A manager on our clinic call this week described something that will sound familiar to a lot of leaders. He described what was happening to his team as “chasing squirrels.”

Their senior leader kept spotting new opportunities. One day it was a big initiative the team needed to pursue. A few weeks later another opportunity appeared that seemed even more important. Then another.

Each one made sense on its own. Each one sounded like the right thing to chase. But every time a new opportunity appeared, the team’s direction changed.

Work that had just started would get put on hold. Priorities would shift around. People would reorganize their effort around the newest “top priority.”

After this happened a few times, something predictable happened on the team. 

They stopped taking initiative. 

Not because the team didn’t care, but because they had learned the pattern. When priorities change often enough, people start protecting themselves from wasted effort.

Instead of committing fully to the newest initiative, they wait. They watch to see if this new direction will hold. They delay decisions until they’re confident the work won’t be abandoned a few weeks later.

From the leader’s perspective, this can look like a motivation problem. It isn’t. It’s a continuity problem.

Teams don’t just need to understand what matters most. They also need to believe that the priority will stay stable long enough for their effort to matter. 

When direction changes too frequently, the signal becomes unreliable. People stop sprinting toward the mission because they’re not sure the mission will still exist tomorrow.

The manager who shared this story on the call took some action to help his team. He wrote down every initiative that had recently been assigned to his team and showed the list to his VP. 

Seeing them all together was eye-opening.

It was easy to see that the lack of initiative from the team wasn’t due to lack of effort or engagement. The team was simply being asked to redirect their energy too often.

Leadership isn’t just about setting priorities. It’s also about establishing a consistent environment within which the team can take action. 

When people can trust that the commander's intent will stay steady, they commit. And when people commit, initiative and ownership follow naturally.

Best,

Jeff

P.S. If you’re a tech industry manager taking on a new team right now and you want to avoid the mistakes that make this transition more stressful than it needs to be, go grab my free email course: The 5 Mistakes Tech Managers Make When Taking on New Teams.

It’s free, it’s practical, and it’ll help you walk into next week with more clarity and more control.