As a leader, it might be time to look at what your team can stop doing this upcoming quarter. Start by listening to what is frustrating your team the most. What your team identifies as a barrier could give you great insight into what processes need to be improved or stopped all together. We can become deaf to people’s complaints, chalking it up to preferences or people having a bad day, but not paying attention is dangerous. Often times, what people are complaining about matters. It’s like the canary in the mine indicating warning signs of underlying issues that need to be addressed.
Recurring complaints, especially from different sources, should be a sign to leaders that they need to reevaluate the situation and consider potential solutions. We need to keep in mind that just because a complaint didn’t result in a change in process in the past doesn’t mean it should be dismissed forevermore. Circumstances change. A complaint previously deemed as unimportant could now be a significant game changer affecting productivity, morale, or customer satisfaction.
A program created by Melinda Ashton, called GROSS, an acronym for “Get Rid of Stupid Stuff” supported teams as they reevaluated their current responsibilities. Melinda walks teams through various steps guiding teams through organizing suggestions given by team members into three buckets. By categorizing suggestions into “Just do it,” “Need further investigation,” or “Not possible to change at this time,” teams can prioritize actionable items. This allows the focus to be on making meaningful improvements.
Teams get engaged because they are invited to look at their work processes for inefficiencies and communicate their findings. They get to tell you what is wasting their time, their brain power, and chipping away at their resilience. There is nothing more maddening than doing something senseless. Inviting teams to evaluate their work processes increases engagement and fosters a sense of ownership. Stopping perceived unnecessary tasks within processes can have a significant impact on team morale and the resilience of the team as a whole.
This past January an article in Harvard Business Review mentioned how most leaders look to add initiatives to their organizational teams. This begs the question, when does the time come to pause and re-evaluate what is currently being done, and whether or not that process or activity is still value-added today?
Currently, the workforce is overwhelmed with anxiety and burnout. Somehow, this burnout epidemic of sorts is still not being addressed in a profound way. This article at least offers actionable items all organizations can take, aligning themselves with their commitment to support the mental health of their most valuable resource…their people.
“Rid Your Organization of Obstacles That Infuriate Everyone” written by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao suggested the following “Good Riddance Reviews”:
- Ask colleagues and clients to tell you what they find to barriers. What makes it difficult for them to engage in your services? What makes it difficult for team members to their work?
- Assess how much time is being spent on performance reviews.
- Taking time to assess the number of meetings everyone is attending. Writing down the weekly number of hours each leader is attending is eye-opening. Being sure that there each meeting is value-added, and any redundancy is related to information dissemination, rather than having the same people hear the same thing over and over again.
- Being sure your email distribution lists are up-to-date and relevant. Reading and responding to email are consuming much of our productivity time. Make sure that what you send out is value-added, relevant and brief. Less words are better.
- Count how many people are reporting to each leader. Flat organizations are popular however this could be why some of your leaders are burning out. One person can only be available to a certain number of people before their ability to keep up with deadlines begins to falter.
There are many ways organizations can support their teams manage burnout and anxiety. The key is to make sure the support is evidence-based and not just about checking off a box. One way to ensure this isn’t just a once and done event, is to schedule a review of your team’s processes to occur at least once a year. This lets everyone on the team know that there is room for dialogue and the team’s input is valuable. Use team frustration as your leadership compass and start this quarter differently.
