The keytoproductivity 1273

The Key to ProductivityPeople Productivity

A step by step guide to improve workplace productivity

By Peter Mitchell

Published by The Learning Company Publishing Group.P O Box 20-132

HamiltonNew Zealand

Copyright 2009

E-mail [email protected]

The Key to ProductivityA step by step guide to improve workplace productivity.

http://www.thekeytoproductivity.com

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Contents

Chapter TitleAuthor’s note 4How to Use This Book 5

1 Introduction 62 Understanding the Basis of Productivity 93 Your Productivity Questionnaire 144 Some Typical Barriers to Productivity 185 Take a Break—Read a Short Story 246 12 Common Symptoms of Low Productivity 257 Plan to Succeed with your Strategy and Tactics 298 Measure and Record Where you are. 339 Evaluate Your Leadership Resources and Capabilities. 3710 Set Mutually Agreed on Expectations 4411 Set Targets and Milestones 4812 Provide Clear and Meaningful Feedback 5013 Leadership Skills, one of the keys to Improving Productivity 5614 Increasing Productivity Through People 6115 Demotivation, Disincentives and Discouragement. 6516 Managing Performance. 7417 Managing the Business of Change 7918 The Practical Science of Behaviour 8719 Feedback Guidelines 9120 A Plan for Easily Improving methods 9621 Humour and Happiness Improves Workplace Productivity 9922 The Magic Process of Motivation 10523 How to Reduce Absenteeism 11024 Delegation, Development and Personal Productivity. 11325 Putting it all together. A Plan to Lift Workplace Productivity 121

Appendix 1 An explanation of Productivity 126Appendix 2 Business Productivity Case Study 128Appendix 3 Personal Productivity Case Study 133



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Author’s noteWe all know WHAT to do to win a lottery. Just pick the right numbers and be rich for life. The problem is that we don’t know HOW to do it.

This is the problem that I find with so many books on business. They tell you WHAT to do but not HOW to do it.

My approach to this book is to give the reader a selection of strategies and tactics to increase the productivity of their business and explain HOW to do it in a practical way.



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How to Use This BookTo get the best results from this book, I suggest you follow the process outlined below.

Firstly, read the book at your normal reading speed and use a pencil or pen to underline key passages and make notes to yourself in the margins. If you come across something which you want to remember, either put a sticker on the page or write the page number in the front of the book.

Once you have finished the book, take a few minutes every day, and flick through the pages, and re-read the key points that you have marked. The reason for this repetition is that principles are easier to apply when they are familiar and fixed in your subconscious mind.

After several repetitions, write down an action plan for your productivity improvement. Make sure that when writing your action plan you include a timeframe.

At this stage you can also write down a training module to show others how to improve productivity or you can list topics from the book to coach other managers in the process of productivity improvement. Remember, you will need to persuade your supervisors to accept the steps of productivity improvement before introducing any changes.



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Chapter 1Introduction

The traditional methods of increasing workplace productivity usually require capital outlay on machinery and the installation of systems. However, the key to improving productivity is the people in the business.

This book has been written specifically to help businesses lift their productivity through their people. These enterprises can be any sized businesses, not-for-profit organisations and government departments. This is without a large investment in capital expenditure on new machinery or the introduction of more complex systems.

In this book I have focussed on the people side of the equation. The reason is quite simple: if you have staff who are not very productive, the addition of more sophisticated equipment will not necessarily improve the situation. On the other hand, if you maximise productivity with what you have at present, any subsequent investment in machinery will be well rewarded in terms of greater productivity.

The key is the people and their performance.

Regrettably, the most cost effective source of extra productivity—people, is normally ignored. The strategies and tactics offered in this book provide low or no cost solutions to improving productivity.

The lack of productivity costs money and when costs are under threat, then so to are jobs and businesses. Whatever the industry, the need to improve productivity is the ultimate goal. This is true today, as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow.

Millions of dollars are wasted each and every day in organizations, through lack of awareness of this need to constantly improve productivity.

Most of the waste can be stopped. A concerted effort at all levels, management, supervision and “shop floor'” will produce results. Positive, active co-operation by all levels is the surest way of producing results.

The methods shown here in this book are applicable to manual work, clerical work and the service industries. The benefits of improving productivity are not always obvious. Certainly, there is a financial benefit for the bottom line of the business but there are less obvious benefits for the employees.



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Many employees are not included in setting meaningful targets. So, without mutual expectations they are not motivated to perform. On top of this, most employees don’t receive relevant feedback about their efforts on a regular and frequent basis. By not receiving feedback they are unable to adjust their performance.

Given the situation, it is little wonder that workplace productivity is low.

This book will give you a step-by-step process to follow so that your workplace productivity can steadily grow. It has been designed as a “how-to-do-book” as well as a “what-to-do-book.”

The majority of managers and leaders know what to do but often don’t know how to do it. In this book we address that problem.

It is clear that to achieve behavioural change in the workplace so that productivity levels are lifted, it must be done with the full co-operation of the staff. Often, the installation of change is carried out in the face of very stiff resistance. The outcomes are minimal. We need to change our style of management and leadership to one that nurtures change rather than prescribes it or imposes it.

This means that the person in the leadership position of the business holds the key to increased productivity. It is this person who can initiate change, encourage others to follow, lead people to perform to a higher level, harness the skill and experience of their staff and engage their brains.

In the past we seem to have shied away from a cooperative approach and used a prescriptive approach because, as leaders, we didn’t want to be seen as being weak.

From what I’ve seen during the last 35 years, the cooperative approach is definitely more difficult than the prescriptive approach but so much more effective and worthwhile.

In small and medium sized businesses, great results can be achieved by focussing the productivity effort on one section of the staff. The most logical area to pinpoint is the front line leaders, the team leaders or supervisors.

Through a process of careful training, mentoring and coaching, substantial productivity gains can be achieved.

By consistently thinking, acting, and speaking productivity, the leader will be extremely effective in getting the message across and understood.



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The Basis of Productivity ImprovementTo improve productivity levels there are a small number of basic principles that apply in all cases.

No organisation is too small or too large to benefit from the beneficial results of productivity improvement. It doesn’t matter if it is in the public or private sector, the benefits are still available.

Productivity planning should involve as many employees as possible. This is so that as many people can feel involved and then they will feel that the success of the productivity program is partly dependent on them.

A productivity program should be on-going because it can never be completed. It should be a dynamic part of the business at all levels.

In setting the goals, care must be exercised to ensure that the achievement of the goal is possible. That control can be exercised. Too many times the goals are set out of reach of the employees which leads to a lack of participation and an early withdrawal of commitment by the staff.

Every cost reduction tool can be used.

Improving methods can have a profound effect on productivity and the best people to design new methods are the people doing the job.

Individual levels of productivity should be measured and the employee be given training and on-the-job coaching to lift their personal productivity. They should receive feedback on their performance.

Often there is a lot more said than done about productivity. There is also a lack of planning and the lack of a concerted, consistent effort applied to the situation.Improving productivity is the real key to national prosperity contributing to a rising standard of living.

No business can ignore the implications of increasing productivity.Productivity improvement requires imagination, enthusiasm, flexibility and a single minded, intelligent approach.

Productivity improvement is like gravity; it starts at the top and works downwards through the business. Not the other way round.



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Chapter 2Understanding the Basis of Productivity

There are several common misunderstandings about productivity. Quite frequently, productivity and production are treated as the same thing. Productivity is not production. It is not just pushing products out of the assembly line as fast as possible without any consideration for quality, safety, and cost.

In some businesses productivity and performance are treated as the same. They are not the same although performance can have an effect on productivity. Performance relates to how close we come to meeting a target such as a certain quantity or quality of output.

The term productivity means different things to different people—more output while maintaining costs; doing the right thing; working smarter and not harder; automating the operation to get more and faster output; and so on.

Production is an output but productivity is determined by the inputs used to gain that output

Production relates just to output, is normally expressed as production volume and measured in terms of units. For instance, when a manufacturer produces items at the rate of 100,000 units per year, the production volume is 100,000 units.

On the other hand, productivity is the ratio between output and input. It clearly shows us the relationship between input and output. This relationship is expressed as:

Productivity = Input divided by output

There are three elements in productivity. The input, conversion and output. Input is the resources used in the process. Conversion is the process of changing input to the output. This is where productivity occurs and it is this area where people and machinery convert the input resources to the output. (For a further explanation see Appendix 1)

It is difficult to compare productivity levels in organisations unless the inputs are the same and the productivity is expressed in the same way such as items per hour or week. It is relatively rare to find two businesses making the same product using the same machinery and equipment to directly compare productivity levels.



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For the sake of this explanation and to assist understanding, we will use the following examples.

For example, if 10 people worked at the rate of 8 hours per day for 5 days, they can produce 10,000 items. What is their productivity?

Input is the number of hours worked in this example,10 people x 5 days x 8 hrs/day = 400 hoursOutput = 10,000 items

Output = 10,000Input 400Productivity= 25 items per hour

A different business that was smaller with only four people, with exactly the same equipment and raw material worked a nine hour day. They produced 5,800 items per week.

Their productivity would be 4 people x 5 days x 9 hours/day = 180 hoursOutput = 5,800 itemsInput = 180Productivity = 32 items per hour.

