Three invisible problems that drain your team’s performance
By David Lancefield | Published: 2025-11-04 07:00:00 | Source: Fast Company – leadership-2
Most people still measure performance in hours. They pack their calendars as full as possible, track time to the minute, and take pride in squeezing more into each day. However, the best performance comes from harnessing rhythm – the alignment of energy, ability and focus, which turns effort into flow.
In the industrial age, time management made sense: productivity was tied to factory shifts and office schedules. But in today’s fragile, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible builder world, hours spent no longer translate accurately into value created.
Leaders who thrive now are those who sense and tap into the rhythms of their team. Energy rises and falls throughout the day. Caregiving cycles change capacity. Strategies unfold in waves of preparation, focus and delivery. When these rhythms reinforce each other, the performance builds up; When they fall apart, even the most talented teams struggle.
The challenge is that most of these clashes remain invisible. We think they are the result of individual personality traits or bad luck. The truth is that they are systemic patterns that quietly drain performance. Here are the three invisible issues affecting your team, along with strategies to address them.
1. Biological imbalance
It’s 8:30 a.m. and the leadership team is meeting for its weekly meeting. Early birds are full of energy and ready to make decisions. The Night Owls are still warming up and contributing less than they can. By mid-afternoon, the balance shifts, but decisions have already been made.
Each team includes a set of chronotypes. Some people think more clearly before breakfast; Others reach their creative peak late in the day. Standard nine-to-five routines characterize one end of this spectrum and leave the rest functioning at less than their best.
Chronobiology research highlights this effect. Social jet lag, a mismatch between biological and social clocks, impairs alertness and cognitive function. Teams experience more rework, solve problems more slowly, and create less when the shared schedule is not aligned with people’s natural peaks.
AbbVie Norway, part of global biopharmaceutical company AbbVie, has set out to improve low employee satisfaction by achieving work-life balance and enhancing its ability to attract and retain top talent. Leaders restructured work design so employees could align their work hours with their natural rhythms, holding meetings only between 10am and 4pm and allowing full flexibility as long as results were achieved. These changes have paid off, as employee turnover and sick leave fell sharply, satisfaction with work-life balance rose from 58% to 95%, and AbbVie Norway has been named one of Norway’s Best Workplaces multiple times by Great Place to Work.
What to do when biology and timeline fall apart
- Rotate the clock: Switch early and start later for recurring meetings.
- Separating information from decisions: sharing context asynchronously; Save live sessions for discussion and commitment.
- Map Power Windows: Have people mark and protect the most visible 90-120 minute blocks.
- Design Quiet Blocks: You can set aside predictable meeting-free hours each week.
- Spread your own rhythm: When leaders design their favorite windows, others feel safe to do the same.
The payoff comes in the form of increased engagement, higher-quality ideas, and better decisions. Teams spend more time moving forward and less time recovering from poorly timed interactions.
2. Life stages and relationship cycles
It’s Wednesday afternoon, three weeks before launch. The Product Lead is caring for an elderly parent. A colleague is caring for a young child in foster care for a week. They are both very committed and highly skilled. Both have the ability to ebb and flow in cycles that their business plan does not take into account. As a result, unnecessary tension builds up, and cracks begin to appear in their relationship.
Amplitude rarely follows a flat line. Parenting schedules, elder care demands, school commitments, personal health, and community roles all create recurring patterns. Teams thrive when these patterns are visible and part of the planning.
Our work bears this reality. Camilla alternates between weeks of intensive caregiving and weeks of greater availability. David organizes his day around specific windows of care for his disabled son. These rhythms form when deep work and collaboration can be achieved, and they enhance performance when leaders plan accordingly.
In 2011, the Norwegian Bar Association initiated a cultural shift to align working hours with employees’ natural rhythms and personal responsibilities. Led by Secretary General Magne Schram Hegerberg and supported by Life navigation frameworkthe organization symbolically buried the wall-mounted clock machine, replacing strict time tracking with an emphasis on results and skills. Staff were encouraged to align their working hours with their schedule patterns and caregiving needs, with start times ranging from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Productivity has doubled in some areas, and creativity and problem solving have flourished. To demonstrate peak power hours, some employees used a toy frog on their desks to indicate “do not disturb.”
