Model the Behaviors You Want to See

I was part of a new management team at the firm tasked to turn around a $100 million troubled project that was months behind schedule and over budget. Staff was working extremely long hours with no end in sight. They would drag themselves into the office  around nine a.m. and work until dinner. After a two-hour dinner break, they trudged back and worked until ten or eleven p.m. This was not sustainable, and the entire team was demoralized. It was a death march.

Though extremely difficult, we stopped the project for two weeks and asked all the staff to take a well-deserved vacation. The management team re-estimated the remaining work to create more realistic budgets, schedules, and contingencies. A new tool was put in place to accurately track project budget and schedule. We nicknamed the project tracking tool “The Rudder,” because we finally knew how to guide the project. In fact, someone found an old white and blue sailboat rudder, and we hung it on the main conference room wall to remind us that we were no longer rudderless. Some of the allegedly good managers turned out to be bad managers who could not adapt and soon left the project. After the project reset, morale dramatically improved as the team began to make real progress and was ultimately successful.

Model the behaviors you want to see. Do not respond to emails at all hours of the night. Do not expect your direct reports to respond to emails at all hours of the night. Do not work excessive hours. Do not expect your team leaders to work excessive hours. Stay home when you are sick, and ask them to do the same. Take vacations, and teach them how to do the same. Establish a family-first prime directive, so when team leaders and their staff are faced with decisions about whether to help a family member, attend a school play, or work, they feel safe to always choose family. I would always say, “Take care of your family and yourself. We have 330 people in our department who will gladly back you up.”