The productivity of the second business was 28% higher than the first business. In this case there may be many other factors that enabled the second business to have higher levels of productivity.

Efficiency and Effectiveness. The two vital aspects of productivity are efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency refers to how well the various inputs are combined or a job is done.

For example, if there are two clerks working in an insurance company dealing with claims. They both work the same number of hours and they are in the same department, and seated next to each other. On the outside, they look like they are doing the same things. However, one of them completes more claims than the other.

Although the input (number of hours, equipment, claims, etc.) is the same in both cases, the output of one clerk seems to be higher than the other in a given number of hours. The difference might have been due to any number of factors. For example, they may include motivation, job knowledge, training or the methods used in performing the job.



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In this case it was found that clerk Y planned and organised the work, putting time and effort to better use. The efficiency of clerk Y was greater than that of clerk Z who had completed less work. Better utilisation of time and effort made possible by planning and organising probably led to greater effectiveness, and clerk Y was able to complete more claims than clerk Z.

Productivity is how well various resources (inputs) are brought together and put into use for achieving special goals or results. Productivity is the key to profitability. It is doing things better and working smarter, not just harder.

To do so, we have to tap the reservoir of knowledge, creativity and productivity available from our workforce through education, training, motivation, technology and group effort. The challenge is how to secure the maximum possible improvement in performance or results while using the minimum possible resources.

With proper planning and motivation, the job of productivity growth can be achieved. However, certain facts have to be borne in mind when launching the productivity improvement programme.

The productivity growth is more likely to be achieved if the objectives are discussed with the employees and they are able to contribute their ideas. Let us say, the objective is: “Reduce rework.” The employees must know and be familiar with the following information:

• The current rework rate.

• The expected reduction targets.

• The reasons for the current rework rate.

• The methods to improve the rate.

They also need to be aware that they have the opportunity to voice their opinions on how to improve the situation.

By making periodic checks, the supervisors can make sure whether their team members understand the objectives and make efforts to accomplish them.

If the expected results can be measured in tangible terms, productivity is more likely to improve. Using the same example, let’s say that the current rework is costing the business about $65,000 a year. The objective can be stated in tangible terms as: “Reduce rework cost from $65,000.”



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To be successful, there has to be a clear understanding of mutual benefits between the business and the staff. The motivation to improve is greatly enhanced when the employer and the employees are working towards common goals with mutual expectations.

Employees may be wondering how they are going to benefit from the reduction of the cost of rework. So, the employer may link an incentive to the accomplishment of the objective. For instance, a portion of the savings from the reduced costs may be given to the employees as bonus or a proportion of the savings may be used to fund time off from work.

This way, the employer and employees share the benefits. This sort of approach must be treated with utmost caution because of the many pitfalls that can occur.

Only when there is ample opportunity for employees to participate in and be responsible for productivity objectives, will they accept the productivity growth seriously.

For instance, before setting the productivity objective for rework, the employees involved with rework should be consulted as to the reasons for rework, the methods to be employed in reducing rework, and the setting of realistic targets. Since these suggestions come from them, they may become more involved and committed to the objectives. They will be ready to undertake the responsibility with enthusiasm. The whole concept of “waste reduction” normally finds support from most people, so there is already something to build on.

When a time frame is set for achieving the productivity objectives, it enhances the positive outcome. Using the same example of “Reduce rework”, a time frame can be linked to it in this way: reduce rework cost in the next three months from $65,000 to $40,000, in the next six months to $30,000 and in a year to the objective of $20,000.

The quality aspect should not be sacrificed for quantity. Quantity at the expense of quality will be short-lived. If the objective is to reduce rework from 2000 to 1000 units in a year, the focus should not be just on the number to be reduced. Employees must make sure that the reworked items do not come back for further rework. The focus should be on reducing the quantity of rework and at the same time maintaining the quality of workmanship.

Accountability for productivity is more likely to be accepted when employees are held responsible for the productivity objectives. Coupled with this responsibility is the involvement in setting the objectives.



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The road to higher productivity must start with the leadership team. Staff will respond when they see for themselves that the their leaders are actually consistently practising what they are preaching. Improving productivity is a leadership skill.

At this moment, just take a bit of time and answer these questions.

How much is rework costing your business?• What proportion of work do you have to re-do?

• How much time does this take?

• What are the labour costs associated with this rework?

• What are the material costs associated with this rework?

• What are the hidden costs of your rework? (The hidden costs include frustration created amongst the staff, stopping and starting costs, the lack of effort applied when a job has to be done again.)

• What are the opportunity costs associated with this rework?(Opportunity costs in this case is the revenue, that you would have received if you were working on another profitable job instead)

Add all these costs up and decide whether or not you need to reduce the amount of rework which is currently happening in your business.

It may sound a bit brutal, but it's true. Your job in leadership is to create an environment where your people get what they want and you get what you want. The outcome of this process is that the right things are achieved by people who are happy.



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Chapter 3Your Productivity Questionnaire.

Fill in this questionnaire honestly and add up your total. Remember that this is not a deep scientific survey but will give you some food for thought. Take note that if you don’t know the answer to any of the questions you lose 4 points from your score.

Does your business invest in developing leadership skills?

5 3 1 0 - 4

Constantly Sometimes Hardly Ever Never No Idea

Does your business invest in method and process improvement?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do your managers involve staff in decision-making?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do your managers have the right mix of experience and knowledge?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do your staff have the right mix of experience and knowledge?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Are the methods and systems used in your conversion process appropriate and up-to-date?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do your managers ask staff for ideas on method and process improvement?© The Learning Company Ltd Publishing Group New Zealand

For more learning resources, visit: http://www.thelearning.co.nz

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5 3 1 0 - 4


Do your managers actually know what their staff think about the business?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Is the machinery used in your conversion process up-to-date and effective?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do all employees receive comprehensive, practical and effective training?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Is your business and your staff receptive to change?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do all your managers have an effective leadership style?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Are the systems used in your conversion process effective?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do all employees know how their performance is measured?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do all employees understand the goals of the business?



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5 3 1 0 - 4


Do all employees receive appropriate, regular feedback on performance?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do all employees receive feedback from customers?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Are all the materials used in your process completely suitable for the end product?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do all employees participate in regular briefing sessions?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do you have a training and development plan for each staff member?

5 3 1 0 - 4


Do all your employees receive training and on-the-job coaching to improve their productivity?

5 3 1 0 - 4




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Results of the informal and not very scientific survey.

Less than 30Hmmm! You have severe problems with productivity but have a huge opportunity to improve the performance and profit of your business. The upside is that there is plenty of room to dramatically increase your net profit and change the way your staff feel about working for you. Your customers will be so happy when you institute changes to increase your productivity. What would be the effect on your business if your productivity increased by 10%?

30 to 60All is not lost. You have a reasonable basis to work from. Again, there are clear opportunities to increase your net profit with only a few small changes. Make changes as soon as possible otherwise your competition may fill the gap. As your productivity increases you might find that your marketing effort needs to increase as a results of your increased output.

60 to 90Your business is looking good. A few more small adjustments will make you more profit, keep your customers happy as well as your bank and shareholders. This will ultimately reduce your costs so that you can expand your customer base.

Over 90Well done! Please get in contact with me so I can learn about your success and write it up to include as a case study in the next edition of this book. Think about capitalising on your success by acting as a mentor for other business owners starting with your suppliers or customers.

How to use your results.Look at your scores—select all the questions where you scored less than three. One by one, starting with the lowest score, install workplace change to lift yourranking. In six month’s time, fill in the questionnaire again.



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Chapter 4Some Barriers to Workplace Productivity.

One of the important inputs to productivity is time. However, some days it seems like there is a conspiracy to steal your time from you. The Time Bandits seem to work like crazy some days and the day seems like it is frittered away with interruptions.

Time is our most finite resource and interruptions cause us to lose our momentum. Just like your car engine has to work harder to accelerate from a complete stop, you have the same situation with your work when you lose your momentum because of an interruption and then have to start again.

Although interruptions are a normal part of work life, limiting social interruptions is often crucial in enabling us to maintain our momentum for longer periods.

Productivity in some work environments depends on being able to juggle a lot of little details in short-term memory all at once. Any type of interruption can cause these details to be lost. When you resume work, you can’t remember the details and have to keep looking them up which slows you down a lot until you get back up to speed. This is rework, mental rework. And like physical rework it comes with a considerable loss.

Here are some factors that curtail our productivity. They are by no means exhaustive or comprehensive but serve as examples only.

Housekeeping.Poor housekeeping in the office or workshop environment is a significant cause of low productivity. The difficulty in finding documents or tools means that the flow of work is disrupted. Furthermore, the individual can feel frustrated because of the general untidiness in which they are working.

It is clear that an orderly workplace contributes to productivity and quality. There are some individuals who thrive and perform in a perpetual mess. However, their presence and work methods can have a negative effect on those working alongside.

Efforts to improve housekeeping generally fail because of the method used for improvement. It is far better to involve the people concerned and get them to check and evaluate the workplace housekeeping of other people who then reciprocate. The alternative is to prescribe a housekeeping standard, have a mighty cleanup and then repeat the process six weeks later.



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The inability to find a document or a tool can be classed as an interruption. The effect of interruptions on work productivity has been well researched and the results are quite alarming.

