Team Management: Analogy Of The Human Body
I’ve watched several interviews on how tough and arduous the training to play an action hero roles is. Actors train once or twice a day, 45 minutes to 1 hour per session, 5 to 6 days a week and have a daily calorie intake of 6000 to 8000 calories of lean protein, steamed veggies and almost no carbs at all. Additionally, for certain scenes they prepare 48hrs in advance and stop drinking water to look even more ripped.
Kudos for the effort and sublime dedication! But is it sustainable?
I am not asking the question from an ecological point of view. I’ll leave that to the pros on the subject. Instead, I want to understand how long can someone keep this intensity of effort for?
Actors have a clear objective when jumping into this type of roles. Their effort and resources are allocated almost exclusively to it. They know that it is hard to sustain. Once the movie filming wraps up, they can relax and go back to their manageable way of living. Not all performers can stay lean for too long as their lifestyle collides with the tremendous effort the role required.
In my humble opinion, Hugh Jackman is the perfect example of how staying lean and active provides you with a solid bedrock to build and adapt your body to the needs of any future role.
I consider the human body as a set of project teams. Some parts of the human body perform certain tasks with a particular end goal. If you think about it, your muscles execute tasks the brain directs them to do. To proceed appropriately, the muscle has to be trained. It needs to stay active to better follow the requested task. Muscles that aren’t used nor developed end up losing its strength and utility.
A team that is not actively engaged on clear objectives loses its strength. If it is a challenging objective even better. It is necessary but not enough.
Each team, and in particular each team member, has their own intrinsic incentives. Be it money, peer recognition, job stability, personal growth, among others. The human body has a similar mechanism when we exercise our muscles. Endorphins are released and we feel in a better mood and less stressed. This incentive is good enough for many to continue exercising their muscles, others look for other goals.
Additionally, there are extrinsic incentives. For example, the C-level has made a strategic decision for the following quarter that requires some tactical teams to deliver at a faster rate with a promise of a bonus at the end of the period. The team has to adapt for this assignment. The same happens to the human body when an actor auditions and is selected for the role. He has to transform his body to look like the comic character.
For both, the teams at an organization and the body of a performer, the effort has a start date and end date. If the end date is continuously pushed forward, the intrinsic and extrinsic incentives dynamic changes. A good example of this is when actors need to reprise the role for multiple sequels. The recognition of playing the role as an incentive fades away as the level of effort to perform it is excessive. For the teams, the extended effort could also change their incentive hierarchy. Some team members could decide to leave due to this.
How can we sustainably manage high intensity efforts then?
- Keep the teams active so they can perform better when high intensity efforts are required. Some options: Hackathons, Brainstorming Sessions, POCs of New Tech or Process Improvement Initiatives.
- Closely follow the evolution of your teams’, and team members if possible, intrinsic and extrinsic incentives. Remember these have a lifespan. Knowing when an incentive cycle ends takes practice but having a high level understanding of them goes a long way.
- Make sure timelines are respected by everyone. The start and end date should be predictable to decrease the possibility of burnout. Use timeframe contingencies so the end date is not overoptimistic.
