When we were children, or had children of our own, we experienced the joy of creative play. Great pleasure was had from crayons, or even better, pots of paint! We enjoyed the process of experimentation and creation. We had a huge pride in the finished product, even if we had to explain what it was supposed to be! Those of us fortunate enough to have shared that experience as adults know that it is completely absorbing. Time and other needs are forgotten while the pleasure of the activity is experienced. In the same way we become totally absorbed in playing sport, reading a book or playing a computer game. Sadly, as we grow up, we learn that work and play are two very different things. Work is not supposed to be enjoyable or you would not get paid to do it!
Continue readingCategory Archives: Operational effectiveness
The Law Of Unintended Consequences
We all know about Suggestion Boxes. Good schemes pay good rewards to people who suggest actions which produce substantial results. But, during my research, the productivity data, before and after the Suggestion Scheme, showed a steadily reducing performance! Instead of everyone being expected to suggest improvements, the scheme classified people according to their grade. Obviously, you could not expect ‘those’ people to be helpful unless they were paid! The net result was fewer improvements and steadily declining productivity, and therefore margins and profitability.
Continue readingCompound disinterest
One of the difficulties of thinking is that we all tend to drop into the ruts of previous thought patterns. The deeper the rut the more difficult it is to think outside that rut. To escape the rut, it is useful to think in terms of analogies: to take an idea or method and apply it in a different context. It is a powerful tool. Managing people is not always straightforward. The uncertainty of outcome, which is normal with people, makes the mathematical tools of probability a relevant analogy. An engineering analogue might be the derivation of reliability statistics for complex systems. Human beings are definitely complex systems!
Continue readingWhy motivation matters
Let us go back a few thousand years to before “Management Guru” meant anything and consider pre-historic Hunter societies. The pursuit of large creatures and their dispatch with sharpened sticks was a dangerous way to earn your next meal. But given the choice starve or hunt, the motivation is obvious. This happy, and easy to manage, situation changed when one caveman was found with a particular skill in sharpening sticks to a deadly point. His sticks made it much easier to bring down the hunted animal. It seemed a good idea to have him stay at the base to sharpen sticks, rather than spend his time hunting animals. In this way all the Hunters had his special sharp sticks and the hunt was more effective. Immediately the Tribe Elder had a problem. How did he ensure the Stick Sharpener produced a good amount of sticks of good quality in exchange for food and a safe working environment? Luckily, he didn’t know about SMART objectives as the Management Guru tribe hadn’t come into existence yet.
Continue readingThe Project Manager in the middle
What is a Middle Manager? Why do they exist? It seems that many senior people have forgotten why. They are replacing the middle tier with management by spreadsheet and vastly increased spans of control. It saves money obviously? Only if you didn’t manage the middle managers correctly in the first place!
Continue readingUse Your Loaf
Go back in history far enough and you reach a time when groups, tribes were self-sufficient: hunter-gatherers eating meat and berries. As civilisation advanced, goods started to be traded between groups on a barter basis. Most of the goods were still consumed by the people that produced them. They had a desire to create good quality produce, both for their own consumption and for their trade. The growth of trade and commerce led to the invention of an advanced bartering system – money. Most people still consumed their own produce and traded the surplus. Mistress Goodchild was pleased to sell a few loaves in her village, particularly as everyone knew her loaves were the best. The Industrial Revolution with its focus on specialising changed Mrs Goodchild’s working life completely. She worked for a baker of course, she like to be involved with bread making. Now though her job involved a small part of the bread making process and some days she didn’t see a loaf at all.
Continue readingThe Honest Manager
Is this such a shocking title? It created a storm of comments when posted on social media. Do managers still think they need to hide their human self, to act like invulnerable superheroes? You know that people, human beings, are quite good judges of people. You know changing a bad opinion takes a long time. Why not just be the best human you can. Think carefully about your actions and decisions, and always be ready to explain why you made those choices. You won’t always be right. Just so long as you made the decision for good reasons, your people will still believe in you.
Continue readingHow Do You Motivate Yourself?
Google pointed a search to our website to answer the question “How do I get the motivation to manage the staff?” When we meet people in seminars there are many who show signs of stress, time pressure and destructively bad work-life balance. Those whose work includes managing others are doubly troubled, as they know they are not getting the performance they should from their people. How could they when they have so much else to do? How do you motivate yourself to overcome these huge obstacles?
Continue readingPersonal Productivity
Productivity is about getting more done with less. It doesn’t mean working longer, it means working smarter. Unfortunately, modern technology does the exact opposite of making you smart, by constantly distracting you. Enjoy the video.
Continue readingTrust!
One of the key attributes of an employee is trust. Not just that they won’t pilfer the petty cash, but that when they say they will do something, they do it!
Continue reading