Doers & Inputters: Minimizing Burn Out
I've argued that typical institutions of higher education have only about three months to work on major priorities (see the article with suggested solutions). But what exacerbates the timing challenge is that institutions rarely take stock of who will actually be a "doer" vs an "inputter" in a committee, task force, workgroup, etc. People volunteer or are assigned to a body, but more often than not, no one knows from the very beginning who will do the work and who would provide input only.
Doers, simply, do the work. They make sure there's a prep meeting for the primary meeting, set up the agenda, facilitate the meeting, and here's where the hard work comes in: follow-up on all next steps resulting from the meetings--it’s the critical in-between meetings work. Inputters help improve the quality of the work. They provide suggestions, advice, and guidance, but rarely do any of the work. Unfortunately, I've seen too many situations where inputters were 80%-90% of the group and doers 10%-20%. This situation leads to resentment and burn out among the doers.
How do we address this challenge?
Here are two tips for your consideration:
1. If the meetings and work have commenced already, add "doer vs inputter" on the agenda. Have a collegial discussion (without alienating the inputters; they may be doers in other groups) about how to distribute the work more evenly across the team. If the doer and inputter composition remains unchanged then at least the team will have a realistic expectation of how much work will get accomplished. You can also ask more people to join the team, focusing on doers. And finally, consider financial incentives, if appropriate, and in line with institutional policies.
2. If a committee, task force, workgroup, etc., is in its forming stage, create a logic model as a team to discuss long-term outcomes and what outputs, activities, and resources will be needed to achieve agreed upon outcomes. From there, take the activities and set the expectation that people will need to contribute to the work in order to complete activities. Ask people what activities they would like to work on and complete. Rather than asking people from the very beginning, "Who wants to be a doer and who wants to be an inputter," give everyone a chance to respond to the work that is required. You may be surprised how many more doers you get by going through this process. If there's still a significant imbalance of doers and inputters, continue to recruit more doers as the team continues on its forming stage.
Do's: Take stock of doers and inputters in current committees, workgroups, task forces, etc., and make adjustments accordingly.
Don'ts: Ignore the fact that there are probably a multitude of doers who are experiencing burn out at your campus. Don't make them feel bad for speaking out. It reinforces their reluctance to say anything in the first place because they don't want to be perceived as a "can't hack it" employee.
If we're not intentional about addressing the doers vs inputters dynamic, priorities will fall by the way side and students end up paying the price.
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Also visit:
Tired of Unproductive Meetings?
5 Questions to Answer Before Launching Initiatives
Kindness & Transformational Change
Doing the Ordinary Extraordinarily Well
How to implement culture change & continuous improvement at your institution.
Guide: Why Colleges Struggle to Implement Priorities & What To Do About It
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