Why Open Door Policies Are Overrated
Are you constantly overwhelmed with a never-ending stream of interruptions at work?
Whether you're a humanitarian and develoment leader in the field or managing a team remotely, the pressure to always be available might be hurting your productivity more than you realize.
In today's fast-paced work environment, the expectation of constant availability can lead to burnout and decreased effectiveness. This episode dives deep into the myth of the "open door policy" and explores how prioritizing uninterrupted, focused work time is crucial for both individual productivity and team development. Learn how rethinking your approach to availability can lead to better outcomes and a healthier work-life balance.
Here's what you'll learn:
- Discover the damaging effects of High Performance Syndrome and the myth of always being available.
- Learn practical strategies for setting boundaries and reclaiming focused work time without sacrificing your role as a supportive leader.
- Understand how fostering independence within your team can lead to greater productivity and proactive problem-solving, ultimately driving more impactful results in your humanitarian and development work.
Ready to break free from the cycle of busyness and reclaim your productivity? Tune in to this episode of the Aid for Aid Workers podcast to uncover practical strategies for balancing availability with focused work time. Don't miss out – your effectiveness as a leader depends on it!
Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to the Aid for Aid Workers Leadership Podcast. I'm Torrey Peace, a former aid worker, now leadership coach, whose mission is to help you achieve the impact you're seeking while empowering your team and stepping away from the hustle so you can focus on the things you love the most. Sound good? Let's get started.
Hello, my aid worker friend. I hope you're having a wonderful week. I was remembering the other day when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala. For those of you who do not know, Peace Corps is an American organization which sends volunteers to rural areas or even urban areas, but mainly rural areas to live for two years internationally.
So you could be based in rural Africa, like my husband was, or you could be based in a town in Guatemala, which is where I was. And I remember that as a Peace Corps volunteer, you have a certain amount of fame in your community because usually you're one or the only foreigner or one of two or three so people are always watching what you're doing, where you're going, what you're eating, what you're saying, all the things.
And that was okay, except for that I am an introvert. And being visible and available all the time would sometimes be very draining for me. The reason I bring up this particular story is I know some of you might consider yourself to be more reserved or more introverted or maybe culturally you're more extroverted or whatever, but I think regardless of whether you identify as an introvert or an extrovert, there are certain ways of working which make us more or less productive. And especially when it comes to the open door policy, it's something that I have been thinking about a lot over the years when I was a humanitarian and development leader, but also even now I see it with my students and with the people that I coach and It's really something that I feel like I would like to talk about how this idea that we always need to have an open door.
In other words, if you have the luxury of working in a space where you [00:03:00] can close the door and give yourself some time to just think about whatever it is, or do work on a report or do some focused work, let's say that the idea is that that is bad, that that open door policy is more acceptable in terms of being a quote on quote, good leader, because we need to always be available,
and if we're not available, then our team is going to think that we are a bad leader or not even just our team, but our implementing partner or the government or whoever it is that we're working with that cannot reach us. Maybe it's our supervisor, maybe it's our admin or finance team or project team, whoever it is that we support and we work with, if they cannot reach us during working hours, then we feel that we are not being a team player, or we're not being a good leader or a caring leader.
And I want to just take a step back and look at that because it's one of several ways of thinking or perspectives that humanitarian and development leaders have that are making you overwhelmed and burned out. It's one of the ways of thinking which lead to burnout and overwhelm and are actually a greater problem, which I am calling High Performance Syndrome.
And the way I define High Performance Syndrome is a well intentioned and traditional way of thinking and leading that creates busyness without the impact. So it's coming from a good place, the thought, I want to be a caring leader. I want to be available for my team. I want to be helpful if they have a question.
It sounds really wonderful that, that we're doing a good thing for them. But in reality, when we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, this is actually a very damaging way of thinking and leading. And I'll explain to you why. But if you take my coaching course, "The Coach Approach Leadership Style", I recently created and integrated a tool which you can use to diagnose and see which of these High Performance Syndrome ways of thinking about your time are plaguing you so that you can overcome them. Because I see that this High Performance Syndrome and why I call it high performance is because, the aid world, the humanitarian world attracts a lot of high performers.
And so there's a lot of good intentions involved, but unfortunately, the way that we're thinking about work, the way that we are working is actually counterproductive to high performance. If we don't address this High Performance Syndrome and issues or ways of thinking such as we always need to be available, we always need to have an open door, then we are going to keep using our time the same way and creating the same results, which is basically busyness without the impact or without the impact that we would like.
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So I'll give you an example. Because I remember what it was like and being victim to this High Performance Syndrome way of thinking, and especially when it comes to always being available. So when I became a Head of Office and I started supervising or overseeing an office full of about 20 people, a typical day was going into the office and then at a certain point, people would start coming in and they would have questions about something and I had my door open. I had the luxury of having a door to close and they would come up to me and ask me questions and want approvals for things. And then I would start to work on something that I needed to focus on
and then all of a sudden, sudden an implementing partner would show up and want to meet and then they would go and then suddenly a meeting would be organized that wasn't planned for and so I would go to that and then after that somebody would want something approved or want to talk about something and so I would do that and then maybe somebody would notify me by email or by MS Teams that they needed something and so I would attend to that.
And then, you have the government may be coming by or needing to meet as well or calling and then, having to attend [00:09:00] to that. And so it was just a never ending rotation of needing to address other people's needs or wants or approvals, which is important, right? I'm not saying that that's not important.
