Let’s throw bodies at a problem

Ah my beloved management falacy: let’s throw bodies at a problem.

Let’s face it, nobody likes problems even small ones and if they are bigger even worst. The bigger or the more complex the problem the harder it is to find an obvious solution. If you’re lucky you’ll get the team members to work together to brainstorm some ideas that can work and resolve it and apply “trial and error”, which might or might not work as per desired timelines.

So what’s the “easiest” way out?

Let’s throw bodies at a problem.

I’ve lost count as to how many times different levels in the organization come up with let’s get more people, because more people the faster it is to resolve something right?

No!

Just because you get 9 mothers it doesn’t mean you’ll get the baby delivered in a month. Would be good, but that’s not how it works.

https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-throwing-money-business-cartoon-people-problem-image71736617

Every time I hear this answer to any given problem this song plays straight into my head

It’s very easy to believe that the more people you get the more problems / tasks they can achieve. The problem which is easily forgotten is that the more people you need the stronger the communication needs to be to be able to split a big piece of work in smaller parts, distribute the workload and all still fit together. The more people, the more management and if they happen to not have the right skillset for the problem it might end up having the undesired impact.

When you have a problem to tackle you need different ideas. Having 1 or 2 people from outside helping to brainstorm on how it can be tackled can indeed be quite helpful, but ultimately you need to be able to know how to distribute the work among all the “new joiners”. You’ll also have to spend some time explaining what the problem statement is so the additional resources can help to tackle it. I suppose if you have a big problem in the hands of a given team, the last thing the team will want is to have to do knowledge transfer to someone new. You’ll easily end up with a spaghetti monster of communication when no one knows who needs to do what.

Good article here

So what can you do instead?

Well, I’m a firm believer in the power of small teams. Hence, if you have a big problem to tackle, whereas you might benefit from some specific help (1 or 2 people), I would say it needs to come down to priority. What can be dropped from the team’s plate to tackle “the problem”. Get the team to brainstorm what could be done, split the work and let them try to achieve it.

Add into the backlog all the other items which are being paused, in priority item so they can start to be addressed as the resources become free from tackling the bigger issue.

Define quick wins that will booste the morale of the team and ensure they can indeed resolve this massive problem in front of them.

Empower them to make the right decisions within the team, which will reduce the time required to get all the buy in from the different stakeholders and let them present their findings and progress.

Keep the Monkey in control

Let’s make it clear, not insulting anyone here for as tempting as it might be sometimes.

I’m talking about the Budhist term “Monkey Mind”. From wikipedia below:

The psychological components of the “mind-monkey will-horse” metaphor are Chinese xin or Sino-Japanese shin or kokoro 心 “heart; mind; feelings, affections; center” and yi or i 意 ‘thought, idea; opinion, sentiment; will, wish; meaning’. This Chinese character 心 was graphically simplified from an original pictogram of a heart, and 意 “thought; think” is an ideogram combining 心 under yin 音 “sound; tone; voice” denoting “sound in the mind; thought; idea”.

A lot of self-help books will at some point talk about the monkey mind. But why does it matter in the office context? Well quite a lot.

Do you find yourself really anxious and overhelmed? I can tell you that I do more often than I dare to admit. And it all comes down to my monkey mind entering a kind of panic mode – and releasing a ton of adrenaline that no caffeine can fix – into my brain.

The Monkey mind is no different that a badly organized meeting where everyone is talking on top of each other and you can’t make sense of what’s going on, but in this case the “people” represent your thoughts and your worries. When this happens you will feel umbalanced and even more stressed which in turn is like feeding your monkey bananas, it will crave for more and more and go even more wrestless.

When the monkey mind is out there loose you can find yourself doing things you might regret or even have no recollection of having lost control. It won’t do you no good really and you might end up in burn out.

So how do you control it? Let’s face it, we all worry, we can’t make worry go away, it’s here to stay. Worry can come from the most smallest thoughts like do I even fit in my office clothing? Am I forgetting anything from my to do list? All adds up. So while we can’t get rid of all anxiety, we can for sure find ways to deal with it so your head feels more relaxed.

Some things that work for me – and as you can tell I’m no expert and there are tons of books out there that can explain this better than me (some are utter bananas…. you take your pick).

Breathing

Sometimes it can be irritating when someone mentions breathing as you will involutarily focus on your breathing when we do it unconsciously. But it does help. In the past I’ve managed to hide myself in the bathroom to block my mind from all the noise (both outside and in my head) and just focus on some breathing. There are tons of techniques out there but I use the one a clever midwife told me to when I was having a panick attack. It goes like this: you do a long breath during 6 seconds, you hold it for 6 seconds and then you exhale for 6 seconds as deep as you can go. You can go on as long as you need to.

My daughter also has a meditation about feeling frustrated which is about imaging a birthday cake and blowing out some candles. I would recommend you doing this away from everyone as people might freak out if you blow next to them.

Exercise

Any form of exercise will do. I’m not talking about hitting the gymn necessarily – although this can do wonder for a lot of people – but can even be as simple as move away from the computer and go away for a walk outside until you feel better. If you have to leave a meeting before you were meant to, then leave. Just go for a walk until your mind feels clearer. Walking for me walks quite well if I’m really irritated. If you prefer a run then go for a run. Keep on going until you feel you are back in control.

Chores

Oh yeah, it works for me at least. If you are home and need to do some laundry or wash the dishes, then do it. It does wonders when you have to focus your brain on a physical activity. Bonus tip you get the chores done so less to do at the end of the day.

Do something you enjoy

Could be anything from singing or dancing to your favourite sing, play with the kids for a bit, chasing the cat, doing a puzzle. Whatever rocks your boat and might calm you down.

Focus on what you can control and do 1 task at a time

Once you have done 1 or more of the tips above, the next step is focus on what you can control. If you can’t control it, let it go. Let it be someone elses problem and focus on what you can control right now. Focusing on a smaller task you can achieve will give you back a sense of control. If this means you need to avoid a few meetings by all means just do. When I finally have the chance to start and finish a task I feel a lot better.

At the end of the day you need to find what works for you. No matter how many magic numbers are mentioned out there, you need to find your 42.