A CFO refused to ask his overloaded team to take a 3-minute assessment, saying they'd "vote me off the island." Andrea Jones explains why skipping capacity checks leads to delays, burnout, and turnover, and why knowing available time matters for realistic planning.
Hi, I'm Andrea Jones. Yesterday, a CFO took our Execute Agility assessment to find out if his team could execute all the projects he has asked them to complete this quarter. When he took it, he scored quite low on the available time pillar. Specifically, he didn't think he had enough time to get the work done that he needed to get done on the projects he was assigned. And he didn't think the team had enough time to get their project work done as well. However, when I suggested finding out for sure, let's reveal that blind spot. Does the team have time? Do they think they have time or not? Why don't you send it to them? He responded like this. And this is a quote. So here's what he said. I think they vote me off the island if I put any more on their plates currently. So he knows that they don't have enough time, but he's unwilling to ask them to spend three minutes to find out for sure. And what are the consequences of this? What is at stake of not knowing? Well, they could possibly surprise and delight him and get all of their work done this quarter. And amazingly, he didn't have to even ask them if they had enough time. More likely is he already thinks they don't have enough time. By not determining who has time and who doesn't and where the overburden really lies and how to help them with that, the projects will probably be delayed in their results, or at least some of them will. And the team could get frustrated. They're being asked to do more than they can accomplish and that doesn't feel good. And so they start feeling frustrated like they're not meeting expectations and that doesn't feel good. The worst things that could happen then are they could get burnt out and they might even leave the company. And now you've got a different problem on your hand and a new project which is to hire for their replacements because you're experiencing high turnover. So instead of sending a three minute assessment to really clarify where the real issue is in available time, this person's choosing to ignore it. That's the reason we ask about available time in the Execute Agility Assessment.
