Un-boil the frog: turn the heat down and productivity up at work.
Our workloads are not decreasing.
There's no additional staff coming to help.
Information and communications are still flying at us from everywhere.
There are new systems, processes and technology to keep pace with.
We have more administrative responsibility.
There are numerous projects to collaborate on.
Meetings are still long, frequent and often pointless.
Our managers are too busy to give us time, and our leaders are not giving a lot of clarity - supposing they have it.
Our stressed colleagues are barely managing keep it together.
It really is too much.
Now we know the story of 'boiling the frog' isn't true.
If you are unfamiliar with this tale, it claims that if a live frog is placed in a pot of water and the temperature is gradually raised, the frog will fail to notice the change and ultimately perish as the water boils. Seriously... who comes up with this stuff?
But as a metaphor, it is still instructive. We can get so used to our environment that when small stresses are added consistently over time, we don't notice - even when we are reaching boiling point.
A recently published study by McKinsey showed that 35% of people surveyed who were planning to quit their job without other employment lined up did so because of unsustainable workloads.
And they were not returning to traditional jobs readily.
What will it take to act on the knowledge that doing too much is counterproductive? And another time management course instructing employees on how to sort their calendars isn't the answer.
“The overworked man was tired of everything, and he only kept going because he had long since forgotten that life could consist of anything else.”
While there may be no simple fix here, it doesn't mean it's impossible. It will require a values-based, structural and cultural response. And it will take a courageous leader to reexamine and abandon some of the prevailing attitudes and cultural expectations that keep us locked into the endless, pointless cycle of trying to achieve more with less. But those who manage to un-boil the frog - and there are some out there - will reap benefits surpassing short-term profits and the demands of the ego.