Interruptions.The average office worker is interrupted 73 times a day. The average manager is interrupted every eight minutes. Interruptions include telephone calls, incoming e-mail messages, interruptions by colleagues and crises. Research tells us it takes 20 to 30 minutes to get back to the level of concentration that we were at prior to the disruption. Of course, we cannot and would not want to eliminate all interruptions but we can reduce them and take control of our time and momentum more effectively.

We know from our own experience that we do our best work when we are in the “zone.” This is when we are fully concentrating on our work and fully tuned out of our environment. We lose track of time and produce great work through absolute concentration.

Getting into the “zone” is not easy. It seems to take about 20 to 30 minutes to start working at maximum productivity. But if you’re tired or you’ve had a lot of interruptions during that day you just can’t get into the “zone.” When you look at it like this, interruptions of any sort are an effective barrier to high productivity.

The other problem is that it is very easy to get pushed out of your “zone.” It only takes a question from a co-worker, a telephone call, an e-mail message or the distraction of two people talking near your work area. Your overall productivity takes a beating the more interruptions you get. Some days you don’t even operate in your “zone.”

An interruption is nothing more than an unanticipated event. To put it in perspective, on average, we experienced one interruption every eight minutes or approximately six to seven per hour. In an eight-hour day that totals around about 50 to 60 interruptions. The average interruption takes approximately 5 minutes. If you are receiving 50 interruptions in the day and each takes five minutes, that totals 250 minutes, or just over four hours out of eight. About 50% of your workday.

Given the figures above, it is no wonder that some days you just don’t seem to make any progress at all. You go home at the end of the day exhausted and puzzled why progress has been so slow and results so small.



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Planning and Organisation.Poor planning and poor leadership is another major contributor to low productivity. This is shown by managers and supervisors who continually change the priorities of tasks.

Again, research is shown that a person doing a task mentally assesses the time it will take to complete. When halfway through that task the manager or supervisor says, “Okay stop what you doing and start this job because it is more urgent,” the new task will take a long time to be started. When that new task has been completed, it will take typically twice as long for the old task to be restarted.

This is a complete disruption of the person’s momentum and if it happens often enough it will frustrate and lower morale. The result will be even lower levels of productivity and higher levels of resentment. In many cases the person will not even try to get into the “zone” therefore limiting their opportunity to be productive.

When the work is planned and the people are involved in the planning and organisation, there is a natural lift in productivity.

To sum up, every interruption loses at least five minutes plus the amount of time it takes to get back to maximum productivity. Unfortunately, technology with cellphones, pagers and e-mails have all conspired to interrupt us and slow down our productivity. This is in addition to the social interruptions.

The solutions are relatively simple but require a certain amount of self-discipline.

Firstly, deal with the technology by making it silent and allocate a particular part of time during the day to deal with all messages. Better still, delegate the interruptions to a receptionist or PA. Secondly, if you need uninterrupted time to work in your “zone,” put a flag on your workstation or machine to inform your co-workers that you do not want any social interruptions.

To put this in perspective, try keeping a daily log of all your interruptions and where they come from. Are they from the phone? Are they from people that want to chat with you? Are they from people who want to ask questions? Are they from customers? Where do all these interruptions come from? Make sure that when you log these interruptions that you put down the amount of time that you lose.

Once you have completed this exercise you will be surprised at two things. Firstly the number of interruptions and secondly, the amount of time that has been sucked out of your day.



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Once you know the source of the interruptions you can organise your work so that these can be controlled. Obviously, you’re going to get some interruptions during the day and they cannot be avoided. Your control should be exercised over those interruptions that are unnecessary.

You’ll be surprised how pleasant your working day becomes when you have eliminated the unnecessary interruptions. Your personal productivity will soar.

Our Brains are Different.(This is true although not politically correct)There is another factor that compounds the problem of disruption to a person’s momentum and that is gender.

All available research agrees that men’s brains are compartmentalised. The male brain is generally set up to concentrate on one specific task at a time. This means that interruptions are not handled very well.

In comparison, the female brain is able to cope with several tasks at once because there is a much more comprehensive series of links between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. An interruption is handled as a normal part of their brain activity as they can do many different things at the same time. Their momentum is not adversely affected for very long.

The male brain, on the other hand, has relatively few connections between the hemispheres and generally, is only able to deal with one task at a time. This means that they focus entirely on the job at hand. When they are interrupted, they have to totally stop focussing on the current job and start to focus on the cause of the interruption. This means that all momentum ceases until they re-focus on the original job. The process can take up to 20 minutes!

This is the prime reason why some men are not always very productive working in environments such as open-plan offices because of interruptions and distractions. It also explains why most men are not very good at some work that has interruptions as part of the job.



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Notes on Keeping an Interruption LogFor one week keep a log of your interruptions.

Record each interruption as the day progresses.

Every time your attention shifts from one thing to another, make a note of the diverting activity, no matter how trivial. This means that you will record all interruptions, noting their sources and reasons. Give as much detail as possible. Make a note on how much time you spent on each item. Set a priority for every single item.

At the end of the day you will be able to see what proportion of your time was spent on high priority work.

In the "Comments" column, record your ideas on how you might have done things better. Write these comments as you go along. This reduces the chance of overlooking details.

Keep the book close at hand. When you answer the phone, write down the phone call. When someone pokes their head to make a comment or pass on information, reach over and jot it down on the log sheet.

Use abbreviations and shortcuts.

Show people by their initials.

Indicate interruptions with a big “X”. For incoming phone calls, use a letter “C” with an arrow pointing to the “C” and an arrow pointing away from it for your outgoing calls.

Each day go over the following points. Every time you shift your attention - log it. Be specific. If you note a ten minute block as “Phone calls” you will not be able to tell if they were necessary or time wasters.

Record Everything Do not skip over socialising, brief interruptions because they seem minor.

You are trying to determine how much of your Total time is frittered away in such “minor” activities. Log your time As You Go.

Do not try to catch up at the end of the day.



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Interruption LogDATE___________

Priorities for evaluating logged interruptions.1 = Important and urgent 3 = Routine 2 = Important 4 = Wasted

CodeC = Phone call in or out. D = could be delegated X = Interruption

Time Activity Time used

Priority Comments



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Chapter 5Take a Break

Take a break and read this modern parable on leadership because leadership is one of the most important ingredients in the mix of strategies to improve productivity.

A Modern Parable On Leadership

A business owner once asked a wise man for help in improving an unprofitable business. The wise man wrote a charm on a piece of paper and sealed it in a box which he gave to the business owner. “Take this box to every worker in your business every day for a year,” he told him.

The business owner did so. In the morning he carried it into the store and asked the Stores Supervisor about the Quality Control on Inwards Goods.

Later, when he carried it into the production area he saw that the Production Manager was in his office reading the newspaper. They discussed the need to be visible on the factory floor.

During the afternoon he carried it into the Engineering Shop and found the Engineering Supervisor trying to balance his budget. He helped him by showing an easier way.

Every day, as he took the box around his business, he found things to discuss with the staff and help them to improve their performance.

At the end of the year he returned to the wise man. “Let me keep the magic charm for another year,” he begged. “My business has been a hundred times more profitable this year than ever before because my people are happy.”

The wise man smiled and he took the box, “I’ll give you the charm itself,” he said.

He broke the seal, lifted out the piece of paper and handed it to the business owner. On it was written: “You cannot be a leader by being invisible Your results are obtained through your People. By coaching your People, you are treating them with respect and allowing them to grow and develop. Constant personal communication with your People will help them to develop.”

Reflect on the message of the parable and compare yourself and your business.



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Chapter 6Twelve Common Symptoms of Productivity Problems

Consider these twelve symptoms of productivity problems. Ask yourself if they exist in your workplace. Once you have done that, work out how to remove the causes of these symptoms. It is probably best to start with the one that will have the greatest effect if it is fixed or reduced.

1) Variable QualityWhen quality is not consistent and predictable it is likely that it is a symptom of a productivity problem. Sometimes, this is linked to either a lack of training, or ineffective training. Other times it is due to variations in components or materials When the product quality is not consistent the amount of rework or rejects will climb and the situation will reduce profit as productivity declines.

2) Poor WorkflowPoor workflow shows itself through bottlenecks on one hand and a lack of work on the other. These two extremes contribute to low productivity because there is not a consistent flow of work. It is easy to see this in production lines but not so evident in administrative or service work. However, it exists frequently and is a major cause of lower profits. The best people to identify poor workflow situations and recommend solutions are the people doing the job.

3) High Rework and High Rejects.It is impossible to maximise profits when rework and reject levels are high. When the cost of labour is added to the cost of materials any product which has to be rejected or reworked represents a loss to the business. This is an area where it is extremely unprofitable to have a high tolerance for rejects and rework. The financial losses created through rework is considerable because of the lost opportunity to make a profit as well as the inevitable losses in material.

Any organisation should work hard to minimise these losses because this situation also contributes to low morale and frustration. Both of these demotivators reduce people productivity.

4) Machine and Equipment DowntimeProfits cannot be maximised when there is preventable machine and equipment downtime. Underlying causes could involve operator training, maintenance, poor leadership or that the machinery and equipment needs replacement. Constant breakdowns produce a powerful negative effect on the workforce. The constant stop/start alone reduces productivity because of interruptions to workflow. Again, another cause of low morale and frustration.



