Make Your People Soft

Quite rightly, many productivity gurus (like me) stress the importance of team working, team skills and team motivation in driving high performance.  Few important tasks in industry and commerce are completed solely by individuals - they mostly require groups of people to work together in teams …. possibly small teams, possibly large sections or departments of an organisation

Much of the leadership/management literature therefore concentrates on issues such as team building and team leading..

However, though these issues are important, teams work much better when the members of these teams have the right ‘soft skills’ that glue a team together. - skills and attributes, indeed, such as communication (especially listening) skills, empathy, negotiation skills and problem-solving skills,,

Development of these skills should start at school when kids are malleable and impressionable but they need constant development and improvement.  

Firms need to establish processes to help develop these skills.  This can be done beneficially alongside team development exercises …..a win-win situation.

So, team leaders need to understand how to lead a team effectively but team members need to know how to be an effective team member,  making their maximum contribution to  overall team performance.

What Do You Expect?

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will know that I am a great believer in looking after the well-being of your employees - making sure they are engaged, fully skilled, motivated and rewarded - if you want high productivity.   In general terms, this was perhaps recognised 10 years ago, but the last decade, and the pandemic in particular, has set things back.

Too many post-pandemic jobs are part of the 'gig economy' - with employees on part-time, even ‘zero hours’ contracts.   These employees are often doing nothing - and being paid nothing. How an organisation can expect engagement and commitment from such workers is beyond me.

Even ‘proper jobs, with defined hours of work,  are too often poorly paid - at or just over the minimum wage.  The workers generally have little opportunity to develop their skills or even understand their contribution to the overall process pf the organisation - why does their role matter? why is it important that they perform well?

When did someone last comment on their work and simply say’Thank you’.  Simple rewards are often the best.

So, think about the jobs you give people. How can someone get engaged within that role?  How can you help that process? What rewards can they expect?

If you treat your employees like ‘process fodder’ (dare I say like human resources instead of people with needs and expectations), then don’t expect commitment and high productivity.

Create Flow

The Lean philosophy emphasis a number of factors related to effective and efficient working - one of which is ‘flow’.  Materials and information should flow through a process with no barriers or restrictions.

What about the ‘flow; of people.

‘Flow ‘ is a term that has been applied to that state where workers are fully immersed in a task but not overloaded or stressed.  It is similar to that state of an athlete or performer when he/she is ‘in the zone’ - fully committed,. fully concentrating, fully engaged.

McKinsey & Co recently commented that workers in a flow state are more productive but also more satisfied with their role.  A separate study carried out by the University of Sydney linked flow to a more than fourfold increase in creative problem solving.

This ‘flow’ is not yet fully understood but it is regarded as a widespread phenomenon, existing around the globe irrespective of raced, role, gender  or underlying culture.

To create flow, you must create the conditions under which it becomes possible.

• Employees should be stretched but not stressed.

• Employees must have ready access to any equipment or tools necessary for their designated role)s).

• Employees must be fully trained to carry out their designated role(s).

• Employees should have simple, straightforward snd speedy feedback on performance.

• Employers should not ne unduly or unnecessarily disturbed or distracted.

• Achievement of goals or intermediate milestone should be recognised snd rewarded.

• Micro-management must be avoided.  If employees  know their role and their part in the organisation, they may value a little freedom as. T o exactly how they carry out heir work.  As long as this freedom does not affect upstream or downstream activities, this is OK.

So, think about how you can change employee preparation, working environments, targets and performance measurement to create the conditions under which flow is possible,  

Then set your employees free to flow.

Create Post-Pandemic Networking IOpportunities

You should always keep your business life separate from your personal and social life.  True?

On first reading, or first thought, it seems to make sense.

However, think of all the times you have:

• Been bowling with the team 
• Had a business lunch
• Held an after-hours birthday celebration
• Played golf with a business contact.

Were these all a complete waste of time?   I hope not.

Using social events to boost team morale or celebrate a successful project is rarely a waste of time. Recognising achievements is a necessary function of an effective manager.  It helps staff know what is going on, know they are valued and even learn of challenges ahead.

Similarly, making or maintaining contact with clients, customer and even competitors is rarely a waste of time.   It helps determine the shared interests, concerns snd priorities of key stakeholders.

Many of these networking opportunities have fallen by the wayside in the post-pandemic, work-from-home world.

So, as you encourage staff back into the office, try to ensure that historic, useful networks and networking opportunities are re-established. 

Use Your Data Well

Modern manufacturing or service delivery systems produce lots of opportunities for collecting data which can be used to improve those systems.  

Many firms have recognised this and have installed a system of key performance indicators (KPIs) which help tell them where things are going well, and, perhaps more importantly, where they are not.

However all this data collection, analysis and presentation can become arduous and complex.   If not done effectively, a measurement system can confuse and obfuscate the ‘truth’.

This leads to organisations attempting to implement digital technologies and computer systems which can process data more quickly and present it more simply, bringing the ‘truth’ into greater focus.

None of this is simple or cheap.

