Transcript:
Hello and welcome to our impactful projects and Planning series. I'm Jami Yazdani. It's great to be with you today. What we're going to be talking about in today's session is three questions we can ask when your team feels overwhelmed, that's going to help you quickly restore focus and momentum. And so in mission driven and nonprofit environments, I rarely meet teams that are short on passion or short on skill, but they are almost always short on time and the space to really think and plan. And so whether you're a project manager or program manager trying to guide a temporary initiative with staff who already have a lot on their plate, or you're a supervisor or managing an ongoing operational or program team, you've likely seen this dynamic so your team is juggling different priorities, and all of those priorities feel both urgent and important. When Everything Feels urgent, it is incredibly easy to simply respond to whatever is loudest. But urgency without structure breeds burnout. So your teams may be working incredibly hard, but without shared clarity about what matters most right now, effort spreads, decisions slow down, and you as the leader end up absorbing more than you should. So when your team is overwhelmed, what can we do to create calm and refocus. So to move your team from overwhelm to orientation, you can guide them through a conversation using these three critical questions, what's the priority right now? What can we let go of and what will make us feel less overwhelmed? And so let's talk through each of these and how we can use them effectively. So when organizations and teams feel overwhelmed, it is rarely because people are not working hard enough. More often the work is not clearly oriented. And so teams can only move forward effectively when there is shared clarity about what matters most right now and when our teams are overwhelmed, we want to ask and answer this question, what is the priority right now? And so for a project, we may want to consider you know, all of the upcoming or current tasks and determine what is most important to work on now, or which deliverables are most important to complete right now. For a team, we can consider which projects or initiatives or tasks are the priority right now, and so when we answer this question, we are doing a couple of things. We are helping create clarity around what is most critical and giving our teams and staff permission to focus their energy and attention there. We're also cutting through the urgency and naming clearly and out loud what is essential, because what feels urgent may not really be what is critical or essential. It may feel like a priority but not actually be one. Now this question is hard answering this question is really, really hard, especially in mission driven organizations. And so all of the things on your task list, all of the programs, all of the deliverables, they are important, all of them matter, and all of them probably create some type of impact. And a lot of it probably feels very urgent. And so these programs and tasks can also feel really personal. They may be personal to the person who owns them, who built the program or runs it, it may be personal to the people who are impacted by the work. But everything is not essential in every moment. So an important piece of this question is the right now. So we are trying to refocus our team, and just because something is a strategic priority for the organization, or is general generally a priority is generally very important, does not mean it is a priority right now, in this moment, over the next week, over the next two weeks, we really want to answer the question, what is the priority for the present moment, for the right now? With this question and the next question, what can we let go of who ultimately answers these questions and who drives the conversation? And really does depend on your role and the role of the people that you are working with. And so in a collaborative team environment such as a project, if you're the project manager, it may make sense to bring the question, what is the priority right now to the project team, have that conversation and determine together what's the priority if you're leading a team, perhaps you're leading a department or an organization, I still recommend bringing this up as a conversation, but it can help to enter these discussions with your own thoughts about what should be a priority, as some teams will look to the leader or manager to make these decisions, even if you enter the conversation with ideas and are prepared to make a decision, you still want it to remain a dialog and gather feedback from your team, as you may not have full insight into everything that's impacting your team members. So approach the conversation with an open mind while recognizing that presenting your own ideas and making the final call may be necessary. So once we know the priority, we have to deal with the reality of our capacity. And so if we've determined, if what we've determined is the priority right now is going to require focus and energy, we also have to ask, what will we stop doing while this task or project is underway? So what can we let go of to answer this question, we might consider having our team let go of these things in the moment. So are there other tasks or project deliverables, other projects or initiatives that are happening at the same time, maybe it's regular operations or duties that your team performs as part of their normal role. Again, we are talking about what they can let go of right now. In this moment, we may also let go of meeting certain deadlines