Sticky Notes: Recognize Overcommitment on Your Team

Be realistic about what people can do and break the overcommitment cycle.

If you want to prevent people from quitting, as a manager, you must fight “overcommitment syndrome” within your ranks.

This is the toxic cycle: Everything is urgent and important. People overextend themselves, committing to too many projects with too short lead times.

Clients, customers, and collaborators are left frustrated. So they increase the pressure. But once the pressure builds up, people begin to shut down. Their work gets passed on to someone else…and the cycle starts over, cascading throughout the organization.

Be realistic about what people can do and break that cycle.

Bruce Tulgan
Bruce Tulgan is a best-selling author and CEO of RainmakerThinking, the management research, consulting, and training firm he founded in 1993. All of his work is based on 27 years of intensive workplace interviews and has been featured in thousands of news stories around the world. His newest book, “The Art of Being Indispensable at Work: Win Influence, Beat Overcommitment, and Get the Right Things Done” ( Harvard Business Review Press) is available for purchase from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all major booksellers. Follow Tulgan on Twitter @BruceTulgan or visit his Website at: rainmakerthinking.com.