Janelle felt like she was having one of those dreams where no matter how hard you try to run, you can’t go any faster.

Her team of six HR professionals was attempting to process all the yearly employee evaluations within three weeks. Knowing how sizable a challenge this would be, Janelle clearly set out a plan for how many evaluations would need to be processed per day to meet their goal. She talked about how if they exceed the target, it would create a little more work now but would far outweigh the stress that would happen if they fell behind.

One week in, they were already behind. Janelle adjusted the required target, and talked about how the rest of the company was depending on them completing on time and that some people’s promotions and salaries were on the line.

In the middle of the second week, one team member asked for a day’s leave because a close relative was ill. Thinking her team would perform better if they felt that she was sympathetic, she agreed to the leave.

At the start of the last week, they were still far behind and the possibility of finishing seemed hopeless. Another team member asked for leave to go on a holiday he had planned a few months before and for which he had already booked the tickets. Janelle was furious and said, “No more leave for anyone until we get all these reports processed!”. She turned into a very strict disciplinarian, started monitoring how many minutes people took for lunch breaks, and forced them all to stay late every day until it was done. [Read more…]