Last Saturday I was sitting at the kitchen table with my husband, and we were discussing what needed to be done over the weekend. I started to list off things from my weekend to-dos: clean off the porch, weed the garden, clean the house, meet a colleague to discuss a side project we’re working on, the multiple times I’d need to run my daughter to the rink for hockey practice…

 

I just started crying.

 

The list wasn’t overwhelming. Nothing overtly traumatic had happened in the last week. But here I was, at 8 AM on a Saturday, sobbing.

 

It didn’t stop there. At various times throughout the day, I cried. Dishes in the sink? I cried. Dog threw up? I cried. The Turks were beating me in Age of Empires? I cried.

 

I spent some time contemplating all of this the next day – once I had a little distance from my sob-fest. And I realized something.

 

It’s been a hard 2 years.

 

No shit, right? Here’s the kicker, though. When everything started in March of 2020 – the face masks, the lockdowns, the working from home, the not being able to go anywhere – it didn’t phase me. Life went on for me much as it always had. I’m a bit of a hermit, so being home all the time didn’t bother me. My family was healthy, thankfully. I was good.

 

I watched and supported friends and colleagues who were more affected by everything going on. I did what all of the experts suggested – offered help, gave space, chatted on Zoom, tried to recognize when those around me were feeling the impacts but hadn’t noticed themselves. All while chugging along like it was 2019 and nothing was wrong.

 

Friends and colleagues found ways to cope, things got better (and then worse again). The world adjusted. 

 

It wasn’t that I was better equipped to handle the last 2 years. I just handled it differently. And last Saturday? Well, it all caught up to me.

 

That’s because I deal with crisis and tragedy differently than other people. Hell, I deal with different crises differently than I do other crises. So do you. And so does your team.

Put Away Your Yardstick

When you take a minute to look back over the last year or two, chances are that you’ll see the difficult part – the uncertainty and fear, the practical challenges (like switching to remote work), maybe even health issues – and be glad to have gotten through it all. You’ll remember the stress you felt early on, or in the middle when you really started missing seeing people in person, or just the weight of it all.

 

You may have coached and supported members of your team through difficult periods, through furloughs or family challenges, or just general fear and anxiety. You read every article about how to support your people during the pandemic because you care. If you were leading a team – or were part of a team – that shifted suddenly from on-site work to work-from-home, you absorbed what you could to make the transition smooth.

 

If you thought you were done because all of the big business mags moved on to talk about something else, I’ve got news for you. You’re not. 

 

You probably have people on your team who suddenly, after 2 years, are sitting at their kitchen table on Saturday morning, balling their eyes out. Or they are lying awake, stressed to the gills. Or – and this is a common one – they don’t even know what’s going on. But it’s showing in their day-to-day, and it might even be impacting the rest of the team.

 

Recognizing When a Team Member is Struggling

Straight talk here – leadership is about people. And people are not cookie cutter. In fact, it’s their varied experience, skills, and outlooks that drive a team’s ability to overcome challenges and rock out on projects. 

 

Of course, that means leadership comes with the messy people stuff, too. You can’t expect everyone to react and deal the same with issues. You can’t define their level set for them or their threshold for pain or stress. 

 

So, someone who was stressed out and needed some grace in May of 2020 wasn’t “doing it right,” and someone who is struggling now isn’t “doing it wrong.” It isn’t even a case of “optimal” or “better than.” This isn’t a discussion debating if Agile is better than Waterfall for a project or if you should break up your monolithic app into microservices.

 

There are a few key things to look for to recognize when someone’s struggling at work:

 

• Demotivation: Has your team member expressed a lack of interest in work that would normally excite them? Do they not participate in discussions the same way they used to?

• Lack of Productivity: Closely linked to demotivation. Are you seeing late work, slow work, etc.? 

• High Stress: Is your team member snapping at people? Constantly mentioning how they are overloaded? Or never mentioning it, but it’s clear they feel overwhelmed?

• Trouble focusing: Does this sound familiar? What was that? Sorry, I spaced out for a minute. Or I didn’t realize that was part of the requirements – it’s in the user story? Really? I don’t know why I didn’t notice that.

 

This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it’ll get you started. 

 

If any of these are happening with a team member, they could now be feeling the impact of COVID-19 and everything that’s gone along with it. It’s not a delayed reaction – it’s the time when it’s hit them. And, as their leader, for their sake and for the sake of your team, you need to help, support, and manage the situation.

 

Why?

• So that your team member feels valued and knows that they have the space they need to get through this
• So that they have the time and consideration needed to come back to the team when they are ready and participate as an important part of the group
• So that your team can continue to work without falling apart
• So that you can build trust with your team
• So that you can model the kind of interactions you want to see from your team and from other leaders

 

Of course, these aren’t issues that are only related to pandemic and lockdown stress. You might see these kinds of behaviors at almost any time from any team member. That’s why good leadership practices – one-on-ones, CCC feedback (Candid, Caring, and Clear), leading the team and the team member, and more – are important, no matter what’s going on in the outside world.

 

One last point – this also isn’t a one-and-done situation. If someone struggled at the beginning of the pandemic, that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t come back around. This isn’t a launch checklist – “Hmm, ok, Joanne has had her breakdown, so she’s done. Hamal has had his. Sandra is having her’s now – that’s everyone! We should be good from here on out!”

 

No. That’s not how it works. This is part of people leadership – people have lives and concerns outside of their work. Respect that. Don’t judge that. Don’t decide what is right and wrong for someone else. 

We’ll talk more about the nuts and bolts of supporting a team member that’s struggling and even how to check in with yourself in future posts. For now, in the immortal words of the great philosophers, Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan – Be excellent to each other.