Stopping the Hamster Wheel

Recently I’ve been working with two employees who are struggling to meet performance expectations. Both are nice, sincere people who want to do their best, who are trying and who I’d love to see succeed.  But, their day-to-day activities remind me of hamster on a wheel – running and running without getting anywhere.  I call this the Hamster Syndrome.

How does this happen?  How does a perfectly acceptable employee get so bogged down in simply doing that they stop growing and improving?  How does one get so lost in the forest that they can’t even see the trees – much less find their way out?

I’m not a psychiatrist, but I think I’ve seen two traits that can contribute significantly to the Hamster Syndrome – a fear of change and insecurity.  For many people – if not most of us – change is not something we embrace, but most of us learn to deal with it.  Some, however, run from change.  Maybe they have a higher level of insecurity that causes a fear of failure.  Trying to change might cause failure – failure would cause a lowering of confidence – lower confidence makes one even less interested in trying something new – and the cycle continues slowly spiraling downward.  These people will keep their noses down and work really hard to do what they know how to do, when what they really need to do is learn something new.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Hamster Syndrome is that the employee feels so consumed with accomplishing their daily activity that they can’t make the time to find ways to improve – but the reality is that often with a few simple changes the amount of work they currently accomplish can be done in much less time.  Getting off the wheel can improve their productivity dramatically, raising their self-esteem and significantly reducing the risk of failure.

If you are a manager with an employee on the wheel, your first job is to get the wheel of its mounting so it can’t turn.  Take some work off of the employee so they have time to learn a new task.  Then patiently help them find the improved processes that improve their productivity.  Be encouraging, but also hold them accountable to change and grow.  Remember, people typically change for only two reasons – either the pain of their current situation is too great to bear or the benefits of the change are overwhelmingly good.  People won’t change if there is no cost to staying the same or no benefit to changing.  It’s your job as a manager to help them understand both the consequences of not changing and the rewards from changing.

If you’re an employee on the wheel, the first step towards success is recognizing your situation.  Self-awareness is key and you have to be willing to admit that you are responsible for much of your problem.  With that new awareness identify tasks that you can stop doing or can get temporarily assigned to someone else.  Then work hard to learn new skills and change things enough so that you can see some success and change the direction of the spiral to up.

The Hamster Syndrome is real – it’s turning – it’s squeaking – and it’s time to get off.

Explore posts in the same categories: Change Management

Tags: Change, Coaching, Effectiveness, Management, Performance, personal behavior

You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.