However, if you think implementing a large integrated system that produces the right information to help your planning, control  and decision-making is too expensive, try implementing a smaller, less-well integrated system and see how much that costs - especially as you grow.

There are ways of implementing systems that help reduce costs (and doing so in stages)  but you need a vision of what your intended, final , fully-integrated system will look like, so you can build towards it and put in place the potential for inter-connection, rather than trying to integrate different parts of a system later.

Most importantly, you need the right data that is going to help you uncover the ‘truth’ we spoke about earlier.

So, review your system of metrics and where and how they are, or can be, collected … and then plan your integrated performance review system.

Good luck!

Volunteers Wanted

Volunteering generates a £4.6bn productivity boost to the UK economy each year, new research has found. 

A study by the think tank Pro Bono Economics, commissioned by the Royal Voluntary Service, estimates the UK benefits from annual productivity gains of more than £4,500 per volunteer working in professional and managerial occupations. 

The report, called A Pro Bono Bonus: The Impact of Volunteering on Wages and Productivity and published very recently, says white-collar workers who volunteer with charities typically benefit from learning new skills and developing existing ones.  These may be technical skills but are just as likely to be ‘softer’ communication, project management and innovation-related skills.

This is a real win-win situation, resulting in increased productivity, satisfaction and well-being for the individual and improved performance and productivity for the volunteer’s organisation.

 

Don't turn burnout into bored-out

Many people seem to be suffering from burnout.  They feel the organisation asks too much of them, that they are never completely off-duty.

An organisation might respond with consideration by reigning back on some of the pressures, some of the ‘asks’.

The problem is that then the  employee think they are not achieving, not fully involved snd they start to lose interest.  They now suffer from ‘bored-out’.  

Employees react best and perform better when they feel they have a real purpose, when they understand how their role and their work contribute to the organisation’s goals and mission. They can feel pressure from ‘stretch goals’ but achieving them gives them a real high, a great sense of achievement. Even failure to reach a stretch goal can give greater satisfaction than easily achieving a goal that doesn’t stretch..

So, be careful how you address what looks like burnout.  Don’t change it into bored-out. Review goals and targets for individuals and teams and make sure employees know their role and their performance is vital and valued.

Big Isn't Alwayas Best

There is a universal truth that the private sector is always more efficient than the public sector - that the profit motive drives efficiency.

Larger companies have the advantage of being able to negotiate e better prices with their suppliers and have the advantage of ‘economies of scale’ with their production and delivery processes

However, things are not always what they at first seem to be. 

My personal observation, from working across the public snd private sectors  and across both small and large organisations, is that efficiency is negatively correlated with organisation size - large organisations are inefficient, small ones are generally efficient.

The reason is ‘engagement’.

In a small organisation, the owners/ managers are directly involved with all aspects of the processes involved in delivering goods or services to customers.   They see each step in each process and how different processes connect with others.  They know the other managers and often all supervisors and many of the staff. They communicate effectively because communication lines are short.

Similarly the workers are more likely to engage with the organisation. They know their role and how and where it fits into the overall process. They know the other staff, the supervisors and the managers. They know their contribution and performance can be judged. Issues cab be dealt with directly and swiftly. 

Little of this applies in a large organisation. Relationships, performance and issues tend to drift and fester. 

These advantages of engagement in small organisations can far outweigh the direct economic advantages of larger ones. 

What Is Non-Ptroductive?

A focus on productivity, and its development is a good thing - indeed, an essential thing for all organisations.

However, there is a danger that we over-focus and forget about balance.

There is a tendency to bifurcate all activity into being either productive or non-productive.  So, a worker operating his/her machine is (clearly) productive.  A worker taking a break is (just as clearly?) non-productive.

Yet what would happen if we did not give our employees any breaks. Would productivity rise?

Perhaps temporarily - until the employees become exhausted and start making errors.

Those of you who are, or were, involved in work measurement will know that rest and recovery times are built in to work standards for this very reason.

Another example of this dilemma is employee training.  If employees being trained are taken away from their machines, they are clearly non-productive.  Yet presumably we are training them so they can be more productive in the future.

So.be careful with your simple binary approach.  Think of the longer-term and consider whether non-productive time and events will have (perhaps indirect) productivity benefits over the longer-term.  

You should be optimising, rather than short-term maximising, productivity.

Going Backwards

The UK is technically in recession - it has had two consecutive quarters with negative growth. Worse, the economy has been at best stagnant for over two years and productivity has been falling.

Our Prime Minister, when he got the job, gave 5 pledges, one of which was to grow the economy.  He failed in four of them, including the one relating to growth.

What is the problem?

Putin is part of the problem.   The UK is a significant network importer of energy and Putin’s actions over the last few years have resulted in massive cost of energy rises.

One could try, therefore to defend our Prime Minister and suggest he is just unlucky in his timing.  BUT…

The Conservative Party has been in power for fourteen years and seems to have had no consistent energy strategy over that time …  so it can be argued that they are reaping what they have (not) sown.  Perhaps the global warming crisis should have made an energy crisis obvious and triggered some planning response.

