Mental Bandwidth

I worked with a great young performer who told me she was feeling burned out. The funny thing was, she was not putting in extra time at the office or traveling. Nothing seemed out to make sense until she told me what she had been working on.

It seems that she was doing her job as an entry level customer service person and was growing into a middle manager role, which seemed good to me. What was not good, however, was that she worked for a supervisor who was pretty much absentee. She felt she had to do much of her supervisor's job, too--even though she admitted it took very little time on daily basis.

It turns out she was not burned out, at least not from working too much. She was too stretched, far beyond her natural "bandwidth" or comfort zone. She was confident doing the stuff she knew how to do, but she was stressed out and emotional over doing her boss's work. We removed her boss's work from her plate and things improved.

She opened my eyes to realizing that at times I suffer from the same bandwidth issue, only from the opposite end of the equation. I can handle the big stuff, the strategy and leadership issues, but the more I get pulled into the more detail areas, the more my bandwidth is stretched.

Sometimes it's not burn out, it's about bandwidth. Another reason we must make sure we have the right people doing the right jobs.



Barry LaBov
LaBov and Beyond Marketing Communications
www.labov.com

Another Factor in this Economy

One thing that is easy to overlook in this recession is speed. The sales cycle has slowed down to crawl. That means that new prospect may be ready to work with you but it will take three times as long to get going now as it would have two years ago. And it may take a year to grow to the point that you would have normally reached in three months prior to the recession.

Even as the economy improves, the pace of progress will be slow.The good news?

Two years ago you may not have had the opportunity to meet, let alone begin working with that new prospect.


Barry LaBov
LaBov and Beyond
www.labov.com

An Issue I Have

I was talking to a buddy of mine who is a coach of sorts. He told me that his observation of me is that I don't deal well with people that have no initiative or passion. He told me I was great with people that were enthusiastic, passion-filled and high-initiative. He said I'd do anything to help them. I think he's right.

The only answer I see is for me to focus on the people that have energy and initiative and give them the support and opportunities. Someone else will deal with the other folks.

Maybe that's how clients look at our companies?

Barry LaBov
LaBov & Beyond
www.labov.com