Deadline vs. Lifeline
Work deadlines. We’ve all faced them, but is this term more loaded than we realize? The word “deadline” already implies that someone will be punished if they don’t meet the quality of work and timing conditions set out by their boss. That threat forces us to overwork in our attempt to survive.
Overworking does not mean we are working more efficiently; on the contrary, Alarm Emotions start blaring in our Snake Brain that precludes us from thinking logically and on a timeline. The Snake Brain gives us the strong conviction that there is no time; it cannot tell us how much time is left to organize, plan, and execute the set tasks. Instead of proper executive functioning, we are flooded with the anticipation of failure, as if the catastrophe already has happened. Thus we spend time suffering over something that has not even happened yet.
We urgently have to build an awareness in the workplace that we need to re-think the idea of “deadlines”; nobody will die if you miss one. What we actually need is a work plan indicating what each member of the team needs to contribute and by what time. When one member runs into a problem that might offset the agreed upon timeline, they can then make the whole team aware of the problem and everyone can work together to solve it.
Punishing people for not meeting their targets just serves to constantly signal to the worker that they are not good enough. That leads to evasive behavior, hiding problems, and constant fear. It locks people into their Snake Brains, and thus into aloneness, which can easily slip into helplessness.
Keeping people in their Snake Brains very successfully prevents their ability to work together as a team because social behavior isn’t possible in the Snake Brain. Social behaviors such as teamwork, a willingness to work together, or “taking one for the team” are not “thinkable” if you’re stuck in your Snake Brain. If people are constantly threatened, isolated and stressed, teamwork is impossible, work becomes inefficient, and mistakes are hidden, endangering the success of the whole project.
A lifeline is the thin line on the perimeter of a sailboat that a sailor clips himself onto to keep from getting swept overboard when the boat heels or thumps through waves. This is a good image for how an effective team can work: everyone needs a connection to the team (the boat), even if the going is tough and a sailor could get thrown off/overtaxed/overwhelmed/lose balance. On a team, not everybody does the same thing, not everybody has the same strengths. Being well-connected to each other is like having a lifeline that makes one member support another when they are weakened or confused, and then they can return the favor when it is the other way around.
If you reach the goal together as a team, everybody benefits and feels good. Having lifelines also makes stress temporary because while it does not feel good to lose your footing on the boat, you know that it will not kill you, and when the boat reaches shore, the stress will end and you can recover.
With a deadline, however, the feeling of being helpless and alone makes the stress permanent, and in case you somehow survive the deadline, the Snake Brain can only set you back to neutral, to being “not alarmed”. The ability to actually feel good as a result of feeling connected to the team via lifelines and the communal togetherness afterwards — like you might experience after a foul weather sail with your crew — can only happen in the Sage Brain.
-E
