Dear Brain,
I hope this message finds you well. It’s been far too long since our last one-on-one. Looks like you’ve been up to some exciting stuff! We love the work you’re doing on refocusing the internal self-talk; it has really boosted our performance, especially with regards to external stakeholder relationship management, where we’ve seen a much lower churn rate and fewer escalations to senior management in the past several quarters. Keep up the great work!
I’m writing today with some feedback, and also a request. I’ve noticed that there seems to be a lot of activity in your department between 2-5 a.m. Just a gentle reminder that this is well outside of official business hours. I appreciate your enthusiasm for your work and the extra hours you’ve put in, but I have to ask you to rein in the unauthorized overtime.
I know you’re used to keeping your own hours and this kind of irregularity in your work pattern is not new, but the reason this is getting flagged now is that there have been some concerns recently around resource consumption. After-hours activity is approximately five times costlier than work performed during the regular workday, and while we are prepared to stretch the budget in special circumstances, the ongoing overspend is now proving unsustainable and hitting our bottom line. This is especially impacting Body, who has let me know that it needs more sleep, and I have to agree with it on that.
On a more delicate matter, it’s come to my attention that there has been an issue with your data management recently, and we believe this may be linked to the excess midnight activity. Several key pieces of information have gone missing and may be irretrievably lost. Of course we understand that some data loss is inevitable, especially when one is working overcapacity and at a senior level where there is so much more critical data to manage. But this is a serious concern as data loss disrupts every aspect of our operation. It poses a threat to our ability to meet our 1-year goals, and if allowed to escalate unchecked it has the potential to derail our 10-year vision and BHAG, and could even bring down our entire organization.
Because you are working out of Body’s facilities (and are technically part of Body’s team), overspends in your department have a snowball effect, making it harder for Body to deliver on its KPIs, including the ones that support your own functionality. We respect your autonomy, however we need to get the two of you working together more collaboratively for the good of all.
For its part, Body has committed to doing more to support you. We all noticed the massive spike in your productivity and accuracy after Body cut out alcohol, and we will soon be rolling out a better nutrition program and a ban on reading client emails after 8pm. Please let us know how this works for you, and if a different support would be more helpful, such as increasing CBD inputs or nightly baths. We are prepared to consider almost any request.
If you run into issues with Body and are finding that they’re not meeting their commitments to the program, please don’t hesitate to raise this with the leadership team. This is everybody’s problem to solve and we have your back!
Lastly, Brain, I want to acknowledge the unique linchpin role you play in our organization. The entire team has so much respect for the special projects that you undertake on everyone’s behalf. We value your creativity and your computational skills, and we understand that much of your most important work happens outside of our line of sight. You’re juggling a lot, and we all appreciate it!
Thank you in advance for your flexibility and openness to working together to resolve these issues. I am confident that with a well coordinated response we can mitigate any further losses and reduce a lot of the existing cross-functional friction. Although it may sometimes feel like we’re operating in silos, your success truly is our success, and only an organization-wide approach will give us the best chance of meeting our shared objectives.
Cheers!
PS, please don’t quit.