Overloading

Welcome to December – where did the rest of the year go?

This week’s topic is all about overloading. Overloading has continually been a complaint of clients as we explore their organizational pain. It was a big issue during Covid, but was around long before then and has followed us to this day.?

When we ask about the pain inside organizations at the top, often we hear employees are feeling overwhelmed. This week, I plan to explore why that is, with some tips to reduce overloading.

Where does the overloading come from? Part of it is the reality that organizations are trying to achieve a lot these days. In the face of competition, they are piling on more projects and setting bigger goals. The issue, then, is a natural progression in a VUCA world. In this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, we need to set those bigger goals and add new ways to deal with all that is going on.?

If we add more work, we have two choices: add more employees or increase what they do. Most organizations are not in a position to add more headcounts. So, we pile on more work to those already we have. Faced with this, employees feel we should add more staff as the solution. The result is an impasse, but there is a more realistic solution.?

I argue we need to exercise continuous improvement where we remove some work to enable additional work. ?The problem is, employees can’t unilaterally choose not to do some work. Employees would rather continue doing existing work because they are used to it rather than take on new work, so organizations hoard work. They naturally hang onto work and processes well after their best-before date because management is not practicing continuous improvement.? ?

So, why don’t managers practice continuous improvement? There are two reasons: one is that managers don’t understand it is their role, and the other is the nature of risk.

Only the manager can reduce work. It is up to management to decide, for they have the insight to the Strategy. If employees have the authority to reduce their own work, you end up in a dangerous situation.

Managers don’t direct employees because they don’t understand their work for these reasons:

• They don’t value their role; they don’t see that their role is to define work for employees
• They feel uncomfortable checking in on the work of their employees
• They are more interested in their own tasks/work and not in managing and leading others

The second reason, again, is that removing work is risky. The issue of too much work is a priority-setting exercise. The problem is that organizations don’t prioritize, and so everything becomes a priority. Priority setting is about setting one thing as more important than another. It is akin to decision-making, where you choose one thing and reject all others.

We don’t set priority because, just like when we reject all others, risk and fear take over. It is safer to keep everything happening than to risk choosing one thing over another in case we get it wrong. But, by not choosing one over another, we end up overworking our employees because they must try to do everything.?

To set priorities and overcome the risk, we must think it through and ask ourselves:

1. If I prioritize A over B, what is the worst thing that will happen?
2. If I prioritize B over A, what is the worst thing that will happen?
3. If I make them the same, what will the worst thing happen?

• In each case, what is the likelihood and the severity of 1, 2, and 3??
• Therefore, what is the best action?

By consciously setting priorities and saying “No” to some things, you will reduce the overload on your people. If you are a manager of managers, ensuring your managers are setting priorities becomes even more important. In our experience, this is the one major failure of management.

Think of all the things on your to-do list. Is it time for your own priority setting?