Teams share the burden and divide the grief.
Doug Smith
Team Performance Expert
Suffering alone doubles the weight. When teams truly share loads, individual breaking points become collective strength. The person drowning today might be saving someone else tomorrow.
One thing you could do this week to reduce friction and increase flow:
- Individual’s Tip: Notice who’s drowning. Offer to take one specific thing off their plate. “Can I handle the X report this week?”
- Team Leader Tip: Create a “burden board” where people can post when overwhelmed and others can claim tasks. Make helping visible.
- Executive Leader: Build systems that automatically redistribute work when someone’s overloaded. Team health beats individual heroics.
