Episode Details

Why Pressure Backfires Faster Than Leaders Think - Mike Cohn

If your team keeps overcommitting, the answer is probably not more pressure.
It may be less.
Most teams do not need help being optimistic. They already want to believe they can get more done. They want to be helpful. They want to be seen as capable. They want to say yes.
So when a leader adds pressure, even subtly, it rarely creates a better plan.
It creates a less honest one.
And pressure is not always loud. Sometimes it sounds like urgency. Sometimes it sounds like enthusiasm. Sometimes it sounds like, “This would really help us hit our goals this quarter.”
But teams hear the message underneath the message: We really want this to fit.
Once they hear that, many teams do what people do under pressure. They lean toward the optimistic case. They discount risk. They stop saying the uncomfortable part out loud.
That does not make the work smaller. It just makes the plan weaker.
Your job during planning is not to squeeze confidence out of the team. Your job is to create the conditions for truth. That means asking questions like:
 

• What assumptions are we making?
• What could derail this?
• What feels least certain right now?
• What would have to go unusually well for this to work?

Those questions do not slow planning down. They improve it.
Because pressure does not eliminate uncertainty. It drives uncertainty underground. And once that happens, overcommitment is usually just a matter of time.
If you want more realistic commitments, do not start by pushing harder.
Start by making it safer to tell the truth.

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