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- Part 2 - Growth Burnout Series (Growth Design Monthly)
Part 2 - Growth Burnout Series (Growth Design Monthly)
Part 2: Growth Burnout Series
September 2022
Dear Readers,In part two of this series, we’re laddering up from taking care of ourselves as individuals to taking care of the team. We’re living through intense ambiguity. It takes its toll. As a manager, the experience of personal crisis is a common denominator across members of the team to varying degrees, including myself at times. I will share two of my favorite tools I use to check in on how team members are doing.The burnout series has three parts delivered daily:Part 1 - Taking Care of OurselvesPart 2 - Taking Care of Teams <<< We’re here!Part 3 - Taking Care of Business (coming soon)Yours in calm and chaos,Leslie Yang, Senior Design Manager at Lyft
The Whelm ScaleAs leaders, we know that 1:1s can be an amazing safe space for learning and reflection. I start every 1:1 with “How are you feeling today?” But I also try to be playful. Sometimes I’ll ask them to tell me where they are on The Whelm Scale (I made this up) to gauge workload and stress. In COVID, some folks fighting burnout can be underwhelmed or disengaged (even if they have a few great projects), while others fighting burnout feel overwhelmed and overloaded. If they’re underwhelmed, I need to dig into why and either help them find work they feel challenged by or give them time off. If they say they’re overwhelmed, I need to coach them to trim down their priorities, work more efficiently or take some time off. The Whelm Scale took off at OpenTable, with managers from engineering to sales using it with their teams.
The Three D's
Speaking of trimming down priorities, I use 1:1s to prevent overwork through the 3 Ds. We make a list of their work and divide everything into three buckets. The only rule is you can’t have everything in one bucket.
Do. Do a few essential, high priority projects where you’re learning a lot and able to focus. The biggest gift we can give our teammates is focus.
Delegate. Find peers to take over work they can’t do. Hand. Things. Off.
Drop. You can’t do everything. Let it go. (This is hard for everyone. It’s okay if someone else can’t take it on. They can always come back to it later.)
Please, take these frameworks. Use them. And share your thoughts in the
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Design Jobs at Lyft
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About the Author
Leslie Yang is a senior design manager at Lyft and head of design for Lyft Business. She loves working at the intersection of user value and business impact. Her team focuses on design for riders, drivers and businesses. Prior to Lyft, she led product design for enterprise at OpenTable and taught product discovery and designed products from 0 to 1 with clients at Pivotal Labs. She writes about product design leadership at https://leslieyang.substack.com.
✍🏼 🎨 Edited by Molly Norris Walker. Pitch me: [email protected]
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