Survival is Top Priority

Occasionally we see an organisation that has pulled itself back from the brink of extinction.  There are two main routes to such survival - one is to find a different product/service (product innovation) ; the other is to drastically change how you do things, reducing time/costs of production/delivery (process innovation).

(Doing different things and doing things differently are always the main productivity drivers, with the former often giving greater immediate gains but the latter proving  effective over longer time periods.) 

Organisations who are not at crisis point often think about undertaking a review and making changes - but then carry on as they always have.

Good intentions have little effect on productivity; action its essential.

So, try to put yourself in to a ‘wartime mindset’.  What are the real threats facing the organisation?  Then  from asking “What could we do?”, take some decisions and move fairly swiftly to “What should we do?”. to avoid/mitigate any threats.  

Then (in Nike’s words), Just Do It (breaking down all barriers along the way).  

No prevarication; no procrastination = just action.

Perfection is Over-Rated

We all know people who are perfectionists.  They strive in everything they do to be the best, to out-perform all others, to be number one.

In some walks of life, this can be a great attribute. If you want to be a professional musician (especially a classical musician) perfectionism is a good goal.   Lang Lang didn’t become one of the world’s greatest pianists by settling for being merely good.

However, in other walks of life, being a perfectionist can be both a professional and a personal millstone..

Professionally, it can result in you taking far too long to complete relatively simple tasks to an adequate level of quality.  Your organisation probably wants you to complete the task and move on - to the next one.

Personally, you might start to feel anxious that your level of performance does not meet your own very high standards.  This anxiety can affect your overall mental health and, in turn, reduce your performance.  You end up in a downward spiral.

So, you need to clarify the standard asked of you - what is acceptable, and what is not.  Setting the standard is not normally your job.  You just have to accept the agreed standard - and meet it consistently, and within  an acceptable time period.   

When you meet it, give yourself a virtual pat on the back - and even a little reward … like a very short break or a coffee or a sweet - anything which show you recognise you have met the standard of performance required.

Rinse and repeat!   Keep meeting this standard and keep recognising it. 

If you feel the agreed standard  is wrong, either report it to your supervisor or simply accept that someone, but not you, has failed in their role.

Slowly you should adjust your own expectations of your own performance, and you should feel better about that performance, reducing your anxiety levels - and increasing your productivity.

Hand in Hand

I read a report recently which suggested that the workforce in Pakistan lacks both appropriate skills and the work ethic needed to significantly improve productivity.

(This is not of course exclusive to Pakistan - it is true of a quiet a few places - or even industrial sectors.)

The report then simply moved on to look at possible measures to improve skills and create a work ethic.

The former is relatively easy, assuming we know or can identify the skills gaps - those skills that are ,missing.

Creating a work ethic is much more difficult and it is often part of an  overarching national culture - snd needs to be embedded from a very young age.

However the report did not suggest that there is a correlation - in fact more of a strong causation - between skills and work ethic.

My belief is that workers who are treated well and have regular skills updates - increasing their potential contribution to the organisation and their marketability to other employers - are more likely to take a positive approach to their work.  This means that a work ethic has been created.

So, addressing one key factor can have an effect on another.  The two (or sometimes even three o more) factors go hand in hand - there is a symbiotic relationship between them.

If you can identify such relationships linking other factors, you have in effect a short cut to productivity improvement.

If They Can Do It,So Can We

How does a government kickstart productivity improvement?

Well one possible answer Is to benchmark and challenge.

A government can set up benchmarking across specific sectors it thinks are important for future growth.

It starts by asking firms in the sector what is important in creating future growth - and then setting up a measurement scheme to establish comparative measures for each of those factors.

A summary of these measures is then issued to participating firms - say, the average across the sector and the ‘best’ for each factor.  (This can, of course, be anonymous.)

Firms can then see how their own performance compares to these average and best scores.  They now know the art of the possible and are faced with the challenge of raising their own performance to beat the average and strive to equal the best for each factor.  They do this in the knowledge that established firms in their sector are reaching these levels of performance already - they are realistically achievable.

The benchmarking process can be repeated annually to see how performance is shifting.

Realistic targets establish a meaningful challenge.

A Narrow View of Culture

Most business people are aware that the culture of an organisation has a direct and significant impact on performance and productivity.

What is organisation culture?

At its most simple, it is the collection of beliefs and values held and promulgated by the senior members of an organisation via their policies, decisions and behaviours.   This in turn drives the behaviours of lower level staff  and the relationships with clients or customers. 

Lip service is often paid to the importance, or even existence, of culture.

How many organisations, for example, have a slogan saying something like “Our people are our greatest asset”?  If this was a firmly held value, we would expect to see it show through in relationships between managers and workers, in HR policies and procedure, in communication methods, and so on.

Yet quite lot of organisations that profess to hold this belief in the value of their people, do not establish an appropriate culture, treating their employees as ‘Human Resources’ to be manipulated and coerced into performing for the organisation.

Go back to the definition of culture.  Clearly the senior executived set the culture and it is then delivered down the management chain.  The key link in the culture chain is thus the relationship between managers and subordinates.

Do all managers get training in the creation and maintenance of a supportive culture?  Most probably do - but they can only deliver  when the overarching culture of the organisation, set by the senior team, is itself supportive.

We need a whole organisation culture within which each manager can take a narrow view of his/her own part in the culture chain working through each personal relationship.