: “People won't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” I would add to this that the depths of a person’s struggle is a multiplier of how impactful this statement is. So when people are anxious or confused, they will hear very little and care even less until they know and feel that you see and hear them. Care is the essential element of trust and trust is the basis of any foundation for growth.  

In this way Care helps us reduce the energy drain of border protection. Because if I truly believe you care for me, I can be vulnerable. I can let down my guard. I can stop investing energy protecting all my weaknesses and chinks in the armor. And if that care is deep enough I can take the armor off, reducing the weight I have to carry.

2: Clarity

The 2nd C is Clarity, which is two-fold. It is saying we are (1) clear about what we are sharing and (2) sharing it in a clear way. These are two important aspects in the Intention-Perception gap that exists in all communication and connection. Because what we intend to say is not always what people perceive and vice versa. By taking the time to be conscious of our intended audience we can work to use language that is easily accessible to our audience, that is part of their normal nomenclature and increase the chances what we share is understood in the way we intend it to be.

Taking the time to be clear is about reducing the energy drain of this gap, which in times of uncertainty and stress can become a virtual canyon of energy drain.

3: Consistency

The 3rd C is Consistency and is all about people not wondering what's coming around the bend. When there is consistency, not just in our activities but also in the triggers that move us to pivot, we reduce the energy drain of “artificial contingency planning”. That is to say the energy well all put into planning for future potentials we don’t have plans for. Some of us are wired to put a lot of energy in here on the front end (hyper-vigilant protectors) and some on the back end (chaotic creators) but we can all feel the energy drain of inconsistency.

Being consistent and laying out things like process and policies help people reduce this energy drain of contingency planning and pivoting.

4: Communication

The final C should really be an “O” for Over-Communicate, but that would break the alliteration and we can have that 😁 so I’ll just expand this C to: “Communicate, Communicate, Communicate, and then Communicate again”. The goal here is to make sure we are sharing the message to the point where people start to hear it. If we're doing a good job of the first three C's communication is a lot easier and takes a lot less time though I’ve found a general rule is that around the time we're tired of talking about it is very near when the majority people are starting to hear it.

The focus here is making sure that all the energy we’ve invested in the first 3 Cs is translating to value and impact. This helps reducing the energy drain of the assumption gap of what we believe we’ve communicated and what people have heard. You can think of the energy savings of being on the same page in the same book written in the same language.

Takeaways

What the four Cs are doing is reducing the amount of energy it takes to get things done. As I’ve shared in another concept I call the 3 buckets, each of us has a daily reserve of energy that is going to be put into three buckets: “Anxiety / Distress”, “Connections / Relationships” & “Activity / Impact”. These 4 Cs reduce the amount of energy we're putting into the Anxiety / Distress, which means we have more to put into our relationships, our connections, our networks, our work, our activities and our impacts.

These shifts have a compounding affect and over time become a virtuous feedback loop as we start the day with more energy based on the better leveraged energy of yesterday. And this positive return is what leads us to true fulfillment. Enacting these four simple practices will help you not only do so but also those around you as these shifts ripple out because the energy you put out is the energy that tends to come back to you.

To learn more about how fulfillment plays into this check out this blog post on Fulfillment ROI.