This is relevant. Just keep reading.
Well, like many of you in IT operations, I’ve had a few bruising weeks back-to-back. Working in higher education we were on the early wave of social distancing due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and while this change has been disruptive to most – for those of us in IT who have to transition and support thousands of employees and tens of thousands of students working and learning remotely – it has been a mentally and sometimes physically exhausting process.
Without detailing it, it’s been the roughest few weeks of my career. I may have had worse days here and there, but this level of sustained challenge from a technical, managerial, and most importantly a leadership perspective is unprecedented. Because one of my teams is the service operation including desk-side support and the call center, I’ve been directly responsible for serving all of our stakeholders as they figure out how to work in this new paradigm.
This - as you can imagine - has been exceedingly tough. As a local campus-based institution, we did not have much in the way of work-from-home before this coronavirus business started up so we’ve been working doubly hard to not only get our infrastructure ready to support it, but also to make sure that we are supporting our employees and training them appropriately. Saying it’s been long days is an understatement.
As a result, my team has been starting to show signs of fatigue. From less engagement on team threads to a significant reluctance to be onsite when their rotation is up, we’re struggling with morale. I tried my old standby: I brought in donuts a couple of days, but by the third day, no one would take one – they were worried they were possibly contaminated with the virus. I tried to get some social time in just joking around with people and seeing how they were doing – but people understandably wanted to keep their distance if they were physically in the office.
I don’t have fancy furniture in my office, but if I did, I would have looked a lot like this.
Let’s cut to the chase – none of that worked. Morale seemed to get worse by the day, if not by the hour. I had a rare 15-minute block to reflect in my office, and I started to think about what was going wrong and how I could try to support folks and give them something to enjoy or look forward to in light of all the chaos and demands going around them. I didn’t come up with anything right away, and I started to get frustrated. I didn’t realize it until I caught myself with my head hung looking out the window – but my morale was shot too.
And that’s when it hit me – I needed to level with everyone and lead from where I was. I couldn’t pull anyone up because I was in the same ditch that they were in. I called an all-hands and detailed out everything I knew about the situation and tried my best to explain what conversations were happening that could impact our operations. I then asked how everyone was. I asked if anyone was nervous. One person admitted they were – that they were concerned for their elderly parents. I admitted I was nervous too – I was (and am still) worried about my kids. I was honest that I didn’t know what was going to happen operationally in the office and that that made me nervous.
After I brought this out, it was like a tidal wave – people started talking about where they were and started asking questions that led to a great conversation. It allowed me to acknowledge that we were all in this together and that I had full confidence in the team. It gave me an opportunity to communicate how important their wellbeing is to me. It opened a dialogue and got them to be honest about where they were.
And so I guess that’s the advice I have for today. I know it’s a short entry, but if you’re stuck in the middle of something, be real with your team – sometimes it’s helpful for them to know that you don’t have it all figured out. Sometimes they want to know that you feel what they feel. I’m incredibly proud of what my org has been able to do on both the infrastructure and service teams – and for the most part, morale has been greatly improved.
Sometimes we can improve the morale of a team by acting more like we’re part of that team than leading it. Your coworkers and colleagues aren’t going to perform if they don’t feel they can be authentic and real with you, and so in tough times, I think that’s what we owe them – our real selves.
Some reflection:
When’s the last time you found yourself in a tough situation with someone you lead – and you were also in a rough spot?
How are you being authentic with your coworkers and really being human with them?
If you don’t lead a team – how can you communicate to your management that you’re struggling?