
Folsom Dam, on the American River near Sacramento, California. The dam and the Folsom Reservoir are the primary protectors of the city of Sacramento against floods resulting from rainfall and snowfall that cover higher elevations nearby.
Being flooded with work is a metaphor more apt than might first appear. Flooding inland, like overwork, can have multiple causes. Whether any particular rainfall or snowfall event or series of events leads to flooding depends on numerous factors, among them: available soil water storage capacity, the ability of the topography to shed water, the ability of the topography to contain flows within established river channels, the region's vulnerability to flows from higher elevations in the watershed, snow melt rates, and the region's ability to store standing water in contained areas. All of these mechanisms have analogs in overload management in the workplace. Photo courtesy U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Having too much work is a common condition in the modern workplace. Having way, way, way too much work — so much that 70-hour weeks still are not enough to keep from falling behind — is less common, but still too common. Combine way-way-way-too-much-work with ongoing supervisor expectations that the work will get done, and done well, and you have the ingredients for stress, sleep disturbance, declining work quality, toxic conflict, and disruption of home life. It's a toxic stew that can cause permanent harm.
We must be honest with ourselves. This degree of overwork is abuse. It threatens our health, and it must end.
What follows, this week and the two following, is a sketch of a program for ending this kind of abuse.
Let's begin by examining where the work comes from.
- The work is included in or implied by my job description
- Work of this kind truly is yours. The question is: "Does the organization need another one of you?" Or maybe, "Should my job be divided?"
- Affirmative answers to these questions usually occur only when the situation is obvious to all concerned, whether or not anyone acknowledges it openly.
- My boss explicitly directed me to do the work
- Typically, you were already overloaded when your boss gave you yet one more responsibility. And you accepted it because you felt you had little choice.
- Some supervisors are unaware of the true scale of the excessive workloads of their subordinates. Some are fully aware, but choose to do nothing about it. Some are willfully unaware. Understanding your own supervisor's state of awareness is a first step to devising a strategy for ending the overwork.
- I picked up this work because "it has to get done"
- Sometimes, important responsibilities or tasks remain unassigned or even unrecognized. When they remain open, they sometimes block progress on work that has been assigned. The people who are blocked can then find it difficult to resist the temptation to take on responsibility for this "fallow work."
- If you've succumbed to this temptation, then you have, in effect, assigned yourself some work voluntarily. Complaining about it later then becomes problematic.
- I picked up this work to prevent someone else from getting it
- Political Some supervisors are unaware
of the true scale of the
excessive workloads of their
subordinates. Others are
willfully unaware.rivals sometimes contend with each other for responsibilities not because they seek those responsibilities, but because they seek to deny their rivals control of those responsibilities. - Outcomes in these situations are rarely beneficial to anyone involved, or to the organization. Yet supervisors often let this happen, because they feel they're getting productivity for free. Or they're more comfortable permitting people to overload themselves voluntarily than they are comfortable with overloading people directly.
These various mechanisms by which overloading comes about call for different approaches to prevention and resolution. That's the topic for next time. Next issue in this series
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
About Workplace Hugs
- In the past twenty years in the United States, we've changed from a relatively hug-free workplace culture
to one that, in some quarters, seems to be experiencing a hugging tsunami. Knowing how to deal with
hugging is now a valuable skill.
Telephonic Deceptions: I
- People have been deceiving each other at work since the invention of work. Nowadays, with telephones
ever-present, telephonic deceptions are becoming more creative. Here's Part I of a handy guide for telephonic
self-defense.
The End-to-End Cost of Meetings: III
- Many complain about attending meetings. Certainly meetings can be maddening affairs, and they also cost
way more than most of us appreciate. Understanding how much we spend on meetings might help us get control
of them. Here's Part III of a survey of some less-appreciated costs.
Narcissistic Behavior at Work: VIII
- Narcissistic behavior at work can have roots in attitudes and beliefs. Understanding which attitudes
or beliefs underlie narcissistic behavior can sometimes have predictive value. Among such attitudes
or beliefs are those related to envy.
Rescheduling: the Politics of Choice
- When the current project schedule no longer leads to acceptable results, we must reschedule. When we
reschedule, organizational politics can determine the choices we make. Those choices can make the difference
between success and a repeat of failure.
See also Workplace Politics and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming April 30: On Planning in Plan-Hostile Environments: II
- When we finally execute plans, we encounter obstacles. So we find workarounds or adjust the plans. But there are times when nothing we try gets us back on track. When this happens for nearly every plan, we might be working in a plan-hostile environment. Available here and by RSS on April 30.
And on May 7: Subject Matter Bullying
- Most workplace bullying tactics have analogs in the schoolyard — isolation, physical attacks, name-calling, and rumor-mongering are common examples. Subject matter bullying might be an exception, because it requires expertise in a sophisticated knowledge domain. And that's where trouble begins. Available here and by RSS on May 7.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group