
American dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium americanum). Mistletoe is a hemiparasitic plant, which means that although it is photosynthetic, it does obtain water and nutrients from its host. In the case of dwarf mistletoe, it also obtains photosynthates from its host. Although dwarf mistletoes are fairly host-specific, they infect other species as well, including Ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, western larch and Douglas fir. In effect, the dwarf mistletoe depends on the host for the "action items" of lifting water and lifting and producing nutrients. In response to infection, some trees create clusters of small twigs and foliage called "witch's brooms."
In teams, consistent action item evasion by some team members can lead to behavior and attitudes analogous to witch's brooms: resentment, polarization, formation of cliques and other symptoms of toxic conflict.
Photo by J. Schmidt, courtesy U.S. National Park Service.
Whether you're a team member, a team lead, or a manager, you need to know how people elude assignments. If you're part of a team that's consistently and seriously overworked, avoiding additional action items is just about your only defense against overload. If others are better at it than you are, you'll end up with more than your share of the load. As a team lead or manager, noticing these patterns can be your first clue that people are overloaded.
To begin, here are some tactics people use to shift burdens to others, unfairly.
- Never finish action items you already have. That way, you can say, "I have too much on my plate right now."
- Don't offer new ideas. Offering new ideas is a great way to get asked to execute them. See "The "What-a-Great-Idea!" Trap," Point Lookout for February 28, 2001, for more.
- Belong to more than one team. That way, you can always decline action items by saying that your load from the other team is too high.
- If several heavy action items might be headed your way, taking the earlier light ones gives you a pass to decline the heavy ones later. People see the numbers more clearly than the weight.
- Get involved in future planning. Then, if someone presses you to start contributing to current efforts, you can say that you expect to be involved in that future effort, and you don't want to over-commit.
- Offer to assist with, not lead, a critical task that's in serious trouble. The level of effort required can be quite small. If any action items come your way, you can say, "I'm already helping out with the finger-in-the-dike project."
- Have responsibility for something really important or very unappealing. That way, people will avoid giving you anything that might distract you from your task.
- Volunteer for Consistent action item evasion by
some team members can lead to
resentment, polarization, formation
of cliques, and other symptoms
of toxic conflicttasks that are especially easy for you, either because you've already completed them, or because you have pieces of them already done. People will give you credit for the full effort, but the cost to you is less than they imagine.
And here are some tactics for avoiding action items fairly.
- Attend meetings. You usually get more action items when you aren't there.
- Don't be the first to raise a new topic that could result in action items for others. This only invites retribution.
- If doughnuts, coffee, or anything with sugar or caffeine is being served, abstain. Leave the sugar and caffeine for others. Let them get hyped up.
- If you're the lead or chair, and nobody steps forward for something, rather than taking the action yourself, take the action to find someone to do it.
- If you're the lead or chair, don't wait for meetings before asking someone to accept a task. Approaching people in advance lets you do horse-trading in private.
Watch what people do in your teams. Do they step forward eagerly? Do they shift burdens unfairly? The tactics you see others use can help you choose your own. Top
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
Coaching and Haircuts
- Lifelong learners use a variety of approaches, usually relying heavily on reading. Reading works well
for some ideas and techniques, especially for those with limited emotional content. For adding other
skills and perceptions, consider a personal coach.
First Aid for Painful Meetings
- The foundation of any team meeting is its agenda. A crisply focused agenda can make the difference between
a long, painful affair and finishing early. If you're the meeting organizer, develop and manage the
agenda for maximum effectiveness.
Pygmalion Side Effects: Bowling a Strike
- Elise slowly walked back to her office, beaten. Her supervisor, Alton, had just given Elise her performance
review — her third consecutive "meets expectations." No point now to her strategy of
giving 120% to turn it all around. She is living a part of the Pygmalion Effect, and she's about to
experience the Pygmalion Side Effects.
Email Antics: II
- Nearly everyone complains that email is a time waster. Yet much of the problem results from our own
actions. Here's Part II of a little catalog of things we do that help waste our time.
Five Guidelines for Choices
- Each day we make dozens or hundreds of choices — maybe more. We make many of those choices outside
our awareness. But we can make better choices if we can recognize choice patterns that often lead to
trouble. Here are five guidelines for making choices.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Effective Meetings for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming July 13: What Do We Actually Know?
- Precision in both writing and speech can be critical in determining the success of collaborations in the modern workplace. Precision is especially important when we distinguish between what we surmise or assume and what we actually know. Available here and by RSS on July 13.
And on July 20: Overt Verbal Abuse at Work
- Verbal abuse in the workplace involves using written or spoken language to disparage, to disadvantage, or to otherwise harm others. Perpetrators tend to favor tactics that they can subsequently deny having used to harm anyone. Available here and by RSS on July 20.
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