As a young business, deadlines often carry with them the threat of missing enormous opportunities that can be make-or-break moments for your company. Because of this, “Crunch Times”–80-hour weeks fueled by pure coffee and adrenaline–have become a trope of the start-up lifestyle, and are often an important part of staying afloat and staying competitive as a young company. However, pushing your team to its breaking point can have even bigger implications for the long-term success of your business than simply meeting (or missing) a single deadline.
So, how do you rally your team around an important deadline without crushing your company culture and your team’s morale?
1. Honest, open communication is the first step in devising a plan of action.
Even teams with the most organized, strategic product roadmaps can be forced to take a departure from their well-laid plans in the face of an unexpected deadline, opportunity, or challenge. In a start-up, the “unexpected” is so common, it’s more likely that your carefully constructed plans will be derailed than go off without a hitch.
Whether an exciting new business opportunity arose with an incredibly short timeline–or a critical deadline is approaching and your team is not on track to meet it–be open with your team about the situation you are facing. An honest presentation of the facts of the situation is the first step in devising an actual plan to deal with it. It can be difficult to expose your team to the inner, possibly not-so-pretty workings of the company…but it is critical. To truly rally behind a cause, your team needs to understandwhy the deadline or opportunity is so important.
When facing a difficult deadline or challenge, lay out the situation for your team and discuss the good and the bad of all possible outcomes. Instead of simply stating that deadline must be met–and slack must be picked up by everyone to meet it–let your team come to a decision together on how to move forward.
It’s easy to maintain a “great” company culture when everything is going smoothly, but culture is really established (and tested) in the difficult times. It is possible to turn a difficult deadline into an opportunity to build trust, problem solving, creativity and collaboration…but only if communication remains open and honest.
If you come to a decision together as a team on how to proceed, everyone will be more invested in the outcome and in the work that it will take to get there.
2. Don’t confuse “busyness” with actual productivity.
Once you’ve decided on the best course of action together and have begun a sprint to meet the deadline, be careful not to confuse “busyness” with productivity. In the “start-up culture”, busyness is often praised and is unfortunately often used as an easy benchmark for others to look in from the outside and judge the productivity and dedication of your team. It can be tempting to try to force a culture of all-nighters...but remember, extra hours in an office chair means nothing if your team is not invested in the work that they are doing.
There are many, many times in the course of a young company’s growth that require your team to put in extra effort, and that is one of the things that can make a small start-up team have greater output and productivity that teams three times their size. Building a culture of passion, hard work, flexibility and insane productivity is one of the most fulfilling and exciting things about working in or leading a growing start-up. To have a team that is willing to give up their precious weekends and evening hours and is ready to give all of their creativity and passion to your company…you have to have a company, culture and mission that deserves that kind of dedication. In our rapidly improving economy that is quickly swinging back into the employees’ favor instead of the employers’, you have to earn that kind of loyalty or you risk having talented people flee to better opportunities.
If employees feel mandated to put in extra hours rather than choosing to do so of their own accord, it can lead to sloppier-than-desired work at best…or bitterness, loss of creativity, and a loss of trust in leadership at the worst. All-nighters, weekend workdays and early mornings are one critically important piece of meeting an important deadline, but your team needs to feel intrinsically motivated to put in the extra time. If a “210% effort, 100% of the time” culture is the one you want to cultivate for your growing team, the only thing you can ever truly control is your own behavior.
Set an example yourself of putting in the hours, staying late when needed, and picking up slack regardless of whether it’s in your “wheelhouse” or not. Set a precedent of flexibility, dedication and hard-work, and then trust your employees to follow suit.
3. Trust in your employees is key, but their trust in their leaders is even more important.
When faced with an unexpected deadline, it’s easy to slip into a panic about meeting the deadline and lose sight of the real goals that the “crunch time” project is attempting to accomplish. Panic, reactionary behavior, push-back, nerves, blame, bitterness start to set in…and all of these culture-crushing emotions can be traced back to a lack of trust.
As a leader, a lack of trust in your employees is toxic and ultimately breeds a culture dependent on ‘corporate-esque’ red-tape, rule books, guidelines and micro-management in an effort to manage, control and check on your employees. These heavily-structured systems do a great job guaranteeing a very predictable, uninspired, steady churn of productivity, but make it impossible to foster a culture of creativity, flexibility, empowerment, trust and gives no incentive to ever “go above and beyond”, (not to mention increase your likelihood of turnover). In a heavily regulated company culture, it is difficult for any employee to feel like a trusted and valued part of the team, and therefore there is little incentive to pour their heart, soul and passion into their work.
But even more toxic still is when your employees have a lack of trust in their leadership. If emergency “crunch times” occur frequently in your team, it can lead to the impression that your leadership is unable to prioritize projects properly and plan ahead for potential business opportunities. If employees are expected to “step up to the plate” to meet a critical deadline too often, you run the risk of having them lose trust in your leadership.
To be able to trust your employees and have them trust you in difficult times, that trust needs to start being built even before you make a hire. Having a team that is ready to rise to the occasion when faced with difficult deadlines starts in the very first interview you have with a candidate when you’re considering hiring a new team member. The interview decision process should is not only a time for you as an employer to assess their hard skills, but it is also a time for you to learn about how they have dealt with difficult situations in past jobs.
