Back in the days when I headed a police organization, we had 1,200 armed policemen in our reserves for handling contingencies.
These policemen were supposed to frequently undergo a 2-week intensive training in batches of 100. But for decades, this had not been done.
The police force was so stretched that it was impossible to spare 100 policemen for two weeks. But we got an unreasonable state police chief (our super boss), who said, “Nothing doing. Do whatever it takes and send them for a two-week intensive training.”
Since orders are orders, we pulled out 100-odd grumbling policemen and sent them to the forests of the Western Ghats for two weeks.
Initially, everybody was unhappy. The policemen had to wake up at 5 am, do intensive physical training, and go through a grueling day-long routine.
But within two weeks, the men were glowing with good health and had started enjoying the fresh air of the mountains.
So naturally, you would imagine that this became a regular practice. Sadly, no.
Soon we again got so overloaded that I could not send another batch for this training. Talk about leadership failure!
Whether it is an individual, a team, or an organization, overload kills any chance of self-improvement and self-care. When you are drowning, all you want is to survive — long-term thinking doesn’t even enter your mind.
That is what leads to burnout and frustration.
In the long term, operating at 80% capacity, you deliver more than operating at 100%.
Everybody needs downtime.
– Rajan