The job of government in creating higher productivity is to build the infrastructure that creates the potential for higher productivity - the macroeconomic, transport, communications, energy, education and training infrastructures. 

How many of you can say that your government is doing a good job?

Small can be (more) efficient

SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) have a number of problems reaching optimum productivity when comported to ‘the big boys’.  

It is harder for them to achieve the same economies of scale and hard for them to put the same pressure on their suppliers to contain costs.  They are less likely to employ consultants and advisers, yet also less likely to have their own productivity specialist on board.

Does this means that SMEs are likely to be less productive?

Well no, actually.  Small organisations tend to maintain focus on costs and cashflow, and they are are often small enough for the owner/manager to keep an eye on all parts of the business. They also generally have shorter communication channels.  

So, they hove some inherent advantages.

This does not mean that they have no need to think about their productivity - or perhaps think about it in a more coherent and structured way.  But they can blend productivity analysis with these inherent advantages.

For example, it can be easier to practice forms of kaizen if you already have effective teams and effective communication with and between teams.  If they have effective ways of monitoring costs and cashflow, they possibly have the basis of a set of productivity metrics.

If they have a number of managers, they may be  able to use each one to review/analyse another section or department to lend an untutored and fresh eye. (If these manager are given some basic training in productivity analysis and improvement, so much the better.)

‘Use what you have to give you more’ should be their strategy and motto.

Focus on productivity as well as costs.  And take advice occasionally to get some specialist knowledge and input.

You might be efficient (relatively) now - but you can improve further!

Silo Mentaity

Silo mentality is one of the most significant obstacles to organisational success.  It has become more severe and more common during the era of hybrid working and especially remote working.

Because communication takes more effort, and is more subject to  errors and misunderstandings. when people are not face-to-face, it means that employees are often not sharing information with departments or teams as frequently (or in the same way) as they previously did.

As a result, members of a team may not fully share the purpose or operating parameters of a project, or they may be working at cross purposes on different parts of a project.

And, of course, if information is not fully shared, it is less likely that ideas will build on one another - and innovation is stifled.

It is rather obvious that in such a situation we need to improve communication in ways which reduce this silo mentality - and encourage people to engage across teams and to share a common purpose.

This has to start at the top with effective and repeated sharing of the organisation’s vision and purpose - and the contribution to be made by various groups and teams.

Managers should seek cooperation and alliances with other groups and teams  - to create semi-permanent communication channels with other teams.

Managers should also set clear objectives and SMART targets which focus their staff on outputs and outcomes.

Any signs of conflict or competition across teams has to be sorted as quickly as possible

Praise, recognition and rewards should be cross-team and reinforce collaborative links snd alliances.

If effective links can be built with members of other complementary teams in pursuit of agreed goals and a clear vision of success, silos start to disappear.  

However, managers need to stay alert to the effects of residual or re-growing silos and take immediate action to destroy them, refocusing efforts of staff on what is to be achieved.

Exploit the Ziegarnik Effect

The Zeigarnik effect describes the way unfinished tasks remain active in our mind, intruding into our thoughts and our sleep until they are dealt with, much like a hungry person will notice every restaurant and appetising smell on their way home and then lose all interest when they’ve had their dinner. You may have noticed the effect yourself during your exams in school, when you crammed before the exam, sat it, and then promptly forgot everything you had just learned because you no longer had any use for the information.

The effect is named after Bluma Zeigarnik, a Lithuanian-Soviet psychologist and psychiatrist. She tells the story that she was out for dinner one night at a restaurant in Berlin with a large group of colleagues when she noticed her waiter’s impressive ability to remember all the complex food and drink orders. After everyone had finished eating and had left the restaurant, Zeigarnik realised that she had forgotten her purse, so she walked back, found the waiter who had served them, and asked for his help. But he did not remember her; where had she been sitting?

When she asked him how he could have forgotten her so quickly, the waiter apologised and told her that he always forgot his orders (and customers) as soon as the meals had been delivered and paid for. The only way that he could do his job was to focus exclusively on the open orders he still had to deal with. This suggested that incomplete tasks remain in the mind until they are completed. Zeigarnik decided to investigate.

She conducted a series of expejriemrns and found that those who had their work interrupted were  more likely to remember what they had been doing than the participants who had actually completed the tasks.

Psychologists who followed up on on her work concluded that interrupted tasks cause ‘psychic tension which keeps the task front and centre of the brain. When the task is completed, that tension disappears and the task can be cleared from ‘working memory’.

You can force this effect by starting on a task you know you cannot complete in the current work session.  When you leave the task ,it will niggle sway at the back of your mind, prompting you to do some more work on it.  It may also have the added advantage of allowing your subconscious mind to address the issue, improving your ability to create new ideas or solve problems.

The Zeigarnik  effect also suggests taking brief pauses or rests will help your motivation to complete your unfinished tasks and will help you consolidate your thinking on the issue in hand.