Give Your Team Breathing Room

Have you ever felt your team was already overwhelmed and overloaded—but you still needed to ask more of them?

The work keeps coming, and you know your people are stretched thin. You feel caught between delivering what the organization needs and protecting the team you depend on to deliver it.

Several years ago, the organization I was working for undertook a cost-cutting initiative.

The goal was to cut costs without cutting work.

Fortunately, I had several open positions we were recruiting for. I did not have to terminate active employees, but I could no longer fill those vacancies.

The work did not change. Our mission remained the same. We simply had fewer people to accomplish it.

We had not been overstaffed before the cuts. My people were already overloaded, and I thought it both difficult and unfair to ask them to carry even more.

But we still had targets to meet.

Instead of simply distributing the additional workload, I met with our leaders. We brainstormed ways to reach the objective while eliminating some of the work required to get there.

Together, we examined how we were doing things. We discovered unnecessary and redundant steps that could be removed without compromising the required outcome.

In the end, we found more efficient ways to accomplish the tasks. We were able to reduce the stress on our people and still meet our targets.

The mission had not changed. The way we accomplished it had.

That experience reinforced an important responsibility of leadership: taking care of the people we have the privilege of leading.

When demands increase, asking people to work harder or longer may seem like the only answer. But before adding to their load, we need to examine what they are already carrying.

What work is necessary? What steps no longer add value? What competing demands can we resolve? What obstacles can we remove?

The people doing the work often see opportunities that we miss. Bringing them into the conversation gives us a better understanding of both the pressure and the possibilities.

Our responsibility is to create an environment in which people can flourish and perform at their best. That requires us to do more than acknowledge their stress. We need to look for ways to relieve it.

We may not be able to make the work easy. We can make it more manageable.

Before asking your team to carry more, look for what you can take off their shoulders.

Where is your team feeling the most pressure today?
What unnecessary work, conflicting priorities, or obstacles could you help remove?
What benefits could that breathing room create for your people and their performance?

Meet with your team and ask, “What is making this work harder than it needs to be?”
Listen carefully. Then act on one thing you can change.