Stress: Executives and managers feeling the pressure
The majority of senior executives and managers are stressed at work. Eighty percent of senior executives and managers are stressed at work, with a third saying they are highly stressed, based on a nationwide survey by NFI Research.
That’s a lot of stressed people. And those people being stressed means that the people who work for them are most likely stressed as well. That’s a whole bunch more people.
The top three sources of stress at work are deadlines (52%), interruptions (42%) and conflicting responsibilities (37%). “This is not a healthy work situation with this constant pressure on people all the time,” said Chuck Martin, CEO of NFI Research.
Okay, if those are the top three, why aren’t they ever addressed, except to increase them?
The more stressed a person is, the less effective they generally become. So we’ve got a whole lot of less-than-top-performing executives and managers running around passing their stress down to the levels below them (essentially leading people to become more stressed). The feedback from those people then goes back up to the managers, and the inevitable unrest causes them even more stress.
Deadlines are the top stressor. In most cases, executives and managers are the ones setting the deadlines to begin with. That means this one is completely within their control. So why don’t they do a better job of controlling this stressor? It’d be easy to say it’s because they are stupid, but I don’t think that’s really the case. I think these are intelligent people, but they don’t take the time to plan ahead. They see a trend or a need, and say “I need that now!” and then tell those below them to get it done, without really considering the effort it takes to get it done right.
Take, for instance, every software project I’ve been associated with (not, I hasten to add, as a leader). An executive has looked at the competition and realized that somebody does something better than we do, so we better get that capability quickly. Fine… sounds like a reasonable plan. He tells the manager below him to get that done in X timeframe. The manager, not really knowing the specifics of how to pull that off, but wanting to impress the boss, says “Sure. We can do it for $XXXX.00.” The executive says “Great! So we have the talent to do it. But do it for $XXX.00.” (Because it’s an executive’s job, apparently, to provide a challenge, and lower costs.) The manager says, “okay but we need to expand the timeframe to X+1.” The executive says “Deal. Git ‘er dun.”
Right there: that’s where it all falls apart. See, with that budget there is no way they can get it done in X+1. They need at least X+3. But the manager thinks they can cut a corner here or there and bring it in maybe a little late, but not too badly. Plus, he’s not thinking of all the pieces that need to go into the project. He’s an IT manager, so he’s thinking:
- write the code,
- test it,
- fix the bugs,
- deploy it.
But he’s not figuring in:
- run focus groups,
- increase the scope,
- argue about the color of the interface,
- spell check the labels,
- provide development, testing, and training environments,
- write the training and documentation,
- deliver the training,
- produce the graphics,
- conform to marketing’s visual standards,
- rewrite entire modules because we forgot to ask users how it should work,
- revise the training and documentation,
- etc. . .
So from the initial agreement the software is doomed to be slipshod and 4 months late.
Now meanwhile, the executives are promising the public, or worse, the shareholders, that this will be in place at X+1. So now they’re stressed, because it looks like they’re incompetent when it doesn’t come out on time, and the manager is stressed because they could be fired for making the executive look stupid.
All this could be avoided if project management processes were actually followed and all relevant stakeholders were included in the estimating process. (I can’t speak for other departments, but I know the training timeline is ignored until the last minute more often than not.) I’ve also seen that most software projects are not nearly as well architected in the planning stages as they should be — many times I’ve heard project managers say, “We’ll figure that out later” only to be slammed with stress when they discover that that seemingly innocuous function actually impacts three distinct systems — so what should be a small effort when planned correctly turns into a major coordination of last-minute effort and rushed work.
Tags: Corporate world, trainingRelated posts
Tags: Corporate world, training
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