Getting the Bugs Out

Your biggest productivity challenge might not be software or systems. It might be people.

I was recently talking to a very savvy CEO about how drawings of bugs helped her get a floundering team back on track.

Back in the days of in-person meetings, she was leaving a team discussion one day when she noticed that one of her team members had filled the margins of his agenda with elaborate doodles of bugs. Something about it struck her as more important than your average scribble, so she asked him, "why all the bugs."

His answer was as illuminating as it was disheartening. He reported, "I figured it was better to spend the meeting imagining I was squashing Paul like a bug than it was to start yelling, or worse, burst into tears." 

She was surprised. And immediately concerned.

My client hadn't realized that her team member was as stressed as he was or that his ordinarily good working relationship with the project lead, Paul, had deteriorated as much as it had. 

She immediately knew that the entire project was in jeopardy, and the company itself had a critical issue to address- whether anyone had started yelling and crying yet or not.

The bug drawings were an indication that the entire workplace was struggling. They did not have a culture of resilience or practical tools for managing stress and conflict. But, more importantly, it was only a matter of time before the tense environment led to serious deliverability issues.

They also needed to develop superior resilience skills to maintain the company's track record of superior technical skills and innovation.

A company culture where people can effectively manage stress and difficult emotions isn't simply a nice-to-have morale booster. Instead, it is essential for workplace productivity. 

High stress levels can lead to decreased focus, poor decision-making, and difficulty working through tasks. 

Without a specific stress-handling skill set, it is also easy for teams to become overwhelmed and literally unable to listen well to the contributions of others. As a result, they lose the capacity to foster sustainable inclusion, innovation, and collaboration. 

If you're carrying too much on your plate or having trouble getting along with coworkers, your body will release hormones that modify brain function. They reduce the brain's ability to:

• notice critical data, 
• make distinctions necessary to understand challenges and setbacks accurately, 
• decide on strategy and solutions, and 
• remember essential action steps.

When this level of reduced brain functioning happens for an hour or an afternoon, it is just part of everyday work life and rarely a significant problem. But when it happens for hours at a time or every afternoon, it will eventually take a toll on both individual and collective performance.

Innovation and Productivity Require Us to Deal Directly with What Is Bugging Us

Fortunately, emotional intelligence research and recent neuroscience breakthroughs have both provided a wealth of strategies to help us better manage stress and emotional responses.

While doodling in the margins of a meeting agenda may be a relatively adaptive short-term response, there are better ways to develop long-term resilience and clarity.

It is worth it for your team to invest time and effort in building the skills to:

• Craft clearer communications and expectations in the workplace.
• Learn to cultivate healthy sources of connection, inspiration, and belonging.
• Create routines and rituals to reset the brain for optimum performance.
• Re-direct feelings of agitation into fuel for intense, direct focus.
• Recognize the nervous systems' early warning signs that stress is impairing function.

In addition, it is essential to model the healthy behaviors of taking time for yourself, setting boundaries between work and personal life, practicing mindfulness techniques such as intentional gratitude, and developing emotional awareness to recognize when it's time to take a break.

You can also remind yourself and your team that regular exercise can help reduce stress levels and provide an outlet for emotional release.

Leaders who can see the bugs for the threat that they are and take steps to consciously provide resiliency and stress-reduction tools to their workplace protect their team's capacity to deliver high-quality work consistently.

So don't let the bugs overwhelm you! Just call a metaphorical exterminator and deal with them before they multiply!

We are here to help if you need us!