Urgency--The Enemy of Team Building

Imagine you it is a Monday morning, and you just sit down to review your emails with your favorite scone and large cup of coffee. At the top of your inbox you see an email from one of your most trusted Program Managers, and your second-in-command, Rosa. The subject line reads: "Resignation".

You get a sinking feeling as you open her email. Sure enough, it reads:

Good Morning,

It is with a heavy heart that I write this email giving your my two weeks notice. A few weeks ago my friend recruited me for a job at her company. After much consideration, I decided to accept the position because it is a significant leadership responsibility promotion and raise in pay. I love my current position. I am sad to leave, but I believe this opportunity is too good to pass up. I will be happy to talk with you more this week and develop a transition plan.

Sincerely,

Rosa

As you finish reading this email, you are likely flooded with a variety of emotions and thoughts, such as:

--Sadness that you are losing a trusted colleague in Rosa. You grieve because you will miss her both as a person and what she contributes to the team.

--Fear that you will not find someone who will be able to manage the projects, tasks, and employees as well as Rosa did.

--Panic about adding the recruiting and screening process to your already full to-do list.

Stop right there. Breathe. Recognize that you are going into low-level trauma brain response. It would be too easy to respond to the sadness, fear, and panic by quickly listing Rosa's position, doing a perfunctory screening, and hiring someone quickly. You would justify this response by focusing on avoiding productivity loss.

Urgency can be dangerous when we bring it to the hiring process. When organizations are in a hurry, we often miss opportunities to widen our lens, solicit more perspectives, or build trusting relationships with a variety of communities.

Too often, we emphasize the screening because we are eager to fill the open position. Our thinking is, ‘Hurry up and get some candidates to interview so we can choose someone and get them trained up.’ We don’t want to lose productivity.

When we focus on the short term productivity, we lose sight of the long term gain of hiring someone who can bring a fresh and missing perspective to our team.

How to avoid this false urgency? When an unexpected vacancy appears on your team, recognize that your first inclination may include feelings of sadness, fear, and panic. Those feelings sometimes cause us to react rashly.

When you get the dreaded "Resignation" email, remember to breathe. Slow down. And take your time to recruit and screen well.

If you or your team would like training and coaching on evidence-based hiring and screening systems that build strong, equitable teams, email jess@thomkeconsulting.com