when that flexibility exists. And so obviously, there are often deadlines that cannot be moved and those either become the priority right now or not on the let go of list, but sometimes we do have flexibility with deadlines for other projects or regular operational tasks, we might also want to let go of perfection. So in many mission driven organizations. I talk to folks who describe themselves as recovering perfectionists, I probably fall in that category myself, and so maybe what we need to let go of is sort of making sure that everything we're doing is being done at an unreasonably high standard. So are there areas where good enough is really good enough? What we may also need to let go of, or help our teams let go of, is that urgency and so, that idea that everything needs to be done right this minute, that every email or message needs an immediate response, that every person in front of you requires all of your focus and attention in this moment. And so I'm going to climb up on my soapbox for a minute, because I think some of the urgency that we see is symptomatic of a culture of reactivity in many nonprofits and mission driven organizations, and so this culture of reactivity, in many ways, is very understandable. We are doing work for people and causes with real and sometimes immediate needs, and we want to ensure that we are giving those folks what they need. I also think reactivity tends to be rewarded a bit in our sector, there is a bit of a reward or an adrenaline rush to be able to meet someone's immediate need. Now, there are immediate needs that we want our organization to be set up to meet. There are times when we need to react to what's happening, but that reactivity does not need to extend to everything that is happening in our organization, to every project, to every program, to the way that we do business day to day, and the organizations that are in the business of regularly responding to tragedies and challenges that are happening in a current moment often put a tremendous amount of thought and effort into planning their responses. They're not making everything up that they are doing in that moment. And because of the type of work that I do with projects and planning and coaching and training, I talk to a lot of folks on the front lines and nonprofits and other mission driven organizations, and I hear directly from them how a culture of reactivity throughout the organization negatively impacts them. It stresses them out. It creates burnout, it creates feelings of guilt. And so we can't always be so reactive, save the reactivity and the immediacy for the things that truly need that approach and consider a different way of working. For everything else.

Okay, I'm back off my soapbox, but much like that first question, what's a priority, answering the question of what to let go, should be a conversation. Again, as a leader, you may want to enter that conversation with ideas about what you think folks should let go of, but we want this to remain a conversation, because there may be things that people are working on that you weren't aware of, which they can reshuffle and let go of. Our goal here is to make it clear that there are things it's okay for folks to let Wait, to let slide, to not overthink and overdo, to not do in this moment, so that we can focus on what is currently a priority, if you don't think there is anything you or your team can let go of, that indicates one of two problems. To me, you are in a culture of reactivity and urgency, which leads to burnout, and it makes it hard for your team to focus. And so what your team may hear when you say there's nothing that we can let go for a priority, isn't that everything is important, what they hear is that their well being is not important, which is really not the message we want to send. The other issue, if you're struggling to answer these two questions, is that your team or organization may be at capacity and you lack the people or resources to do what you want to do. And so answering these questions, if you really are at capacity, may require more time, and it may require a strategic, organizational level discussion. The bottom line is that we want, if we want to make our team feel less overwhelmed. Your priorities must be grounded in your current reality. Okay, so the third question we want to ask is, what will help us feel less overwhelmed? And so this is a question that should absolutely be a conversation. So at this point with your team, you've already provided clarity and orientation by setting priorities for right now, and we've determined what they can let go of in this moment so that they can focus on those priorities. So this is us asking our team, what else would be helpful to them, and so the answer to this question will be as varied as your team, but some examples of what you might hear includes a clear next step. So if there are a few tasks that are part of a priority, or a few things that folks need to let go of, we may need to help define a clear next step. They may also ask for clarity around ownership. If the reshuffling of priorities also means reshuffling responsibility your team may also ask for clarity around what right now means. So how long are these things a priority? How long will we be letting go of various things? You might also hear that folks need help with a task or or project that you've just made a priority, or they may need help delegating something that they need to let go of. You may also find that folks want some check ins, so either individually or as a team, to make sure that everyone is still on the same page and that things are moving