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5) Low Discretionary EffortDiscretionary Effort is that extra capacity that we all possess. Poor leadership will reduce our discretionary effort, whereas effective leadership will motivate us to produce our highest level of Discretionary Effort. Any strategy to increase discretionary effort should be considered and then installed.

Situations such as constant breakdowns and poor workflow will also have a negative effect on our discretionary effort because they are interruptions.

6) Lack of Clear Performance Expectations.Most people in the workplace often have no idea of what is expected of them. Discussions about performance expectations are rare and many employees are unaware of how their performance is measured.

7) Lack of FeedbackWe all need feedback because without it we have no idea of our progress towards standards. As human beings we need to know how we are getting along. When we are not told, we believe that we are doing a good job. For a variety of reasons, this is often not the case. The absence of feedback in the workplace makes the work pointless. We all need a constant supply of credible feedback and encouragement to keep us engaged in our work.

8) Lack of RecognitionMany managers believe that giving positive reinforcement to staff will encourage them to seek increases in pay. Other managers believe that giving positive reinforcement will give staff swollen heads and they will have an inflated belief of their value to the organisation. When people work and apply effort to their work they will often reduce their effort if they don’t receive any recognition for their efforts. When recognition or praise is missing in the workplace, it is a potent factor in severely reducing motivation and productivity.

9) Lack of MeasurementThis is closely linked to a lack of feedback. Public measurements of team or individual performances provide feedback, motivation, trends and results. If results are not measured and displayed they cannot be used as a leadership tool. Any changes cannot be evaluated unless there is measurement.

10) Unsafe Work EnvironmentAn unsafe work environment provides a powerful incentive not to be productive. It has a strong morale lowering effect as the employees believe that the organisation doesn’t care enough about them to keep them safe. This situation also has the effect of lowering productivity when people get injured at work



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because the incident will drain all discretionary effort for some time as people think, “That could have been me.”

11) A Lack of Performance StandardsThis is linked to Lack of Clear Performance Expectations. In all aspects of the workplace there should be a set of performance standards that are discussed with the staff and agreed on as a bare minimum. They should not be prescribed but rather set in a consultative fashion with agreed consequences for breaching them.

12) Poor Leadership.This is one of the keys to productivity. All organisations that have high levels of productivity share the common factor of better than average leadership at nearly every level. Poor leadership is the most common cause of low productivity and also one of the most difficult to fix. The problem lies in the fact that the development of good leadership skills takes time because it is not an easy process.

Yes, there are leadership programs but very rarely do they change behaviour in the workplace. Mostly, they are training events lasting two days and by their very nature cannot develop leadership skills. Most people require coaching on-the-job to develop their leadership ability. There are leadership adventure programs that feature abseiling, rock climbing and activities like kayaking, but there is little scientific evidence that they create a change in behaviour that leads to improved leadership skills back at work.

Management Responsibility for ProductivityEvery one of these twelve symptoms of productivity problems can be eliminated or improved by the people who are leaders within the business. It could be said that organisations don’t have productivity problems, they have leadership and management problems.

At first look, this may be a daunting list of things that need fixing or changing. The sound advice is to single out the most important and fix that one before moving on to the next.

All the solutions are included in this book.

Have a clear objectiveFirstly, it is necessary to set a clear objective with the person or people concerned. For example, if these principles are to be applied to a machine then the operator must be aware and agree to the objective.



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A typical objective may be, ”To keep the machine running for a total of seven hours per working day.” However, this could be expressed in the form of a percentage. “To run the machine for 85% of the working day.”

This objective can be illustrated as a straight line on a graph. The actual hours or percentages can be plotted on a daily basis by the operator. This sort of feedback shows the operator straight away how they are performing in relation to the mutual objective that has been agreed.

Keep the end in mindSecondly, the operator has to learn that every task which does not contribute to the objective has the result of preventing or delaying the achievement of the target. The best way to train the operator, is to work with them. Ask them what the consequences are if they perform a certain low priority task. Ask them if it is going to contribute to their objective of keeping the machine running. One of the most important lessons for them to learn is that, “lost time can not be caught up, it is lost for ever.”

Thinking aheadThirdly, the operator has to learn to think ahead. Generally speaking, thinking ahead for the next three or four tasks will be sufficient under normal circumstances. There will be occasions when it is necessary to plan may be five to eight tasks ahead. Whilst they are thinking ahead, they must remember their number one priority which is to keep the machine running.

Coaching on-the-jobWorking with the operator enables the trainer to ask questions rather than instruct or tell the person what to do. By constantly asking questions the operator will learn to think for themselves. If the trainer tells the operator what to do all the time, the operator will be unable to think for themselves and their performance will drop as soon as the trainer is not there. Think about asking questions that “ lead the person to discover.” When the trainer is not there, the operator can still go through the same thinking process.



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Chapter 7Plan to Succeed with your strategies and tactics

It is essential to plan your strategy and tactics prior to starting to improve your business productivity because it gives direction and something to modify if you need to change halfway through. If you write a plan, circulate the information so your team can have input to it if you. Again, including your team and allowing them to contribute to the plan will give them some psychological ownership of the success of the program.

Just remember, your program will be unsuccessful if you don’t win the co-operation of your team. Inclusion in the design of the program will contribute to the successful outcome.

Let us have a look at an actual program that was installed in a small engineering shop that specialised in jobbing work, mostly repairs to the heavy machinery. There were thirty three staff employed including five apprentices and two supervisors.

The first thing that the manager did, was to measure where they were and look for opportunities for improvement. Then he examined the business to find out what barriers existed to improving productivity.

When he analysed the current situation, he discovered that unplanned absences were running at about 13% of available time. Secondly, in spite of the heavy and consistent workload, chargeable hours averaged only 75% of the available hours.

Having discovered these opportunities, the manager decided to fix these first. Initially, he met with his staff and explained that he wanted to improve productivity with their help.

He said that attendance was not very good and that they couldn’t be productive if they were absent. He went on to say that the objective was not to work harder but smarter.

He asked if it was fair and reasonable to expect a better attendance and they all agreed. He said that he would be closely monitoring attendance in the future and that there would be some fairly simple ground rules installed in conjunction with the staff members.

At the next meeting with his staff the following day, he explained that these daily briefing meetings would become a regular feature of the business.



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Next, he looked at his own leadership qualities and the leadership qualities of his supervisors. He realised that he needed help in this area, so he enrolled on a practical leadership training course after considerable research.

He was looking for a course which was totally practical and included coaching on-the-job. He had been on other leadership courses but they only dealt with the theory and not the practical aspects of leadership.

Over the next three weeks, he went through the process of establishing mutual expectations with his team. When this was complete, everyone was aware of what was expected of them and how their jobs were measured.

There had been complete agreement by everyone that the expectations were “fair and reasonable.” At this stage, he noticed that the amount of chargeable hours was starting to climb and during the previous week had reached a level of 85% of available hours.

During the next morning meeting, he established some productivity goals and milestones with the supervisors and staff which included attendance and chargeable hours.

He got agreement from his team that they had the resources to achieve these goals and milestones and that the whole plan was flexible enough to be changed if necessary. He also got agreement from his team that they were in control of reaching the targets.

The manager mentioned that the chargeable hours had started to rise and congratulated the team on the effort.

Next, he negotiated with the staff to provide clear and meaningful feedback on progress. Each member of staff would keep a graph of their chargeable hours, on a daily basis. Each week they would get new graphs to plot their hours.

At the end of each week they would present their graphs to the group and explain what the week had been like. At the end of the month, the chargeable hours would be added up and put on a graph which included the whole workshop.

At this point, they would bring up any barriers or difficulties they had encountered and it was the manager’s job to ensure that these barriers or difficulties, where possible, did not occur in the future.

Starting from the present day a graph of the attendance records of individuals would be posted on the notice board.



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Productivity was measured by the input of their hours divided into the dollar value of work invoiced. This was also posted on the notice board in the form of a ratio so that casual observers would not be given confidential information.

This whole thing was backed up by discussion during the morning meetings so that the group was given feedback on progress towards milestones.

After the six weeks, the results were reviewed and the manager asked the team whether there were any changes which were necessary to maintain progress. No one could come up with any changes that would improve the situation and the consensus of opinion was that they continue as they were going.

The first milestone was to improve attendance and this was achieved during the first month. Instead of averaging 13% of available time, it dropped to 2%. As a result, the manager wrote to each member of staff thanking them for their contribution to a positive change.

Without doing much differently, chargeable hours had now climbed to 85%. The manager arranged for a catered lunch to be delivered for each member of staff on Friday. This is arranged on the Wednesday prior and the team were told.

The next step was to look at what had been achieved and to ask a question, “ If we had to do this again what would we do differently?” The team came up with quite a number of suggestions and most of them were related to how they could take more responsibility, not just for results, but for tasks that could be delegated. This was the major theme of this step.

The manager listened carefully and after the meeting had a session with his supervisors to discuss delegations. They all went away to think about it so they could come up with a plan to pass down more responsibility. The following morning they met again and formulated a plan which they presented to the team. The effect of this was that the level of trust was increased because the day after making some suggestions that team was presented with a draft plan.

