Let Them Laugh

I remember once walking past an office and the staff in there were obviously enjoying themselves.  They were laughing - at what, I know not.  My first thought was ‘How odd. Shouldn’t they be taking their work more seriously?  We pay them to work, not to play. “

But, of course, first thoughts are quite often wrong thoughts.  This is why you should always pause and reflect before firing off angry emails or taking important decisions.

Luckily, I had read something fairly recently about the effects that laughter can have on your body- releasing a cocktail of chemicals that can prove to be quite positive for many..  

I also recalled a recent brainstorming session when the flow of ideas was definitely enhanced by the presence of a joker in the pack. His flow of jokes, quips and anecdotes was matched by a flow of ideas aimed squarely at the problem under review.

So, I walked on, thinking I had witnessed a positive rather than negative experience.

Laughter provides us with obvious benefits - a reduction in stress, an increase in camaraderie and team-bonding … but it also improves creativity. 

So, encourage the jokers and pranksters … let’s build fun into the working day, and innovation into the organisation.

Train, Trust, Target, Verify

In this world where many workers are still workings from home - or hybrid working - some managers find it hard to assess the performance  of their staff.  

There has been a sharp increase in the use of employee monitoring software - often seen as intrusive and unfair by the employees themselves.

Yet we know that the best way to get good results out of your staff is to train then, empower them, and trust them.  The vast majority respond well to such treatment.  Of course  it is useful to set targets for the employees and verify that they have reached those targets and made their full contribution.  This does not need sophisticated or expensive software, more an interaction between manager and employee - which should be happening anyway.

So, don’t complicate what is a simple matter - keep it simple, but effective - based on a core of mutual trust.

Simple

A very simple way of thinking about productivity is to identify the things that block or slow down throughput and eliminate them.  

I know this is an oversimplification because in some case, removing a bottleneck just creates another one further down the process …. but you will almost certainly have made some impact by removing the first one…. and now you have another target.

These bottlenecks or productivity blocks may be unnecessary process steps, ineffective meetings, excessive equipment breakdowns or many other things. If you can’t easily identify such blocks, ask your employees.   They should know.  Chart the process and ask them which steps they would eliminate or improve first to make life easier.

You might not see the scale of improvement that comes from a more structured, technique -driven approach to productivity improvement …. but all gains are worth having. 

Working Hard is not Enough

 

I get concerned when I see famous people in all sort of fields (‘celebrities’?) give advice to youngsters  saying something like “You can be anything you want to be, do anything you want to do. You just need a goal and to work very hard.”

Now positivism is good - and encouraging youngsters to work hard is also good.  But this advice is based on a falsehood. Not everyone can achieve their dream. Think of all the kids who want to be football or basketball stars or ballet dancers or movie or rock stars or …….   There are nowhere near enough ‘vacancies’ to accommodate all those dreams.

Some who dream and work (very) hard may make it … usually with a bit, or a lot, of luck. Some who dream and work very hard may almost make it - perhaps enough to give them a career. Many who dream and work very hard will fail. It is inevitable. 

We cannot control everything with hard work.  Some of us will fail and may have missed opportunities along the way to change direction and carve out a successful career in a different field. Those who persist in chasing the dream may suffer from burnout and exhaustion - and disappointment.  They will feel they didn’t work hard enough to achieve their dream.

We’ve need to get youngsters to build pauses, reflection, mindfulness into their dream-chasing.  They need to re-evaluate their dream based on the evidence of progress made - and perhaps change tack or lower expectations.  They need to stop worrying, reduce the demands they make on themself and live in the present not in some probably unachievable future.

Ironically they will almost certainly become more productive, and a more balanced approach to their work may even lead to greater success.