Collaborating under pressure - and making chaos work for you!

When we find ourselves facing a rapidly approaching deadline or a client meeting, that we are completely unprepared for. In this moment it’s tempting to crumble into panic or in fact, you may well find yourself surrounded by a group of people who are doing just that.

Or, if not panic, frustration. Everyone involved – from sales, finance, operations and more – will understand things differently. Decision-making deadlock comes in, as the high stakes everyone is facing make them cling onto their own opinions more tightly. The conversation turns negative, and the original aim and requirement gets lost.

With timelines crunched, tensions rise, and the time you would normally take to have a rational conversation vanishes. Ironically, the time you spend trying to come to a conclusion stretches, as everyone is so determined both that their perspective is right and that everyone else needs to agree as quickly as possible.

Keeping a team focussed and on-track in these kinds of situations can spell success or failure for the whole project. Individually, those that rise above the chaos, that prove themselves under real pressure, are likely to be remembered. A crisis is an opportunity to either fall apart, or rise to the challenge. A few actions can rise everyone above chaos-induced paralysis, and move both yourself and your team forward toward shared objectives.

1. Prioritise goals. From the first meeting, phone call or group email, establishing exactly what needs to be achieved can drive clarity and eliminate confusion. You don’t need to decide them, in fact they need to be decided as a group. Ensuring everyone both contributes to and agrees on them can keep the project on-track, even under high pressure.
2. Work out how much time you’ve really got. You don’t necessarily need to nail the Countdown clock up on the wall, but knowing exactly what needs doing by when will focus priorities. Agree individual task ownership and deadlines, and allocate someone to track progress and follow up – as well as back up options in case someone can’t deliver. Understanding how much time each person can realistically contribute not only allows tasks to be distributed to the right people, it should mitigate any nasty surprises at the last minute.
3. Own your own progress. You may or may not be in a leadership position within the project, but what you can lead on is your own activity and attitude. Plenty of people working on multi-stakeholder projects pass the buck and look to others to do the heavy lifting, which can be very frustrating. However, it’s up to you to fully invest your efforts wherever you can, deliver to the max on your allocated role, and drive the conversation when nobody else is.
4. Keep an open mind. It’s tempting to dig your heels in and talk over others, especially when you’re passionately certain you’re right. Maybe remember the acronym WAIT – and ask yourself, Why Am I Talking? Take whatever time you can to be considerate and listen to those around you. Not only is it probable that they’ve got a good point, but they might also be more likely to hear what you have to say if you offer them the same courtesy.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for more information. Meetings in pressured situations can become very internally focussed, driven by the motivations of each person in the room and not by the external demand that began the project in the first place. If you’re reaching deadlock, where nobody can reach an agreement on what is really required, don’t be afraid to go back to whoever originated the project and clarify. Over time, their requirements may change too, which is why you need the most open and transparent client relationship possible.
6. Don’t lose your temper. Especially if it’s a project into which you’ve invested time, effort and energy, it’s easy to let emotions flare up. There may well be times when conversations become heated, and you need to be prepared to stand your ground, but an argument is just another hurdle to get over before moving on. During stressful periods, take breaks, vent to friends, take it out on a punchbag at the gym, or otherwise channel any negative energy elsewhere. When you’re in the room, keep in mind that you’re working toward the same professional goal, and you’re all on the same side. Ultimately, you will win or lose together.
7. Capture every consensus in writing. Too often, teams lose track of real, meaningful progress, and firm decisions get forgotten when someone new walks into the room and adds another opinion. You might find yourself backtracking, going over the same points again, and repeating yourself when you should be moving onto the next topic. Those initial goals can become the milestones you need to track your progress, and keep track of what has been said.
8. Keep communication open. Not every single step needs to be communicated to every single person, but by and large you can err on the safe side when it comes to keeping your team-mates updated on your progress. Scheduling regular – ideally daily – calls in the run-up to the final deadline means that check-ins are guaranteed. But if a key player drops off the radar, be sure to make contact.
9. Learn from the experience. Yes, to some extent, things are bound to go wrong sometimes. But nothing is more demotivating and frustrating than avoidably finding yourself in the same boat, often with the same people, wondering how on earth you wound up here again. In the aftermath, have a debriefing, covering both what led to the situation and how effectively it was dealt with in the heat of the moment. Lessons you learn from this experience can be invaluable in improving future situations.

All of the above can be very helpful when things seem close to spiralling out of control – but when project requirements change, even after you think you’ve made real progress, what will really make the difference is the ability to stay agile. Keeping your cool under pressure is one thing, but being prepared for that pressure to keep getting turned up is another, especially when fought-for ideas and plans have to be changed at the eleventh hour.

This is where I think personal, individual agility comes into play, too. How far are you prepared to push yourself, and how far out of your comfort zone are you prepared to go? Can you stop yourself from thinking that you can’t do something, and instead find a way that you can? Are you prepared to reach where you think your limits are – then keep going anyway? And, how much support do you have from those above you, to stretch your own limits and grow in directions you didn’t know you could?

I’ve found myself in a few high-pressure situations in the last year – and so often, what’s made the difference has been the backing of the management above me. Moments when you could fall into panic, and instead jump into action, are when you realise how important that kind of support is: the kind that will push you further, believe in your abilities, let you make mistakes and fully back you up.

That kind of empowering leadership means that chaotic experiences become ones in which you can grow, instead of shrink. When you look backwards, and realise that your comfort zone looks nothing like it used to, you may well realise that succeeding through chaos reshaped your ideas of who you are, what you can do, and where you can go in your career. It certainly has for me.