Voltage

Ah, moods in the workplace...

A mood can make a perfectly terrific team member suddenly look incompetent, sullen, and toxic. And, of course, their team leader may decide they're lazy, disengaged, burned out, or “have an attitude.” The team leader may be completely wrong, unless they are completely right.

Meanwhile, something as ridiculously small as overhearing that you actually want to meet with them for their weekly check-in has another team member beaming. Like half an hour with you can really matter that much.

Human beings are complicated. Changeable. Sometimes frustrating. And when we put a bunch of them together on a team, whatever is going on with one person rarely stays neatly contained to that one person.

It could be motivation.

It could be a performance problem.

Maybe that new project you gave them last week really is part of the problem.

Or it could be that their VOLTAGE is off.

Voltage is what I call that oomph we want people to have available for their work. More specifically, voltage is the usable capacity a person has available to do their work at a particular point in time. It reflects how a number of things—stress, confidence, fatigue, confusion—amplify each other and sometimes become circular. For example, stress can create fatigue, which reduces patience and judgment, which can create even more stress.

Bottom line: someone can want to do the work and, with low voltage, have very little capacity available to do it with. With higher voltage, that same person may surprise you with what they can accomplish.

A lot goes into that capacity: emotional and physical energy, stress, cognitive bandwidth, trust, confidence, sense of agency, and how clearly someone understands what they need to do.

Some of what affects voltage comes to work with us. Some of it happens at work. How the work is going, what it feels like to be on the team, and—yes—what it feels like to have you as a Team Leader can all affect how much capacity someone has available.

So, here’s the important part: capacity is finite. When a lot of it is being used to manage stress, uncertainty, conflict, exhaustion, or simply too much at once, there is less available for the work. Judgment, patience, attention, and flexibility can all become harder to come by.

Voltage can move in the other direction, too. Sometimes something as small as realizing the Team Leader really does want that weekly check-in can give it a little lift.

None of this means the workplace is responsible for everything. Ultimately, Team Members are responsible for how they manage themselves, communicate, and do their work.

Since we bring our whole selves to work, Team Leaders need to get reasonably good at reading context. Not mind reading. Just getting enough information to avoid making assumptions too quickly.

A simple way to do that is to start your weekly check-in by asking your person how things are going for them on a scale of 1 to 10. In other words, make a quick voltage check.

The number gives you a frame of reference for everything else you talk about. Your usually unflappable dispatcher being a wreck when the phone rings may look a little different when the person sitting across from you just told you they're running at a voltage of three.

But “If you must know, and I’m not sure you do, I’m a generous three” still doesn’t tell you why they’re running at a three.

This is where rapport matters. A lot. If there's enough of it, they may volunteer that something is going on outside work.

Or maybe they’ll even say something worse, to your face: “I honestly don't know what you want me to do around here anymore.”

Ouch. Well. That last bit was useful information. Unpleasant, but useful.

You can do something with that. 

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