“Help I’m Overwhelmed” The Leaders Unusually Simple Guide to Managing Stress in Others

“You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” – Timber Hawkeye***

Being too busy can be all consuming. I know what it’s like to be busy at work. I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed. When I worked in the Human Resources world, my schedule was… well grueling might be a good way to describe it. On any given day I had at least 400 – 500 applications and resumes to review. I often had a stack in my desk and a stack in a bag to carry home. At this stage of my career, I conducted 8 interviews per day, allowing 60 minutes for each, so I could walk the candidate over to the hiring manager’s department for the second half of their interview. By the time I returned from taking them over to whatever building in which the department was located, I would have just enough time to grab a stack of telephone messages left for me at the front desk, put all my notes and paperwork together from the last interview, put it all in a file folder then pull out the next applicant’s paperwork. I was thrilled when an applicant was a no call no show or a cancellation because it meant I had an extra hour to get other work done.

I conducted 160 interviews a month and averaged 62-65 accepted job offers per month and very few unaccepted offers. Even though I was filling over 60 jobs, I would still have just as many job openings left to fill. With my schedule being as full as it was throughout the day, I rarely had time to respond to any of those phone messages. So at the end of the day, when everyone else was heading home, I would begin to return calls, initiate calls for interviews and look through applications. The messages consisted of people calling to follow up on their interviews, managers following up on their job openings and next steps, managers wanting to discuss employee relations issues or employees wanting to discuss employee relations issues. To get through the messages, the applications and the job offers that needed to be extended, I would stay late or take the work home. Some days I couldn’t stay late nor would I have much time to do work at home because I had church commitments two nights per week. On those days, I would stay at work an extra hour then drive straight to church, arriving by 6:30 p.m. I would get home by 9:30 p.m. go to bed and get up the next morning and start over again.

That was my 20 something year old life. As busy as I was, do you know my manager did not know it? She found out later after a series of vacancies had occurred with other staff in the department. With so many people gone, she had to step into a number of other roles in the department to help fill in and it was an eye opener for her.
By sitting at other people’s desks, answering other people’s calls and handling other people’s assignments she was able to make new observations that she might never have seen otherwise. She saw who had the high volume workloads and who had less. She saw who was getting the majority of the calls and who had less. She saw who was busy, who was busier and who was swamped. She shared her insights and observations and knew things needed to change. That was certainly to my benefit.

Patience Enables Us to Wait Until Change Comes

One of the many lessons I learned through that stint of madness was that sometimes we have to endure a little excess, a little frustration, a little discomfort, knowing that it won’t last forever. Everything changes. That’s just how things are. They change by divine intervention or they change through human effort but they still change.

Taking Work Home Can Be Overwhelming

I took tons of work home. It was annoying but satisfying at the same time. I was young and single at the time, trying to forge my own way along my chosen career path. Frankly, however, it was wearing on me. I was overwhelmed and I did not like it. I took work home, not because I enjoyed it, not to get a jump on anything but just so I could keep up. Had I had husband, kids, dog and house to attend to, I probably would have been doubly stressed and might have quickly rewritten history by choosing an alternate career path.

Work life balance is something that becomes most important to us when it is threatened. Keeping a well-balanced team and happy, productive team members means making sure we give them the tools and resources necessary to achieve success at home and in our performance settings. We never want to be the cause of trouble or stress in an individual’s quest for balance in life. Imbalance can lead to a myriad of physical, emotional and professional problems that we should be helping to alleviate not exacerbate.

This should also be considered in the midst of a pandemic as well. How much work are people being asked to do, in the absence of full staffing, while managing virtual home schooling for kids and maintaining other daily duties. What can we take off their plate? What needs to be added? These are essential questions that need to be asked and answered with the help of the people involved, so don’t just talk, listen.

Why Multitasking is Overrated

Multitasking is the ability to perform two or more tasks at the same time. I know people say this is a great marketable skill. I would agree that it is valuable and useful. No successful leader, professional or conscientious worker is likely to be successful without it. I also, however, believe it is overrated. Leaders love to have people who can multitask but we need to be careful that we aren’t multitasking so much that we’re not actually getting anything done. I remember turning on my autopilot switch each workday in HR and I would go through the motions, attempting to engage my brain in the process when necessary, which only slowed things down. The goal for many would be to get it done, nevermind doing it right. Multitasking often results in good enough not excellence. So weigh the cost.

