You’re asked to do something in an impossibly short time, or with hopelessly insufficient resources. How do you respond?
This is a matter of understanding and perspective. Miss-understanding happens, especially if the request is made over a brief email or message, without the opportunity to ask questions and have real dialogue.
Story time
I was once the team lead for a really tough, time pressured, difficult client project, with all the issues and stress you would expect on a project like this.
During all this, I get an email from the account manager: what could we do to not only deliver the things we were already struggling to deliver, but to significantly improve our speed and quality, and ultimately client satisfaction?
Now, I’m reading this email as I’m struggling with 50 different issues at the same time, working hard to lead a very tired team and dealing with an aggressive client. Under this emotion, my frame of mind is “we’re barely surviving here, and instead of helping somehow, you’re asking for more?“ Not only did I not see a way to respond positively to the question, but I felt annoyed and angered for even being asked this.
So I answer that basically no, there’s nothing that can be done and I had to check myself in order to not to lash out at the guy for even asking about it.
I was not able to move into a frame of mind where I could detach and say something like: we could do that, IF we had x more people, IF we changed the working methodology like this, or IF the client would accept to do this and that differently.
What I should have answered is “no, we can’t, not in the way in which we do it now, but maybe we could IF ….”. This is frequently the right answer to an “impossible request”, but it requires perspective, and in that situation I was overwhelmed and wasn’t able to gain the right perspective.
Now, should the account manager have also realized that just shooting an email like that, in that situation, was not the best way to open a topic like this? Sure, but this is not about what others could do, but about what we can do.
I could have easily replied asking for a call to discuss and understand more, but I didn’t. In that situation, I did not rise to my own expectations for myself.
Bottom line
Especially when conditions are tough and stress is high, it is easy to get defensive and see every question or any suggestion as just yet another silly thing that yet another clueless manager is asking for. And even if some of them may be just that, some of them are not.
And while it is important to defend the team from useless distractions, and yes, it is important to say no when no needs to be said, too much “defending” will inevitably lead to a closed, rejection based, '“everything is too difficult”, “don’t bother us” mentality and culture.
Any team, department, leader or company must remain open minded and ready to engage in creative thinking and problem solving. That doesn’t mean they’ll just say yes to everything and engage in delusional optimism, but must at the same time not retreat into a purely defensive position, because that is the beginning of the end.
Dealing with “impossible requests” is a great test of this quality. Anybody can be creative and open minded when they’re not being pushed by anything, but it is the test of a true leader to be able to keep an open mind even when under pressure.