One...more...sprint...
The Sun is out. The birds are chirping. You have a long list of household chores and maintenance tasks you've been sitting on for a while. The weather is perfect for cleaning the deck, maintaining the shutters, or washing the car. But all you want to do is...
...nothing.
Now you're in the boardroom. Your team has finished updating this year's financials. Despite COVID-19-related setbacks of the last year, you are on target to hit your numbers. Your strategic plan remains intact and your targets, goals, and stretch are all "do-able." You have assured the executive team that your glidepath is sustainable and they can rely on your team to meet your goals. You leave the boardroom and go to your team room to check on progress, excited and energized about the prospects of the coming three-month push to get to the end of the fiscal year. This year's bonus will be well deserved by your team. When you walk in the room you check the board. Your team has completed...
...nothing.
Wait. What? How is that possible? Just last week everyone was firing on all cylinders. You ramped back up to near normal in March and have been burning the candle at both ends ever since. As a result of your team's dedication, you managed to recover in three months the losses suffered during the first six months of the fiscal year. But now, everyone has gone dark. The board sits stagnant. Production halted. What went wrong?
Honestly, this situation could come from myriad causes. But in this scenario, you allowed your team and yourself to get burned out - or worse, you burned them out. Poor stewardship is the culprit, Servant Leader.
Go back and read that again. Honestly, you should have seen this coming when you read, "Despite COVID-19-related setbacks." I was a bit too transparent in my foreshadowing.
Still, it happens more often than we care to admit. We work with highly performing teams who are internally motivated, thrive on pressure and challenge, and seek to honor Christ in everything they do, which leads to over-commitment, over-work, and over achievement. It's your job to see the signs and make your team take care of themselves. That's your stewardship responsibility, Servant Leader.
So, now the damage is done. What do you do?
Be the leader your team needs you to be. Prioritize for them if they can't do it for themselves. Limit their commitments if they can't say no. Teach them how to set limits. Teach them that emergency conditions are fine for sprints, but business is a marathon. It's okay to crash the schedule every now and again, but living in a crashed schedule for months on end is leadership failure at its finest.
"Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ." (Col 3:22-24, NKJV)
"Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 22:37-40, NKJV)
Make no mistake, Servant Leader, your team will work as if Christ himself is signing the acceptance certificate if you let them. But it is your duty to love them as Christ loves you, and keep them productive, not spent. If that means telling your boss your team won't make its numbers after all because you have to cut their workload to preserve the team, they'll understand. After all, you're making a strategic business decision to preserve the team for the future. It's the classic Tortoise vs. Hare argument you learned as a child. And if your team fights you, all the better. You'll need that eagerness the next time you really do have to crash the schedule and sprint.
Just don't accept that you have to live there.
Photo: Leaderonomics