But an interview is also a time for a candidate to learn about your company and it’s mission, and about the work culture you foster at your company. It is as much a time for you to evaluate a potential hire as it is for them to evaluate your company and you as a leader, and it’s often where they make the decision about why they want to join the team. Do they believe passionately in the mission of the company? Do they respect and look up to the people already working there, and want to be a part of that team? Or do they see the role as a bridge to bigger and better things? These critical decisions get made before they accept your offer, are tested constantly throughout their time as a team member, and will be the deciding factor behind whether or not they want to go above and beyond in a “Crunch Time”.
The most important factor in being able to effectively rally your team in a "Crunch Time" is whether or not your employees trust that you’d never ask them to go above and beyond unless absolutely necessary.
4. Behind every “Crunch Time” is usually an amazing opportunity…but your team might not know that.
Have you ever been around a two-year-old in their “Why?” phase? Every answer you provide only prompts them to ask “Why?” again, as they attempt to get to the real root of the answer. Well, as we all get older and enter the workforce we may stop asking “Why” out-loud, but it doesn’t mean that we aren’t asking it to ourselves when we are told to do something.
Those two-year-olds are on to something…
“Why” is a motivator. It’s the reason behind the “what”. It’s open, inspiring and full of opportunity, in the same way that “what” is defined and narrow.
Yet all too frequently, the “why” of what is being worked on is not discussed. Particularly under pressure, it can be tempting to just tell your employees what needs to be done- giving them directives rather than objectives.
Directives constrain, demand, and shift blame onto your employees. Objectives open up opportunities, inform, inspire and spread responsibility across the organization. By sharing the objective behind the “Crunch Time” early, not only will your team understand why they are being asked to step up to the plate, oftentimes innovative solutions can be designed to help alleviate the workload. In other words, sharing “why” early can help make “what” actually needs to be accomplished more informed, streamlined, innovative and inspiring (and sometimes, a potential “Crunch Time” can be avoided).
It is your responsibility as a leader to soak up the stress of the possibility of missing a deadline and the consequences that missing it would hold for the business, and never use fear tactics as a way to motivate your team. Instead of relaying how “bad” it will be for the company if the team “fails” to meet the deadline, share the opportunity behind the deadline. For example, if a new potential partnership has arisen, surface it to your team as soon as you can without distracting from focus. Present as an opportunity (not a directive) that could have an enormous impact on X, Y or Z of your business. Let your team help you define a solution that everyone feels bought into. Let the “why” define the “what”.
Sometimes (and particularly in start-ups) it is easy to overlook the impact of open communication and empathy on your company culture. These are the two greatest tools in a leader’s or manager’s toolbox, but tend to be the first skills forgotten in positions of power and responsibility.
Every time you are about to ask someone to do something, think about what you are about to ask from the perspective of your team member. Empathy is an amazing tool to “test drive” your leadership style, by putting yourself in the place of your team members and asking yourself honestly how you would respond if put in their situation.
Ask yourself this next time you are under pressure and about to demand more out of your team; if you were your own employee, would the "why" behind this "Crunch Time" inspire you to put in the extra effort?
5. As a true leader, the only person you should ever blame is yourself…because the only person you truly control is yourself.
When I say “True Leader”, I am not just referring to the cofounders, or the C-level execs or the ‘direct managers’ on a team….every individual on a team has the opportunity to be a true leader. It is not a position that can be given as a promotion, and many (many, many) people in “leadership roles” lack the three traits that define a true leader.
True leadership is defined by 1) your ability to be intrinsically motivated to push yourself to the limits of your ability, 2) to hold yourself personally accountable when you fall behind what you know you are capable of, and 3) to inspire others to become true leaders themselves.
True leaders push their team members beyond what they believe is their own limit, but with their own growth and not the companies’ as a goal. True leaders balance setting the bar higher with the empathy, support and flexibility that their team needs to be able to reach it.
If one of your team members isn’t performing to the level that you either need them to, or expect them to, if you are a true leader the only person you should blame is yourself.
If a team member is falling behind, you have failed to give them the what they need to thrive and grow. Have you not taken the time to connect with them and understand their limits? Are they not being challenged enough in their current role or are they feeling pushed too hard? Could you do more to make them feel appreciated, or do more to make them feel connected to the vision? Or did you do a poor job interviewing and you’ve hired someone who is not interested in the success of the company? Even if you choose to fire someone because they are not living up to expectations, as a true leader you do not blame them for not working out…you blame yourself.
Placing blame on yourself allows you to take action, rather than being caught in the helpless cycle of blaming others and passively expecting the situation to change. The only person whose actions you can fully control are your own; if you want to change your company culture or inspire action, start by changing your own behavior and leadership.
The best way to avoid a culture of “Crunch Times” is to relentlessly work towards inspiring every member of your team to become a true leader…and then trust them to be the leader that they are. If you succeed, you’ll have a team that you can trust to constantly push themselves to the extent of their ability, trust to be their own harshest critics and trust to be bought in to the company’s vision as they help inspire others to achieve more and do more. Your most important goal as a leader is to lead your fellow team members to push harder, reach further, and dig deeper than they ever have before…not for direct or immediate company gains, but for their own personal gain.
When you have a team of true leaders, you won’t even have to ask them to go above and beyond in a “Crunch Time”…they would expect nothing less out of themselves.
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Do you have thoughts or stories to add? Our company Packback is still young and we are constantly seeking to learn from the experiences of other growing teams.
Please share with me your stories about growing an amazing team that focuses as much on growing your business as it does on supporting the growth of your team members. My email is [email protected], and I can’t wait to hear from you!
