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  • September 13, 2021
  • Article
  • Harvard Business Review Digital Articles

Managing Through Crunch Time—Without Burning Out Your Team

By: Flavio Serapiao, Andrew Hill and Boris Groysberg
  • Format:Electronic
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Abstract

Crunch times—the long, stressful hours of work that are often required in the final weeks before a new product launch—can have an inordinate impact on the success of businesses and they’re powerful shapers of organizational culture. Effective leaders understand that during these times, it’s difficult to achieve excellence without placing significant demands on personnel. Yet any success that comes at the cost of employees’ mental or physical health is a Pyrrhic victory. In studying senior U.S. Army officers, who served in extremely stressful and pressure-filled environments, researchers identified the ability to balance this tension between getting the job done and managing the impacts on people as its own leadership competency—one with special relevance to high-performing organizations.

Keywords

Leadership; Situation or Environment; Management Skills

Citation

Serapiao, Flavio, Andrew Hill, and Boris Groysberg. "Managing Through Crunch Time—Without Burning Out Your Team." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (September 13, 2021).
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About The Author

Boris Groysberg

Organizational Behavior
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