The manager and the supervisors started on a series of internal training sessions so that more tasks could be delegated down the line.

At this stage, the team were approaching their end targets and the manager could not think of anything to reward the participants. Using his new-found skills acquired during the practical leadership program, he asked the team.

The answer he got surprised him, because he confessed that he wouldn't have thought of it. The consensus of the group was that a fitting reward for reaching



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the targets would be to finish at midday on a Friday so they could have half a day off and still be paid. They dismissed the idea of more money because they were pretty well paid anyway and they all held a free half-day holiday as being valuable. Once the targets have been met, the team asked what shall we try for next?

One of the supervisors said that in conversation with a couple of staff members they agreed that it had been easy and that there had been no extra hard work to achieve the result.



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Chapter 8Measure and record where you are.

This may sound obvious but this is not always done at the beginning of a productivity improvement process.

Whilst the outcome of this measurement may be distressing because of the low levels of productivity that are revealed, it is also an indicator of what improvement can be achieved. It is best to look at it from a positive point of view so that it becomes a motivator rather than a demotivator.

Productivity can be measured by individual machines or groups. The process of measurement remains the same.

outputProductivity = -----------

input

Make sure that your measurement period is over a reasonable time frame without any abnormal highs because of large continuous production runs or lows because of down time or an unusual run of rejects.

This initial measurement is your starting place. It is the point from where your business is moving. This starting point enables your business to progress and represents where you have reached.

At this time, it is wise to explain to your teams where you are an applaud the achievement to date.

At the time of measuring your current levels of productivity, it is wise to firmly establish exactly the levels of your fixed and variable operating costs.

This may create some surprises as well.

At this stage, you will have established your current levels of productivity and the level of your fixed and variable costs. You are now in a position to consider the potential difference to your net profit with a change in productivity.

Let’s use the following simple example and you can see how changes in your business productivity can positively affect your profit.



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Revenue

100

VARIABLE COSTSCost of making products or supplying services

50FIXED COSTS Cost of overheads

40PROFIT

10Now Increase Productivity by 10%

Revenue VARIABLE COSTSCost of making products or supplying services

FIXED COSTS Cost of overheads

PROFIT

When you raise productivity by 10%, you effectively produce 10% more with the same fixed costs. Variable costs may rise a little bit but they only seem to rise as a proportion of the increased productivity.

Yes, you got it right! If you increase productivity by 10% your revenue will rise by 10%. Your variable costs may rise by 5% taking them up to 55. Your fixed costs and your overheads will generally remain the same. This means that your profit will rise to 15, an increase of 50%!

Most businesses would really appreciate a 50% increase in profit.

This is a very simplistic view of the whole business equation, but at the least, it gives you some idea of the value of increasing productivity and the scope for increasing profits.



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Now you can see that increasing the productivity of your business by 10% produces great financial benefits and there may be scope to increase the productivity by much more.

Put your own figures in the equation and see the effect on your bottom line. This may provide powerful motivating forces for you to embark on a program to increase your productivity.

ExampleLet us use another example. You have a one chair men’s barbershop and there always seem to be people waiting for a haircut.

Your net profit is 15% of revenue.

Over the year you average twenty haircuts every working day.

Your shop is open 235 days every year.

You make a conscious decision to use electric clippers more than scissors.

After some experimentation you find that instead of twenty haircuts a day you start to average twenty-one haircuts a day. (An increase of 5%)

Using this simple example, here is the result.

Before The Change

Revenue

100



30PROFIT

15



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After The Change

Revenue

105



30PROFIT

20As you can see, the revenue has increased from 100 to 105 (5%). The costs have remained the same although there may be some small increase in variable costs because of maintenance on the clippers. However, the big change has come in profit. It has risen from 15 to 20, an increase of 33%.

I don’t think the barber would have worked any harder but his bank balance would have certainly improved.

Using this example, you can see that for a small increase in productivity (5%) there is a substantial increase in net profit (33%). This is an example of the power of productivity to positively affect your bottom line.

Any business that is serious about making more profit should consider how to improve their “People Productivity.”



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Chapter 9Evaluate your Leadership Resources and Capabilities.

In most work places there is a well defined initial level of authority, the first line leader. Many of these people have received little training to fulfil what is generally regarded as one of the most critical jobs in the working environment. The leader is not only responsible for their own behaviour but also the behaviour of others.

Their own high performance is normally the prime criterion for selecting them for promotion. Which is similar to saying that the best player is the best coach. We are dealing with two unrelated skills in this situation. One, the skill in doing the job and two, the skill in leadership.

Nothing has prepared them for the difficult task of getting the very best from other people. To cope with this situation they may adopt the style of their previous supervisor or copy the style of the manager.

It is unlikely that copying other people will help them to be successful because their staff will quickly realise that the person is playing a rôle and not being their authentic self.

However, given a lack of training and coaching, the most common style which prevails is the adversarial one. A win/lose mentality. “I am in charge and you will do as I say.” This causes a negative effect on the individuals and the organisation as well as having far-reaching effects on quality, safety and production.

In reality, not much has changed between some leadership cultures found in some business today and slavery. Since the time of the galley slave system, great technological changes have taken place in our society, yet our human relations skills seem to be as primitive as ever.

True, the physical working conditions in today’s organisations are better than those on the galley, and the management techniques more subtle, yet the whip is still there. You’ll still hear the term “slave driver” used when referring to leaders seemingly indifferent to the needs of their employees. The use of reward and punishment to get people to do their job is still standard operating procedure.

In many organisations, even the modern concept of “empowerment” is another form of manipulation to get employees to do what management want them to do.



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The waste of human talent inside today’s organisations is appalling. There is a tremendous drain of human resources and capabilities. Some people get fed up and leave, while others decide to stay physically but have resigned mentally. Many do just what’s needed to get by, and still others simply mark the days until the weekend, their Christmas holidays, or their retirement. In many organisations, this situation is simply accepted as “That’s just the way it is, and it won’t ever change” or “That’s just the nature of human beings; you can’t hire and keep qualified staff anymore.”

The products of the win/lose mentality creates an incredible waste in many organisations, but, it also points to a huge opportunity. Imagine an organisation that suffers from this state of affairs and enjoys a modest success in today’s marketplace.

What latent ability could be released with a change to a win/win method of leadership? The untapped resources are tremendous. Have we forgotten that all organisations obtain their results through the efforts of people?

It requires well developed leadership skills to bring out the best in people. Unfortunately, businesses fail to make the connection between effective leadership and productivity.

This leads to all sorts of attempts to increase productivity and profits whilst ignoring what is a fairly obvious strategy of increasing leadership skills within the organisation.

It is puzzling why more businesses don’t make the link between improved leadership skills and improved productivity.

Improved Leadership and ProductivityOne business that capitalised on the link between improved leadership and improved productivity was a large shoe manufacture. They decided that anyone in a leadership position should be properly trained.

Accordingly, they set up a practical leadership skills training programme which was conducted inside the organisation. All the participants were coached in leadership skills on-the-job to make the whole program relevant.

It didn’t take long before the improved leadership skills created a 40% increase in productivity.

They invited to senior managers from a competitor to visit their manufacturing facility. The visitors were surprised to find the premises old and dingy, with



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obsolete equipment and machinery. They found that the management systems were unsophisticated and primitive.

This company devoted their efforts to building a strong leadership base and this more than compensated for the deficiencies in the plant, equipment and systems.

However, the productivity was considerably higher than their competitors who had the up-to-date facilities and the more modern machinery.

This forward thinking business had realised that improved leadership skills could overcome all sorts of other workplace deficiencies. They have also reaped the reward by investing in their staff and as you can imagine, the return on the training investment was substantial.

This clearly illustrates the rôle that good leadership plays in improving productivity. This business made a wise choice in selecting a training organisation to carry out the leadership training.

They knew that you cannot teach leadership in a class room or a training room. Leadership is a practical skill and does not translate well with academic methods to changes in behaviour at work.

Leadership is learned on the job and is best developed through guided practice through coaching. The best training is spread over several months complete with follow up coaching in the person’s workplace.

Small groups may seem to be extravagant but most learning will take place when there is plenty of engagement and discuss.

Once the group size is greater than ten, learning and retention seems to drop off, making the training poor value. If there is no change in behaviour as a result of training, the training could be a total waste of money.

Again, the key to improved productivity, is leadership. The solution is this. Improve the leadership, improve the productivity and this will result in improved profit.



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Leadership QuestionnaireFill out the following questionnaire and discover which part of your leadership skills need a tune up. Be honest with yourself.

• Please indicate the extent to which each of the following statements apply to you.

• Think about the statement and rate yourself according to the five-point scale below.

• You can always give this questionnaire to others to gain their perception of your leadership ability.

5 = Always.4 = Often.3 = Sometimes.2 = Rarely.1 = Never.



