Work Whiplash
The quiet thing that burns out your best people
Nothing burns great people out faster than what I call “work whiplash.”
People can handle hard work. They struggle when priorities constantly reverse, decisions get made and un-made, and goals keep changing underneath them.
One of the most demoralizing things that can happen to someone at work is spending weeks pushing something uphill — only to find out the strategy changed, the project no longer matters, or another team was quietly working on the same thing on the other side of the building.
The most common versions I see inside scaling companies:
The strategy changed during an offsite or in a leadership meeting, but nobody told the three teams who were already heads down executing the old one.
A decision got made, then un-made, then made again. No one doing the work knows which version is real.
Two teams were handed the same problem. Both built solutions. Neither knew about the other until someone gave a demo.
A person busts their ass to get something across the finish line… and their bos…
