How can you demand everything you can get from your team without overtaxing everyone? Too often management sets goals without considering the weaknesses and strengths of the team members. Worse still is when management sets goals for the staff that it doesn’t hold itself to. Sometimes the issue can be as simple as ignoring the calendar. What do I mean by that? Consider the following instructive story.

    A company botched up a huge project, partly because the project represented more work than it could handle. Or was it? The projects time line was supposed to run from November thru February—which of course includes several major holidays for a number of cultures. Employees were forced to work long hours during the holiday season, with little support from management. Why so little support? Because top managers weren’t around. They had chosen that same time to take “well-deserved” vacations. We can’t know whether the project could have been completed on schedule if management had been more involved, but it’s hard to imagine that the staffers were feeling particularly motivated during those long hours of work.

Are goals extremely high—but still reachable?

Is know-how seen as an investment?

Does management keep the teams’ morale up?

Have incentives for them?

Do you demand the best while giving the best support?

Tags: cultures demand encourage holiday season holidays huge project incentives instructive story managers staffers team members time line top managers vacations