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Leadership Questionnaire

1 I always listen carefully to others. 1 2 3 4 5

2 I always give people responsibility for tasks and projects. 1 2 3 4 5

3 I always challenge the rules and standards of the business. 1 2 3 4 5

4 I have a clear vision for the team which I communicate. 1 2 3 4 5

5 I have clear understanding of my strengths and weaknesses. 1 2 3 4 5

6 I always encourage ideas from the team. 1 2 3 4 5

7 I always demonstrate my trust in others. 1 2 3 4 5

8 I always anticipate and adapt to changing conditions. 1 2 3 4 5

9 I always understand the effect I have on other people. 1 2 3 4 5

10 I always keep up-to-date and develop new skills as often as possible. 1 2 3 4 5

11 I always try to motivate and encourage others. 1 2 3 4 5

12 I always provide training to enable people to work effectively. 1 2 3 4 5

13 I always help others to manage change. 1 2 3 4 5

14 I always demonstrate a high level of commitment to my work. 1 2 3 4 5

15 I manage my priorities well. 1 2 3 4 5

16 I have developed a communication network within the business. 1 2 3 4 5

17 I always provide support for people when needed. 1 2 3 4 5

18 I always manage my stress levels well. 1 2 3 4 5

19 I always focus on achieving results. 1 2 3 4 5

20 I always have a positive feeling towards myself. 1 2 3 4 5

Total ________



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Results of another informal and not very scientific survey.

Less than 30Oh dear! Ask yourself if you should be in a leadership position. If you decide to remain in a leadership job, the road ahead is steep and very hard work. You will have to work hard to become a competent leader.

Start by learning and practicing Emotional Intelligence. Get a trusted member of staff to rate you using this assessment to make sure that you have not been too severe on yourself.

Go back and re-assess your rating.

31 to 60All is not lost. You have a basis to work from. Again, there are clear opportunities to increase your leadership skills with only a few changes. Start to develop a greater skill level in all those things where you rated yourself at 1, 2, or 3.

Focus on learning more about Emotional Intelligence and rate yourself again in six months. Keep learning and never stop.

61 to 80Your leadership is looking good. Work on those areas where you rated yourself at three or less. You are well on the way to becoming a competent leader, however, there are areas for improvement.

Over 81Well done! Train your replacement. Pass on your skill to other members of your team because you are obviously destined for higher things.

Go back and re-assess your rating.

Get a trusted member of staff to rate you using this assessment to make sure that you have not been too generous to yourself.

How to use your results.

Use this assessment for direction in personal change.Look at your scores—select all the questions where you scored less than three. One by one, starting with the lowest score, install personal changes to lift yourranking. In six month’s time, fill in the assessment again.



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Lethal LeadershipThe late Gordon Lippitt, professor at George Brown University, after studying the subject of leadership for years, concluded:“Leadership is the worst defined, least understood, personal attribute sometimes possessed by human beings.”

Lethal Leadership Effective LeadershipStaff are seen as malleable, controllable, and expendable commodity by the leader

Leader tells staff what to do and how to do it.

Leader employs strategies including veiled threats to increase production,.

Leader puts production first above quality and safety. Encourages the use of “short cuts.”

The leader considers training a waste of time which causes production delays.

The leader frequently shows that it is necessary to punish people by making them lose.

Staff are seen as self-directing, capable of assuming responsibility for their own decisions. The leader understands that results are obtained through people.

Leader discusses ways of reaching objectives set with the staff.

Staff set their own realistic production targets with the leader to meet needs of customers.

Leader puts staff first understanding that staff health is necessary for business health and that “short cuts” normally turn out to be “long cuts.”

Leader understands that training is a vital on-going process. Leader realizes that it is more effective to train and make less mistakes than it is to fix errors.

The leader understands clearly that encouragement and respect for the individual will help people to do their very best.

As you can see this point by point contrast reflects a dramatic shift in thinking about leader/staff relationships.

Is the leadership in your organisation lethal?



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Chapter 10Set mutually agreed expectations.

Performance Expectations.We live in a world of expectations. People have expectations of us, we have expectations of them and we have expectations of ourselves. Normally, we have higher expectations of our performance than the expectations held by others. This is part of human nature.

In the work environment, there are all sorts of expectations, however, they are not always discussed. These expectations are only voiced when they are not met. This situation is extremely common. How can people meet expectations if they don’t know what they are and have had no input to them?

Expectations that are not discussed create a very difficult situation in the workplace. They only become known when they are not met. At this stage, emotion starts to creep into the situation closely followed by resentment. You must have heard some say at one stage, “But I didn't know I was supposed to do that.”

The amount of frustration this causes is unbelievable. On one hand we have a leader who has clear expectations and has not communicated them and will be frustrated when his people do not perform. On the other hand we have a staff member who is doing their best and failing because they didn't have the necessary direction.

This is clearly a recipe for resentment and a lack of cooperation. Not the ideal environment if you want to build increased productivity.

If people do not know what is expected of them, how can they perform to the desired standard? Successful leaders always share their expectations with their people so that they can work towards them.

What would happen if our people have unrealistic expectations of us as leaders? What if we have unrealistic expectations of our people? If you look closely at some of the problems in the workplace, you can often trace the basic cause of the problem to a lack of real understanding of expectations.

It is vital to comprehend that it is the quality of the relationships which determines the ability of the team to work together or work apart.



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Too often, the team does not function well because the leader has not discussed expectations with his or her team. A failure to discuss expectations will have a profoundly negative effect on individuals and teams.

We know that our expectations of our own performance are often greater than the expectations others have of our performance. When you think about this from a leadership perspective, the best people to set their own targets, KPI’s or performance objectives should be the people doing the job.

If this provokes you to say, “but they will set low targets,” try it. You will be pleasantly surprised when they set targets which are not easy and higher than yours would have been.

To summarise: the failure to set mutual expectations will severely hamper any attempts to improve productivity. It could be said that it is a clear requirement prior to any strategies and tactics designed to lift productivity.

How to Set Expectations.How can you create and develop a mutual understanding of expectations? After all, expectations change because we live in a changing world.To start to introduce the concept of setting expectations, it is suggested that the following be carried out in the sequence shown.There is a very important reason why you must ask for the expectations of your team first. The reason is that once you have completed that exercise, you have permission to give them your expectations and they will be much more receptive.

FirstlyMeet with your team, either as individuals or as a team and ask them what their expectations are of you in your rôle as the leader. Make note of these expectations. Let them see you making notes so that they understand you are listening and taking their expectations seriously. Carefully consider if you are able to meet them.

If you are, communicate this to your team but remind them that part of their responsibility is to let you know if your performance is dropping below these agreed expectations. If you believe that you are unable to meet any of these expectations let your team know and give them clear reasons. In some cases, it may be possible to negotiate these expectations.

Imagine what it would be like if your team had unrealistic expectations of your performance as a leader and your performance was below what they expected. What sort of effect would this have on their productivity, quality, co-operation and safety?



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SecondlyMeet with your team members, either individually or as a group and let them know your expectations of their performance. It is best that this second meeting is separated from the first. It may seem more efficient to combine these two meetings but experience has shown that the effectiveness is reduced.

Discuss any expectations which they believe cannot be met. It may be that the group or the individual will gradually move towards the more challenging expectations over a period of time.

This is a vital part of the exercise. Here you are using a deep human desire to be consistent. Once someone has said something, particularly in public, they are more likely to comply with their verbal statement.

So if you ask, “Is this fair and reasonable?” and you get an affirmative answer, there is a very strong likelihood that the person will comply. If, on the other hand, the person does not believe that your expectation is either fair or reasonable, it is unlikely that they will do it anyway.

Imagine the outcome if your expectations of your team were unrealistic. How much resentment would be caused? Think about the negative effect on those key areas of output, quality and safety.

Consider the fact that you are judged on the performance of your team and you obtain your results through other people.

Point out to your team that these expectations are current and may change in the future because of changing circumstances.

ThirdlyUse every opportunity to discuss these mutual expectations and modify them if necessary. Make discussions about expectations part of the normal currency of conversation in the workplace. This enables you as a leader to give positive reinforcement to changes in productivity, quality and safety. You are now in a position to link performance to expectations.

If you look carefully at poor relationships between leaders and their teams, you can normally trace it back to gaps between expectations and behaviour. This is further confirmed by examining the relationships between effective leaders and their teams.

The relationships are clearly based on mutually understood and respected expectations. When you are in a leadership position there will be times when the



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agreed performance does not occur. You can only deal with this performance issue if there are some agreed expectations.

Think about it. You have a person who develops a habit of poor time keeping. Unless you have some agreed on performance expectations, you cannot do much about the late arrival except to say, “get to work on time.”

Normally what happens is that you gradually lose patience because you believe the problem will right itself. Then one day you finally get so frustrated you tell the person.

Because emotion plays a large part in driving your behaviour at this time, your approach may be aggressive or even rude. The person to whom you are speaking may resent you.

This will not get the appropriate change in performance.

This undesirable behaviour may cease and be replaced with another even less desirable behaviour. The person may get to work on time and do no work and stop other people from working.

Pot holesThe best example I can give is that of a pot hole. We know that a small pot hole will become a big pot hole if it is not repaired. A small pot hole is easily filled in. It doesn’t require much time, labour or materials. If we ignore it, we will be forced to fill it in when it is large. This will require more time, labour and materials. This is exactly the same with a people problem.

If we don’t deal with the people problem when it is first noticed, it will grow until it involves lots of other people, considerable time, increased cost or losses and have a negative effect on all the people around.