However, we need to have some balance with our own time and our own need to be able to work on more long term strategic thinking kind of space or timeframes within our working hours. Because what I see and what I would end up doing is having to work after hours in order to catch up with all the things I wasn't able to do because I couldn't focus or concentrate
The reason that this happens is not because it's just part of the job. It's because we're letting it happen. And so the first step to overcoming something like this is awareness. [00:10:00] So this, I have to be available for my team. I need to have an open door is actually a belief, not a fact. It is not something that everyone would universally agree is true, and therefore it's a belief. And the thing is, it's such a commonly held belief that a lot of times we don't even question it. So you are either choosing to believe this and always be available or choosing to not believe it, which eventually I came to the point because I was becoming so stressed and overwhelmed.
I found that when I had this open door and people were always coming in and coming up to me and asking for things that even though I thought, Oh, I'm being available for them. I was actually not being available at all. Because when you are always available, you are actually never available.
And I'll tell you why.
It's because you are always distracted. So when somebody comes up to you and they want an answer to something, or they want something approved, and you are working on something, then you are distracted from whatever you're doing, you're focusing on them, but you're not fully focusing on them because you're also thinking about all the other things you have to do.
And so we think that we're being available all of the time, but we're actually so In our heads and overwhelmed about all the things that we haven't been able to do because we're getting constantly interrupted that we're actually not fully present and not available to our team. So actually, we're not being a very good team leader when we do this all of the time.
And what I found was when I was able to balance, because this idea, we [00:12:00] always need to be available is another example of what we call all or nothing thinking where it has to be one way or another way. Either I'm always available or the other way I'm never available. And that's not true, right? We can have a balance.
What I ended up doing actually, especially as a Head of Office, but then as a Country Manager too, was sometimes I would have to close my door and make it clear that certain hours I was not available. And I think what's really interesting too, is that sometimes we think when we're doing work on our own or by ourselves, that we are available. That that is a form of being available that if somebody comes to us and we are only working on our own, that we feel like their priority comes before ours. And I find this just so interesting. And I think it has to do with not respecting our own time or honoring our own time. Because when you put that you're working on something
in the calendar, maybe you say, I'm going to work on this donor report from this time to this time, or I'm going to work on this strategic plan from this time to this time. And then you're working on your own. And then someone knocks on the door and has a question. If you get in the habit of answering those questions, you're basically disrespecting your own time.
But also sending the message that you can interrupt me at any time and I'm always available. And like we said, you're not really available because you're thinking about the donor report. I see this a lot too with especially these positions like finance and admin who serve others and they feel like their role is to be available all the time, but that's not true either, right? When, I set. boundaries [00:14:00] on my time, and when I started having open door closed door at certain hours and communicated that to my team, I felt so much better because I knew I could get the focused important work done without interruption, meaning I wasn't going to have to work after hours and I could really focus and concentrate on this.
And then I would switch on availability. And when I did say I was available, I really was available to people coming up to me, asking me questions, asking for things to be approved. And then also, turning on the email and all the other notifications because there's the in person notifications and then there's the electronic notifications.
So we need to think about that too. And the other thing that I think you're actually doing your team a favor as well when you're not always available because you're teaching them to think on their own and for themselves. Because what happens [00:15:00] is if you're always available, you're always answering their questions.
Then a lot of times what I've seen is that because leaders will just tell them the answer or tell them what to do, then they will come to you with every question that they have, because the human brain likes it easy. And if someone else is helping us and answering all our questions, of course, we're going to just keep going to them.
So you're allowing and creating this dependency. And so when you have these hours where you're not available, then they might have a question and then they might think about it rather than just coming to you immediately with it and then come up with their own way or come up with a solution for it and be able to move on without needing to talk to you and with thinking for themselves.
And so it also creates a more proactive team in a way as well. And then of [00:16:00] course, like I have discussed many times using a coach approach way of leading also creates a more proactive team so that as your team gets stronger, you are able to be less available to them because they will become more independent and more proactive.
If you truly want to be productive, you will evolve to be what I call the modern humanitarian and development leader 2. 0, who believes that not being available at times is essential to make a true impact in our work. And if we don't change this way of thinking, and like I said, this is only one of several ways of thinking about our time, about our way of leading that lead to High Performance Syndrome, then we will be destined to work overtime and long [00:17:00] hours and feel this overwhelm and burnout because the only time that we can get focused uninterrupted work done is when people are not around or not working in the office together or online. And ironically, the work that is the most valuable and impactful that we do, in addition to, building our team, developing our team is a lot of the work that requires concentration and focus.
This is where we can be more strategic. This is the time where we can innovate. This is the time when we can get the type of work that really will make an impact completed rather than the reactive way of working, which is busy but not productive. So I challenge you to be curious about why you need [00:18:00] to be always available.
Why do you always need to be reachable at every moment: online or on your phone or with your team? And how can you change your story or the way you're thinking about the situation so that you feel more comfortable sometimes not being available?
So that's all I have for you this week. And until next week, keep broadening your impact. Bye for now.
Hey, if you are ready to step up your leadership game, I want to invite you to join my coaching course for aid worker leaders, where you're going to learn how to master coaching skills in order to empower your team to become more proactive, confident, and motivated at what they do, which of course will help you achieve more impact for them and for you.
Just head over to [00:19:00] www. aidforaidworkers. com and click on the coaching course waiting list. So you'll be the first to know when doors open for the next enrollment. Can't wait to see you there.