Going Remote Is Forcing Us to Finally Talk About Work Boundaries

The conversations you need to have as you figure out how to work as a team

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I once managed a very talented graphic designer who could never seem to hit deadlines without staying late and working weekends. She was miserable. And as her boss, I was worried.

The reason for the late work wasn’t because she was slow. Her output was fantastic. The problem was that most of the day, she would get pulled into “urgent” projects for our salespeople who needed custom pitch decks. She’d often work all day on those, and then have no time leftover during normal hours to do her marketing design work for me.

We didn’t have the budget to hire another designer to spread the load, so I suggested she tell the sales team to give her more warning for upcoming “urgent” projects. I told her that this would help her to manage her work, so that her work wouldn’t manage her.

Instead, my advice created its own problems. One salesperson was relentless about pushing the designer to get his sales designs done ASAP, no matter how long she said she’d need. In response, I told the sales team that they could no longer go directly to her with requests, and should instead come to me. Immediately, the sales team members started complaining about how slow the new process was and how I was creating needless silos in the company.

Morale and trust between the marketing and sales teams sunk. My designer was still overworked — only now she felt responsible for the unhappiness of her colleagues. A small mess had turned into a big one.

The reason for all of it? We had a boundaries problem.

If you’ve ever felt like all you do at work is respond to people’s messages all day long, or like you’re constantly fixing your teammates’ mistakes, or like you’re on the hook for things that you can’t control, you know how frustrating and unproductive a lack of boundaries can be. It’s a vicious cycle: Having poor boundaries often means you’re at the mercy of other people’s needs and expectations, which leads you to lose control over your own work and results, which, in turn, only increases people’s expectations that you will be available on-demand for them.