Effective leaders deal with the problems when they are small and fix them properly. Ineffective leaders let the problems grow to enormous proportions and then panic making the problem worse. Sometimes the relationships are totally destroyed and can never be repaired



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Chapter 11Set targets and milestones

Setting targets is a vital part of the whole process of increasing productivity. It is also the exercise where most people go wrong. They set a quite arbitrary level of performance without any consultation with the people concerned. Then they impose this target on the very people who make the money for the business and wonder why this approach doesn’t work.

Why Set Targets?Setting targets is a key leadership process which should be undertaken by everybody responsible for productivity improvement. In other words, the whole team led by the leader. The development and monitoring of targets is an integral part of planning.

Targets are important. Targets give direction. They provide a common goal for everybody in the business. Targets help us clearly focus on what is important. They are a great help for front-line managers and supervisors to focus effort and resources on priorities.

Effective targets need to be realistic but also challenging. They should always encourage improved performance and motivate people because there is a probability of success. Targets that are too easy can sometimes create complacency. Targets that are too hard suck out the will to succeed and do little to create an environment for positive change.

When setting targets with your team, it is vitally important that they are able to have some effect by virtue of their performance on the target. Too often, the targets are outside the control of the individuals or the team. This creates a debilitating effect, it is extremely discouraging and can cause long term damage to the business.

Targets give a vision for the future. They provide a clear benchmark that puts current performance in perspective. Productivity targets make it clear to staff what they should be doing.

Productivity Targets can be:-Time-bound targets.---by the end of this financial year we will double current productivity levels.

Percentage achievement targets.---our target will be to continuously raise our productivity levels by 10% each year for the next three years.



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When setting targets it is important to consider:• How the results are going to be communicated to the people who need to

know about them• When they will be communicated.• Exactly what is going to be communicated.

The starting point for effective target setting is knowing exactly where you are now and where you should be in the future. Everybody should be involved in setting the future target. The reason for this is that involvement will create commitment. There is little point in the leader alone setting the target because this may bring resentment, discouragement and indifference.

Questions worthwhile asking during the target setting process are as follows. • What is the starting point?• What are we trying to achieve?• What sort of improvement is possible?• What issues are likely to affect our performance to the productivity target?• Is it achievable with our current resources?• Is that target sufficiently challenging?• What are the barriers to achieving the target?• Have the team members contributed to the setting of the productivity

target?

The rules for setting productivity targets are quite simple. Firstly, they should be easily understood so that each member of staff can understand the link between target and their responsibility for improvement. Secondly, they should have the commitment of everyone. Thirdly, they should be demanding.Fourthly, they should be flexible so that they can be reviewed if necessary.

Break down the target to easily manageable steps. These are the milestones that are worthy of celebration when they are reached.

For example, if the target is to reduce re-work down to 20 percent of the current level and all the other conditions mentioned above have been met, milestones may be set at every 10 percent reduction. This may be a lunch or a few beers after work, whatever is appropriate.

If the team agrees, a review of the target should take place every time a milestone is reached and celebrated.



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Chapter 12Provide Clear and Meaningful Feedback on Progress.

The results you want and the behaviours you need to get them are important elements in the principle of effective feedback. Measurement tells you how much of each you are getting. Once you have those two performance management elements in place you are ready to turn that information into feedback. The term feedback is not to be confused with general information or data.

Feedback is information about performance that allows an individual or group to adjust their performance. Feedback shows a performer or group of performers where current performance is in relation to past performance and in relation to the goal.

Without feedback there is no learning. You can’t learn any skill without feedback. (You can’t learn to talk, walk, write, ride a bicycle, or learn to play a musical instrument without feedback.)

Learning requires specific information about how your behaviour is affecting your performance.

When you think about it, everything you have ever learned in your lifetime has had two elements. Repetition and feedback. Now these two elements are not things which are very attractive from an academic point of view. However, from a practical sense they work just fine.

In our everyday lives, we take feedback for granted. Our senses constantly provide us with information that helps us adjust our behaviour in order to climb a ladder, saw a piece of wood, file a nail, fill a cup with tea, or make a phone call. Although much of the feedback we experience is built into our daily life and routines.

Our potential is often stifled because at work we normally don’t get the necessary feedback.

Ordinary performance data alone does not necessarily tell you what to do to improve performance. A soccer player who sees the ball fly off the side of his boot over the side line certainly has feedback about performance, but may not have the slightest idea what he or she did wrong. To this player the feedback is not helpful, it’s punishing because there are no reasons.

Because there are many things that cause a soccer ball to fly sideways, to the novice player simply observing the ball flying off in the wrong direction is not helpful to his or her game.



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Similar situations exist in businesses, where nobody is given critical information that could enable them to change their methods or performance.

Performance feedback, by behavioural definition, is specific information or data about performance that will allow you to change your performance.

If you have a job processing requests for quotations, for example, there is nothing in the job that automatically causes you to adjust the pace or the accuracy of your work. When there is no naturally occurring feedback, some mechanism must be developed by which this kind of information is generated and presented to the performer. Performers need to know how they are doing, if they should pick up the pace, slow down, be more precise.

How do they know how they are getting along?The sad fact is that most employees do not receive or have access to the feedback they need to alter their performance.

Feedback deficiencies are a major contributor to virtually all problems of low performance, yet most organisations today have no real system for providing performance feedback to their employees.

Even those businesses which are now sharing production figures or quality indicators with employees are typically providing information, not feedback.

This kind of information gives performers only a vague idea of how they are doing. It has little impact on their job performance. With effective feedback, improvements in productivity ranging from 20 to 50 percent aren’t unusual.

Feedback Doesn’t Always Improve PerformanceOnce again, it must be pointed out that feedback is very important, but alone will not maintain behaviour change. In a large number of documented cases, performance has doubled in a short period of time following the introduction of performance feedback.

This causes many managers to think that feedback produces some kind of performance magic. However, they are often disappointed when several weeks or even days later the performance drops to pre-feedback levels.

Feedback tells the performer what needs to change in his or her performance. How the performers choose to respond to that information or data depends on the consequences they experience, have experienced, or expect to experience.



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It is possible for some performers, feedback could be information to limit their performance. They may be afraid they will run out of work and lose their jobs.

Improving performance is an occasion for positive reinforcement. Feedback is an excellent opportunity for the performer and the manager to know when positive reinforcement is due.

The reinforcement for the behaviour that is associated with the feedback sustains the performance improvement.

Feedback in GraphsFeedback is probably best defined as any information about performance that will allow you to change that performance.

Graphed data has many advantages over charts, text, or data presented verbally.

Graphs show you at a glance where you are in relation to where you have been and where you are going.

Graphed data allows you to see performance trends earlier, permitting a more timely response to potential problems and more immediate positive reinforcement.

Feedback IntervalThe rule is clear. The more immediate the feedback, the more effective it is.

Obviously, immediate feedback on performance is preferred. With immediate and frequent feedback people learn more quickly because they are provided more opportunities for reinforcement than less frequent, more delayed feedback would allow.

The most effective time to give feedback is whilst the person is actually doing the job. This is why the business described in the parable on page 17 became so successful.

Many managers and supervisors say that it’s impossible to provide immediate feedback. The question to ask in such circumstances is, “Then what is the shortest practical interval?” Hourly feedback is better than daily, and daily feedback is preferable to weekly feedback.

The skilled leader will ensure that he or she is constantly around the employees so he or she can give them positive reinforcement. As well as coaching them to higher performance.



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Feedback delivered less often than weekly is better than nothing, but not much better. Monthly feedback is much too delayed to have any significant impact on performance. After all, monthly feedback only provides eleven opportunities a year to reinforce or correct performance.

Daily feedback is the most common feedback interval in most applications. Daily feedback is possible on more jobs than you might imagine. Employees on production jobs, office jobs, and even creative jobs such as software development can easily arrange a system for daily feedback. Once again, this is referring to graphic feedback. Using graphs makes frequent feedback possible.

12 Intelligent Reasons For Giving Team Talksor “How to Be a Good Leader”

Giving team talk is a productivity tool. It is much better for everyone to be working in the same direction and aiming for the same goal.

1) There are many messages you as a Leader need to give to your staff. These may be about operational issues, such as, equipment, overtime, safety, quality or work planned for the future.

2) Team talks are a Leadership tool. You will get a better response from your people if you give team talks on a regular basis.

3) People work better together when they operate as a team. Their discretionary effort increases. They make fewer mistakes. They enjoy their work.

4) You appreciate being treated as part of a team. So do your people.

5) If people feel neglected or un-informed about their workplace, they become de-motivated.

6) When Leaders keep their people informed, they send an important message to all their staff, “I think you are a vital member of my team.”

7) The effectiveness of a Leader is measured by their ability to communicate.

8) Team talks can be used effectively in planning and organising work. They are a productivity tool.



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9) The Leaders are key communicators for their group. They have the closest and most frequent contact with their teams. Team talks promote a co-operative environment.

10) When people know what is expected of them as a group, they respond well. On the other hand if they are not aware of what is expected of them as a group they can only work as individuals.

11) Communication is shared understanding. The more often the message is given, the more certain we can be that the message is not only understood but also retained.

12) A failure to talk to your staff as a group will guarantee that undesirable incidents such as low productivity, rework, poor quality and accidents will be repeated again and again.

