Tag: fuse

Setting Expectations Relative to Your Reality and Blowing Fuses (1-18-23)

Happy Wednesday,

This is the last one in our series about protecting energy.  Last week was about protecting your energy and blowing fuses.  This week we will continue to think about blowing fuses as it relates to setting expectations relative to your reality.

Back in November, Cam played Legos with a friend in the garage.  Cam got me and said, “The power went off in the garage.”  I see that Cam and his friend have their socks and shoes off and are wearing t-shirts.  I’m confused because the garage isn’t heated, and Cam explains, “We didn’t want to have to wear coats and stuff as we played so we turned on both space heaters (in the same outlet).”  This blew the fuse.  I reset everything and then turned to the kids.  “I get that you don’t want to wear coats or anything and that the extra layers might get in the way when playing Legos.  Running two space heaters is not good for the electrical system.  We aren’t building a fire to warm you up.  You need to put your socks, shoes, and coat on if you want to keep playing in the garage. 

What does this have to do with anything?  This is a story about how their original vision and expectations led to blowing a fuse.  They wanted to be warm and barefoot like summertime, so they tried to do that with the space heaters, and it didn’t end well.  Their expectations did NOT match the reality of the situation (it was cold 😉).  How many times has this happened to you at work?  It often looks something like this, “This project is critical, and it needs to be perfect,” but you look around and realize you don’t have the financial or people resources to make it happen.  You also quickly realize that you aren’t going to be given more time, energy, money, or people.  You still try to deliver that perfection anyway, and before you know it you have burned yourself and other people out.  Does this sound familiar?  I spent a fair amount of 2022 in that space, which is why I’m so focused on not ending up back there. 

When Cam and his friend realized that the reality was different from their expectations, they had a CHOICE about how to proceed.  They could stop playing Legos (stop the project).  They could find other ways to heat up the area (get more resources).  They could adjust their expectations and behaviors to match their reality.  In their case this meant putting on coats.  In our case at work, it might be admitting that the “perfect” deliverable is NOT possible with our current resourcing and being okay with delivering something less than perfect.  The struggle to let go of perfection is real, knowing that I won’t hit the standards I hold for myself and likely will upset/disappoint others.  These aren’t easy choices to make.  They are necessary choices if you want to protect your energy.

The challenge: How can you set better more realistic expectations in order to protect your energy and the energy of others?

Direct bonus thoughts that might hit a little hard: As leaders we have the burden/responsibility to set the parameters and realistic expectations that enable people to protect their energy.  This is especially important if you are in an official leadership position, because your actions will naturally carry extra weight.  Below are a few situations where I’ve seen leaders handle situations in a way that communicated to me that they weren’t aware of or didn’t care about burning people out.  I’ve seen these things, and I’ve been the leader in these situations.  Have you?  Something to think about.

  • If there is a legitimate issue with the project, and the leader tells the group they will just have to figure it out without giving them more time, people, money, or taking things off their plate through automation or prioritization, then there is a good chance that the leader’s actions are communicating, “I’m okay with you burning yourself out to make this happen.”  (My new go-to move is to ask, “What do you NEED to make X happen?  Do you need time, people, to take things off your plate, or something else?”)
  • If there is an issue and the leader responds with, “You will just have to prioritize” without being able to say what they are able let go of completely or where you they comfortable with the team giving less effort, their actions are likely communicating, “I’m okay with you burning yourself out, because everything is important and everything needs to be done.”  (My new go-to move is to start by asking, “What do you NEED to make X happen?”  Then, I reclarify priorities.  “Here are the 2 or 3 things where we need A effort.  Here are the things we need B effort.  I don’t even want to talk about Q, R, and S because they aren’t important.  If we have to let go of Q, R, and S, we will just have to deal with it.)
  • If a leader is not consistently celebrating and recognizing people who prioritize (by either saying no to work, choosing to delay unimportant work, or giving less effort to unimportant work)  or are comfortable giving less effort to things that don’t matter as much), then the leader is sending a message that you don’t truly value prioritization.  (I’m working hard to recognize folks here.)

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Protecting Your Energy and Blowing Fuses (1-11-23)

Last week I talked about protecting my peace.  I want to continue with this idea of protecting your energy by thinking about blowing fuses and burnout.   

Have you ever blown a fuse or a had to reset the circuit breaker in your house?  If so, this means the fuse was doing its job of protecting electrical circuits.  A fuse is blown if too much electrical current goes through it at a given time.  When the fuse blows it breaks the circuit, so electricity can’t flow through it anymore.  Without the fuse, an overpowered electrical current would fry anything it ran through.  To get things working again, you have to pause and replace the fuse or reset the breaker.

What does this have to do with anything?  When a mechanical device is overwhelmed, the fuse blows, and it stops working.  It’s then OBVIOUS that something is wrong.  It won’t resume working again until it is fixed.  I’d argue that we have our own internal fuses that blow when we get overwhelmed.  The issue is that these fuses aren’t always obvious to other people or even ourselves.  Since a blown fuse isn’t always obvious, we just keep going on and on and on until we fry our whole systems and become burned out. 

If you reflect for a minute, what are some signs that you have blown a fuse and are heading toward burnout?  For me, it could look like any of these things: I’m not working out, not getting enough sleep, eating junk food constantly, and I’m easily irritated at work and at home.  All of these are destructive behaviors that hurt me and others around me.  Now, imagine what would happen if I noticed when these things started to happen AND STOPPED to figure out how to fix things vs. continuing to go and go and go.  Think of how much better off I’d be mentally, emotionally, and physically.  Think of how much better off you’d be if you did the same.  Part of protecting my peace this year is understanding what it looks like when I’ve blown a fuse and then STOPPING to remedy the problem.

The challenges:  What are signs that you’ve blown a fuse?  How will you respond once that fuse is blown?

Bonus- A year ago, I wrote a blog post about surge protectors.  It’s one of my favorite entries.  You can read that HERE.  The surge protector entry was all about being PROACTIVE to set up things that would prevent you from being overloaded.  The ideas work well with this week’s entry which is about IDENTIFYING when you are overloaded.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry