Is Your Team Stuck in the Weeds?
By: Liane Davey
Tags: Management, Productivity, Training, Coaching, Leadership

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Is your team stuck in the weeds and dragging you down with them?

I asked people to tell me how they know when they’re in the weeds and these were a few of my favorite responses:

I spent 8 hours working on a report only to realize a week later that no one ever opened it. I was two hours into a meeting before realizing it could have been replaced by a 5-minute email. I was two hours into crafting an email before realizing could have been replaced with a 5-minute phone call. I spent 45 minutes down a stock image rabbit hole in search of the perfect images for an internal-use-only presentation. I once spent an hour of what was supposed to be a strategy session arguing about whether the idea we were proposing was “disruptive” or a “breakthrough” and then spent the next hour discussing whether the first hour was “wasteful” or “pointless.”

Consequences of Being Stuck in the Weeds

Getting stuck in the weeds has terrible consequences.

It’s Demoralizing

It’s irritating to know that you’re not devoting your time to the work that could really make a difference. You remember why you took your job, what excited you about it, but that’s a far cry from what you’re spending your time on. You’re overwhelmed by busy work and you want to do something that counts!

You Miss Out on Rewards and Promotions

It’s frustrating that you’re not getting noticed for all your hard work. Your boss doesn’t seem to value you and certainly doesn’t reward you. Any time you raise the issue of more opportunities or promotion, you get the “I’m not sure you’re leadership material” look. You need to change the perception of you — to be seen as more strategic, more of a role model.

You Get Stressed Out

It’s anxiety-provoking to face an endless torrent of emails in your inbox and relentless stream of deadlines. You can’t even catch your breath between assignments. The quality of your work suffers (but not as much as the quality of your sleep). You need to focus on one thing at a time and make some progress.

Your Whole Life Suffers

It’s demoralizing how often work spills beyond business hours and you are expected to miss dinner with your family, or skip your trip to the gym, or log on evenings and weekends? You have got to wrangle your workload back into a more manageable schedule.

Maybe being in the weeds has a different impact on you. There are so many negative consequences of spending your time and energy on the wrong work.

The good news is that there’s a formula for how to get out of the weeds.

Shift to Higher Value Work

You can change what work you prioritize, making the following shifts to add more value:

Now versus Later: From thinking about now to focusing on later… making even rear-looking conversations an opportunity to learn and change the next time.

How versus What: From answering ‘how’ questions to answering ‘what’ (and ‘why’) questions… getting out of the micromanagement mode and into leadership mode.

Information versus Insight: From getting mired in information and raw data to creating insight…moving beyond ‘what’ to ‘so what?’

Core versus Peripheral: From being distracted by peripheral issues to focusing on the core…spending less time on style and more time on substance.

Individual versus Collective: From discussing issues of individual relevance to investing in the collective…using meetings for maximum benefit, not as a spectator sport.

Click here to download this fun diagnostic to see how far in the weeds your team has sunk.

Eliminating Low Value Work

Adding more high value work is only half the equation. Until you reduce the amount of low value work you’re doing, you’re still going to be running to stand still.

I’ve built a great new course to teach you how to significantly reduce the time and energy you’re spending on low value work. It even includes the right words to say ‘no’ to your boss and an emergency plan for when saying ‘no’ doesn’t work.

Check it out. There are two free preview lessons so you can get a feel for the material. If you like it, it’s on sale for 50% off until July 31st. Just use the coupon code “medium” at the check out.

Getting out of the weeds will make work feel more fulfilling, will change how you’re viewed and open up rewards and promotions, and will help you reclaim your work-life balance.

If you’re stuck in the weeds, it’s time to break free.