What to do when the rhythms of life shape ability
- Sequence the load: Assign heavier tasks to weeks of higher capacity.
- Create coverage by design: Pair people or build small groups for critical responsibilities.
- Cycle signaling: Encourage the sharing of simple, repetitive patterns of abilities.
- Match the work mode to the week: Plan intense collaboration activities for periods of higher capacity.
- Establish an overall recovery process: Name the stages of decompression so that rest appears as part of the plan.
The payoff comes in the form of higher loyalty, sustainable delivery, and fewer problems. People stay, grow and contribute at a high level across life, rather than drifting away.
3. Error in strategic timing
It’s Friday morning at the end of the quarter. Finance closes the books, sales finish a sprint, and HR finalizes reviews. Then C-Suite leadership unveils a pilot initiative and asks for everyone’s input. The purpose of the initiative is powerful, but launching it comes at the lowest energy point in the team’s cycle.
Organizational habits often determine the drumbeat: quarterly pushes, annual summits, weekly status rituals. At the same time, strategy moves in waves that leverage different types of energy: exploration and framing, focused construction, high-pace collaboration, delivery, and learning. Peak efforts flourish when strategy and human energy come together.
At Guldbosund, a nursing home and rehabilitation center in Denmark, staff redesigned daily routines around residents’ preferred rhythms rather than a fixed schedule. One resident enjoys coffee and breakfast at 5:30 a.m., while the others sleep in until 9:30. Staff have also adjusted their work shifts to better fit their personal energy cycles, and coordinate care so residents’ needs are always met. The result was that residents experienced a higher quality of life, and employees took fewer than two sick days per year on average – including night-shift workers. The example shows that when human rhythms are respected, well-being and performance are mutually reinforcing.
What to do when timing gives way to a strategy
- Draw an energy calendar: chart recurring highs and lows and overlay strategy waves.
- Focus peaks: Design a few common peaks rather than disperse the intensity.
- Build Phase: Use short “tempo sprints” before high-stakes moments, then cool-down periods to reinforce learning.
- Pin your reason for on-site engagement: Identify the specific moments when a personal presence creates significant value.
- Measure cadence as well as key milestones: Track cadence health with metrics like rework, resolution latency, and recovery time.
The payoff comes in the form of stronger execution in the moments that matter, with a team agile enough to replicate success across cycles.
Make the Invisible Visible: A Mini Playbook
Rhythm becomes an essential element of team performance once it becomes visible. Leaders can set the tone with some simple practices:
- Rhythmic mapping. Conduct a short survey or whiteboard session asking three questions: When is focus strongest? When is collaboration easier? Where do we lose flow? Turn the answers into a one-page map for the team.
- Common Rhythm Charter. Agree on a weekly and monthly rhythm: deep work periods, meeting windows, response expectations, and decision-making rituals. Keep it light and visible; Update as the work develops.
- Quarterly Cadence Review. Look at the last cycle: where did energy rise or fall? What did he collide with? What did you flow? Adjust the next cycle accordingly.
- Transparency of the leader’s rhythm. Publish your focus windows, collaboration preferences, and recovery practices. Model the behavior you want the team to adopt.
- Recovery as capacity. Teach practical reset rituals, such as post-action reviews that end with gratitude, shorter meetings with clear outcomes, short no-conference meetings after launch, and flexible Fridays during periods of low demand.
These moves require little budget, and they bring immediate benefits: more visible attention, fewer conflicts, and more consistent progress.
Driving edge
The three invisible problems—biological imbalance, life cycles and relationships, and strategic timing—act as a major impediment to teams’ performance.
Rhythm-conscious leadership treats energy, capacity and timing as strategic assets. It creates the conditions for wiser decision-making, leaps in innovation, and a sustainable pace of work. Organizations that move at a certain pace build trust faster, integrate new technology more seamlessly, and retain the people they need for the long term.
Time management increases efficiency. Leading with rhythm creates a strategic advantage. The best leaders combine both.
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(tags for translation) Leadership Advice
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