Multitasking is like eating and drinking at the same time. The body can only digest one of these at a time. In the same way, the brain can only focus on one thing at a time. When we are split our attention between multiple tasks, our performance and efficiency actually declines for both. Research at Stanford University research study and additional follow up research in 2018 indicates that frequent, intense multitasking may actually lower your IQ as well as your EQ (emotional quotient). With all this being said, what do we think happens to our mistake quotient?! As a team member we might not be all that concerned but when you think like a leader, it makes you think… it helps me FOCUS directly in on that one point (LOL)!

Working Late is Not Necessarily Virtuous

The same manager mentioned in my example once said to me that it is OK for a person to work late periodically but when one has to work late repeatedly, there needs to be an analysis of that person’s workload or with the worker’s productivity during the day. She said this in relation to someone else and long after my high volume workload issues had been resolved. I found her statement to be one of great wisdom and insight and it would take a very mature leader to say and act on the same.

Leaders tend to want to give awards to people who work late all the time but we do have to take the next step and find out, why this person is working late all the time? Sometimes the person is conscientious; sometimes they want us to see them working late and if you pay attention, they actually leave right after you do; sometimes a person may stay late because they don’t want to go home; and sometimes a person really isn’t able to get the work done during the day because things are too busy and they can do more after hours, when others have gone home and things have gotten quiet. My point in all of this is that leaders should not just be so anxious to get work done that we ignore the obvious. Make sure work is getting done the right way, and being done efficiently, effectively and with excellence. When we are paying attention, we can problem-solve issues that may be eroding the morale and productivity of our teams.

Missing Deadlines May Be More than Being Late

I mentioned how we often want to give out awards for late workers. On the flip side of the coin, we tend to want to penalize those who miss deadlines. Before we decide to ream someone out, however, we need to ask questions, then monitor workloads to determine why someone is missing their deadlines. I can honestly say there have been times that I missed deadlines because I didn’t know how to manage my time… yes this was during my early HR days. Later, as a manager and director, I did much much better. I met all management deadlines, like budget submissions, mandatory in-services etc. And yes, I would end up requesting extensions on other deadlines. It happens. We all mess up sometimes, but we have to make sure we’re not in our own way or slacking. And with regard to others,

Communicate Deadlines Clearly:

1.  Make sure your request for information or projects is clear and concise.
2.  What do you want?
3. When do you want it (be realistic)? Again, when do you want it?
4. Give a date and indicate how you want it. Do you want it in report form electronically? Do you want a mock up or demonstration? Hard copy?
5. Now repeat the directive in writing via email and keep a copy for yourself.
6. Now mark your calendar and set an electronic reminder on your calendar.
7. Do an occasional check in and hold others accountable for the assignment(s) given

There are, however, those who never meet a deadline. I have seen people, even managers, who never manage to meet a deadline in a timely manner. This is a dangerous mindset and should be managed carefully. People who miss deadlines repeatedly are telling us something. Missed deadlines can cost us money, customers, members, staff etc. If you have communicated clearly then, consider the following:

1. Was the deadline given with a realistic timeline?
2. Does the person have the capacity to handle the task along with all other work? If you are unable to gauge this effectively, get input from others who know firsthand and through experience.
3. Can this person plan effectively? Do they need assistance in planning or implementation to meet the deadline?
4. Does the person believe they have to follow through on the directive?
   

Concluding Thoughts

If you read this right, you’ll recognize that we view each of these circumstances differently depending on our perspective. We either relate on the level of a leader or we relate on the level of a follower. Either way, I think we all can relate. My point, however, is not to just take us down memory lane so we could relate to the many issues we’ve encountered in life.

Au contraire! What I want us to do is recognize there are two sides to Taking Work Home, Multitasking, Working Late, Missing Deadlines and the Inevitability of Change (I started with that one). When we can start seeing things from different perspectives, we are positioned to become better leaders. Leadership calls for vision, leadership screams for insight. It’s looking at the one sided coin that makes us narrow minded problem creators instead of problem solvers. That’s not leadership. That’s self-sabotage. We’ll get it right!

Kind Regards,

C.

Photo by Victoria Heath on Unsplash