TBM 202: Something Has To Give

Midjourney: finely detailed drawing of an overcrowded aquarium with far too many fish, some light watercolor, fluid dynamics, aggressive fish, angry darkness

What happens when you add too many fish to an aquarium?

• Overcrowding. The fish don't have enough space to swim around, which leads to stress and aggression.

• Water quality degrades. Too much fish waste leads to a build-up of chemicals like ammonia and nitrite, which goes on to cause things like fin rot and infections.

• Fish compete for "resources" like food, space, and mates, which is stressful and makes the fish aggressive.

• There's more waste to clean up, more fish to feed, and water to change. It takes more work and money to maintain.

From the outside, a lot is going on. Fish are moving! Lots of them! But the overall progress of the community and ecosystem is slow. Anywhere you have overcrowding in nature, you'll experience a similar dynamic.

Something has to give.

Switching gears, what are some impacts of an environment with high cognitive load?

• Slower decision-making and increased errors

• Decreased ability to consider multiple perspectives or options

• Decision fatigue

• Sleep issues, stress, health issues, etc.

A lot is happening, and people look very busy, but stress impedes progress. It seems fast but goes slow.

Something has to give.

What do we do when we are overwhelmed? When we're overwhelmed, we tend to retreat to focusing solely on the task in front of us (cognitive tunneling). Our brain is selectively attentive—we block out the information that tips our cognitive load over the top. If participating and being fully present in a meeting is too much, we zone out, and our coping behaviors kick in. In many ways, we resemble a machine running in degraded mode. We disable some of our functions and slow down to avoid system failure.

Something has to give.

The trick is that The Something is often invisible or opaque and hard to untangle and unpack—especially in companies and other sociotechnical systems. High-functioning people can appear to have the situation under control, but they're mainly propping things up. Teams gracefully adapt to debt, too many meetings, too much work, and too many demands. Meanwhile, team members get just a tad more selfish and closed-off. Not like outright selfishness, but slightly less reliable. Unless something is essential, it gets filtered.

"You OK?"

"Yeah! You know, things are just crazy!"

"How's that project?"

"Good! Good! We're making progress. Slow progress, but still!"

"When was the last time the team got together?"

"OH! Too busy for that."

But here's the big problem with all this.

When leaders view management and work, they often imagine organizations as machines (a car, for example). The engine burns hot, and when it starts overheating, alarm bells go off. That's a signal to take the foot off the gas. Go until things break—find that point—and then ease off the gas. Keep trying to do as much as possible until you find the "ideal maximum."

The problem?

That's not how humans work. They'll tell you they are cracking, and if things don’t improve, they will gracefully degrade—often in ways that render the situation looking "not that bad."

The something that has to give is the ability to sense and improve the situation itself.