along as we had hoped again. The answers to this question may be as varied as your team, but our goal here is to understand what else might be helpful to our team. So that's what I have for you today. Project and team. CHAOS really is optional, but clarity is the strategy. So by defining what's a priority, giving your team permission to let things go and understanding their needs, you really can guide your team out of overwhelm and back in to confident, meaningful action. If you're curious about how our approach to project management and planning helps mission driven leaders bring clarity and calm to complex work. Visit YazdaniConsulting.com approach to learn more, and because your plan is only as strong as your people, we can work with you to create tools, processes, systems and practices your team needs to execute with clarity and confidence. You might also be interested in our strategic planning readiness assessment. The assessment is designed to help you and your key stakeholders reflect on your strategic planning intentions, identify priorities and prepare for a planning process that is both inclusive and transparent. This simple tool is available at YazdaniConsulting.com/resources by clarifying your starting point, you'll set your team up for a planning process that leads to actionable, mission driven outcomes. All right, so I'm happy to take any questions that you have about leading overwhelm team. Feel free to add them in the comments. I'm going to give folks a few moments to add their questions. If I'm not able to answer your question live, I am happy to respond later in the comments. You can also find all of the ways to contact me at YazdaniConsulting.com/contact. Please reach out to me if you want to talk about your teams. Okay, so a question is, my organization is at capacity as a project manager. My influence is limited. Any suggestions? So this is really a difficult place to be. I have absolutely been there myself. I do think it's possible, though, that your influence isn't as limited as you might imagine. So yes, you may not be able to start that organization wide strategic conversation on priorities and capacity, but you can set a model within your projects. So when you are doing project planning, can you try to reduce the scope or narrow the deliverables or extend the timeline to really reflect reality and capacity. Can you have conversations with your project team like I just suggested, and so I do think you are in a position to try and level set with your team and have a really transparent discussion about what they have on their plates and how much they can reasonably give to a project. You could also document challenges related to capacity that show up in the project during your retrospective or degree debrief. So what was the impact on your project from capacity issues. And so this could be approached, particularly with leadership. As you know, here are some issues I'm seeing in our projects. What can we do to try to improve future projects? And so that might get the conversation started. Great. Um, so I do see another question. Let's see, what advice do you have about building skills around work, planning for teams? This is a skill gap. I see it and impacts their ability to prioritize and absorb new asks, which contribute to a reactive culture. The response also tends to be that they don't have time to plan and are not seeing ROI of the exercise. So thanks for that question, Jami, a couple of things, if they really, you know, I hear that a lot, we don't have time to plan. And, you know, a discussion about ROI, I do think, kind of, like I said in the last question or my last answer, I think maybe starting to document when there are delays, when there's kind of confusion, when you have to make changes that good planning would have maybe mitigated. Might be a way to show the value of it. But I really think, you know, if we're talking about building skills, I think often it may just be one person in the organization, organization who is willing to say, You know what? This is something. I want to build a skill, and then you are setting up kind of modeling what good planning can do. I also think we think of planning as having to be fully completed prior to the start of the project, but some of these things we can do as we begin and so and the person leading the project, can do a lot of the planning, kind of on their own, behind the scenes, and then just bring people into the conversation. And particularly if you're in a nonprofit or mission driven environment where there's values around inclusivity or collaboration, bringing people into planning, getting feedback on planning, maybe a way to sort of sell it, building skills around it. I see that you have PMP after your title, your name there, Jami and so I do think project management skills are really, really useful. One of the things that I often see, though, in nonprofit and mission driven spaces is a lot of project management skill sets seem too much you know, you're taught sort of everything that you could possibly do, and so I think finding some opportunities to have kind of, maybe smaller skill sets that you could build that aren't kind of the full project planning. So those are just some thoughts. I'm happy to continue the conversation in the comments, but I appreciate the question. Thank you. All right, so that's what I have for you today. Thank you for participating in our impactful projects and Planning series. If you would like to see recordings of all the sessions in the series, find. About upcoming sessions you can visit YazdaniConsulting.com/IPP to find out more. So thank you.