When Overextension is Invisible
It was the night after the company-wide engagement activity and my team and I were relaxing in our Airbnb drinking mocktails and sharing stories. Amidst the laughter, I noticed my top 2 performers sitting on a bench off to the side. They were slumped over, heads lolling, and eyes slowly blinking. They were doing their best to stay awake, but it was obvious they were beyond exhausted.
I didn’t know the reason, and it troubled me.
The next week, when their timecards came to me for approval, I found out why. The week of our retreat, they had more than tripled their regular working hours – and I had no idea.
At first, I was livid. I had been so proud of the fact that our company was structured to respect work-life balance and somehow, we had failed. Then, the shame came storming in. Something had happened to make them feel like they needed to do this and as their leader, I had no idea they were pushing so hard.
I asked their manager what happened. She simply said that the client needed the project, and we had agreed to get it to them. So, the girls did what they needed to do to get it done.
When I talked to my workers, they said they didn’t want to let me or the organization down, so they pushed harder and harder until the work was done.
I asked them why they didn’t try to change the deadline. I said, “We can always tell a client that we’re going to need more time.”
They blinked at me and said, “We didn’t realize that was an option.”
Our brains take mental shortcuts that we often use to influence and persuade ourselves to make intense choices. When we’ve outwardly committed to something, we like to stay consistent to that commitment. When the people we committed to are important to us, we are afraid of letting them down. When the work we do matters to ourselves, we want to prove that we can complete it. And when the deadline looms, we’ll push extra hard to look like we’re showing up as our best.
And this can add up to a devastating cost.
In the case of my high performers, it cost us trust in their manager, quality in their end project, and the start of their burnout.
My heart broke the most though when I realized that they thought they were doing what I wanted. Because a deadline and a client were involved, they assumed that their job was to get it done no matter what. The thought that we could have reworked it never crossed their mind.
That’s why, on July 14, I’m hosting a free webinar on how to renegotiate your load without losing respect.
Turns out, when you realize you’ve taken on too much; you don’t just have to grin and bear it. You have options.
If you’d like to learn how, you can register for the webinar here: https://luma.com/gyhe5k7x
Notes:
Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, rev. ed. (New York: Harper Business, 2007).
