Sometime in 2033, NASA plans to send human beings to Mars. Russian, Chinese and private space agencies have planned as well to follow suit. Putting together the best team to perform effectively the functions related to this amazing journey is incredibly challenging. After all, they’ll be travelling in space for 8.5 months confined in cramped living quarters doing routine work as they cover 140 million miles going one way. The psychological pressure on each crew member can take its toll on morale.
While various situations in running a business or managing an organization may be a whole lot less astounding, certain sensitive and volatile conditions can sometimes thrive in the workplace.
Here’s what you can learn from studies conducted about extreme expeditions such as the mind-boggling journey to Mars:
- Pay close attention to some informal roles that may crop up. When faced with either too much pressure or boring routine work, employees could informally evolve into being buddies or storytellers, peacemakers or counselors. This transformation can sometimes help in bonding teams together. The thing is … when you get the right combination, the group would tend to do well. If you don’t, they’d do very badly.
- Make sure you meet the expectations as a leader. An effective leader is generally perceived as having wider experience, articulate in defining goals and flexible but fair when interacting with his teams. He also must have the ability to resolve group conflicts, address issues such as abusive or disruptive team members, keep projects on schedule without overworking his people and during, emergencies, stay calm while making rational, logical decisions. Not meeting these expectations will have just about everyone pointing at you for low morale, conflicts and unsuccessful completion of projects.
- Welcome some positive deviation among your team members. One informal role that could crop up in a tension-filled situation is “the court Jester.” He’s the person who could provide some comic relief and help everyone get along so they can continually function effectively. When one of your guys informally takes on this role, be glad. He’ll help mitigate the stress or conflict in the workplace.
Unlike what could actually transpire on the planned extraordinary trip to Mars, the seemingly disparate, sensitive situation in your business or organization may not be of a make or break nature … but if you feel like it is, the foregoing tips should help you manage the circumstances better.
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