Individual versus Group FeedbackIndividual feedback is more effective than group feedback especially in small and medium sized enterprises. When you have individual feedback, you should graph group performance as well. This provides increased opportunities for reinforcement for the individuals in the group while increasing reinforcement opportunities for co-operation and other teamwork behaviours.

By conducting team talks on a regular basis you are able to give them up-to-the-minute information and feedback.

Public or Private Feedback.Group performance is best put on a notice board where everyone can see it. Individual feedback is best given privately. We encourage individuals to keep a graph of their performance and show it to their supervisors daily. This gives the supervisor the opportunity to reinforce, if appropriate, and offer help if needed. This is a powerful way to maximize performance.

Supervisors should keep individual performance data private. However, due to the competitive nature of humans everyone wants to know how they compare with others. We suggest that the team be encouraged to share information among themselves.

Feedback and ReinforcementFeedback and positive reinforcement form the most powerful combination of techniques you can use to bring out the best in people. To have effective feedback, it must be timely, relevant, positive and encouraging. Then combine feedback and reinforcement and you will have the right mix to maximise performance.



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To be most effective, feedback must be established for positive reinforcement. Although feedback is not a natural reinforcer, when performers know that positive reinforcement is consistently paired with improved performance, simply watching the graphed data move in the right direction can become a source of considerable reinforcement.

Here is a simple graph completed by the operator daily after reading the run time figures from the machine.

Production Run Time Vern D Operator

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Ho

urs



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Chapter 13Leadership Behaviour is one of the Keys to Improving

Productivity

In 1993 and 2002 McKinsey produced two reports in productivity which revealed some interesting information.

The principle findings of the 1993 study that examined productivity in the US, Germany and Japan in nine different industries were as follows:-There were large differences in productivity at the industry level but this was not the result of differences in capital employed.

Manufacturing productivity could be significantly improved by adopting “best practice” processes. (This is the process of researching other businesses to discover the most effective practices and incorporating them into your business)

The most interesting discovery was that leadership behaviour had the greatest effect on determining productivity levels.

The 2002 study focused on UK manufacturing and discovered that “leadership practice” was the key to improved performance.

The researchers also found that the high performers used a common set of techniques.

Firstly, the high productivity performers installed systems to minimise all waste in the manufacturing process.

Secondly, they took a complete view of the production system design and demonstrated continuing commitment to waste minimisation.

Thirdly, they set relevant performance management goals at plant level for each manager and monitored their performance against these goals with some incentives for achievement.

Fourthly, each high productivity performer attracted, developed and retained high-calibre staff.

Fifthly, the study found a direct link between manufacturing leadership practice and financial performance. This direct link was the result of the application of the above four points.

The effects of improving productivity are profoundly beneficial to the business. Not only does an increase in productivity improve profit, but also it increases the



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value of the business. These two reports find that the key to improving productivity lies clearly in the hands of the leaders.

Every business that wants to increase productivity should focus on developing the skills of the leaders so that they can apply practical techniques that will ensure improvement. There are training programs to improve productivity but most of them emphasise the theoretical side and not the practical side.

Furthermore, there is no follow-up in the workplace to help translate the “knowing” into the “doing” and as such, have limited value.

One of the most significant barriers to higher productivity is the lack of adequate planning and scheduling. This is a clear managerial responsibility and one which is often neglected or poorly performed. It is almost impossible to improve productivity if you don’t plan for it.

To lead other people successfully, you must understand what sort of person you are and how other people see you. If you don’t, your motives are likely to be misinterpreted and your messages misunderstood.

Imagine a workplace where your people do what you want them to, not because you told them to, but because they wanted to.

This process should include an appreciation of your own significant strengthsand weaknesses, and a pragmatic assessment of any changes you need to make to become a more effective leader.

Therefore, the first rule of leadership is to know yourself and understand how people see you.

What about you, the reader? What are your leadership skills like? Try this.

Consider the following principles of good leadership practice. Read them carefully, think through their implications, then ask yourself how many of them you break, and how often.

• Accept that YOU are the one person you can actually change. Other people can only be shown the possibilities, and given a helping hand.

• If you haven’t got enough time, blame yourself.

• Respect other people’s views and allow them to be different from you. You might be wrong.



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• Don’t select people because they remind you of yourself. Cloning limits the options of the team.

• Never assume that they heard what you said - or that you understood what they really meant.

• Catch people doing things well every day - and praise them.

• Applaud mistakes. Share them. Discuss how to prevent them in the future..

• Before trying to persuade anyone of anything, first convince yourself.

• Make it easy for people to give you what you want.

• Admit your own mistakes and then share them with as many people as possible so that they can learn the lesson without the cost.

• Learn to use the following phrases, “I was wrong.” “I am sorry.” “I need your help.” People will respect you a lot more.

• Don’t live in the past - it wasn’t like you remember, and it’s never coming back.

Don’t be surprised if this exercise makes you uneasy. Some of the principles may strike you as unrealistic or even unfair.

In most workplaces, the average employee has no clear knowledge of what is expected of them and consequently does not perform to the desired level. It is clearly a leadership responsibility to ensure that every single member of staff has a clear understanding of what constitutes a good day’s work.

We have found that people perform well and to expectations if they know the level of performance that is required. It may be machine hours uptime, percentage of chargeable hours, items produced, problems fixed, or even changes installed.

The Leader as a CoachIt is becoming increasingly clear that the job of the leader is changing to meet the ever changing demands of business. One of the areas where change is taking place, is in the area of coaching.



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Most managers in leadership positions have little or no experience in coaching and yet this is the way that significant changes can be introduced into the workplace. There are certain principles of coaching which are necessary to be applied for success.

It can be extremely difficult to change behaviour in the workplace but with a little careful thought and a degree of persistence, it can be achieved.

Little and oftenBecause we learn by small increments, it is best to work with the operator for no more than 45 minutes at a stretch. At the beginning of each session review what has been discovered by the operator since the last session. The repetition is vital to the learning process.

Positive feedbackPositive feedback is the other ingredient that is often left out of the coaching process. When the operator is able to explain what they have learned and what they have done it is the perfect opportunity to give them positive feedback. It is important to recognise and praise any change in behaviour that is going to assist in reaching the prime objective of increasing the amount of time the machine is running.

Changing habitsYou are trying to change the ingrained habits of the operator developed over many years through constant repetition. Think about how hard it is to change our own behaviour and keep reminding yourself that you are creating an environment so that someone else can change their behaviour. It has been said that you need to do something at least five times before it becomes a habit.

Getting it wrong.The idea is that you coach the person to be successful the first time. Your job is to prevent them from making mistakes. However, sooner or later they are going to get it wrong. Your responsibility as a coach is then to ask questions such as, ”If you were going to do this job again what would you do it differently?” Then listen very carefully to the answer. The next question to ask is, “How are you going to prevent this happening again in the future?” The final question is, “Who are we going to tell about this so that they can learn from your experience?”

The next stage is to analyse the mistake, the prevention strategy and then share it with the team. This may cause embarrassment at first, but as time goes by the team will appreciate this novel and effective way of learning to improve their own performance.



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To start off this process of learning from mistakes, use your own mistakes as an example. In other words, model the behaviour that you would want in others.

It could be that you draw on your experience making mistakes or use a fresh and current example. The more current, the more effect it will have on your team. Re-work is always a good one to start with.

The subject of coaching is far too large for this book. Anyone in a leadership position should learn to develop the ability to coach so that they can help their team to perform at a higher level. It is an essential skill for the progressive leader.



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Chapter 14Increasing Productivity through People.

The objective is to improve productivity. This is an important objective and it must be understood the context in which this has to take place. The workforce and workplace are changing in dramatic ways. These changes have been taking place at an increasing rate.

To cope with these changes, we need a greater range of solutions to create environments where people can do their very best. As someone once said, yesterday solutions won't solve today's situations.

Workforce• We have an ageing workforce.• Younger employees are more family and leisure orientated.• There are greater numbers of solo parents.• The workforce is more ethnically diverse.• The numbers of women in the workforce have increased.• The literacy levels of school leavers has decreased.• There is a larger number of two income families.

These sorts of changes in the workforce have created a situation where it is absolutely vital to take a much wider approach to employment. The pressures on our employees outside work, have increased dramatically and have to be taken into account.

Workplace• There is more job insecurity.• Jobs for life have gone.• The economy is global.• Technology has changed and is continuing to change quicker than ever.• The economy is moving towards a knowledge-based and service

economy.• Jobs have become more demanding.• Expectations of performance have risen.

Basically, these changes in the workplace mean that the whole employment arena is much less predictable than before. This lack of predictability in itself, puts pressure on the employees and the employers equally.

The workplace and the workforce are both changing and will continue to change at an ever accelerating pace. Our ability to increase productivity is under threat from all these changes because of the inherent instability that they cause.



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The successful businesses of the future will not be the largest or the strongest, but the ones that are best able to adapt to change.

The Productive WorkplaceWe are trying to improve productivity against this backdrop of changes. The effective workplace is characterised by employees that are engaged, committed, and satisfied with their jobs. This helps the employer because they produce better work when they are satisfied. It also helps the employees because they become more effective at work and achieve a better quality of life.

Some of the factors that contribute to a greater level of employee satisfaction are as follows:-

• More responsibility.• More accountability.• More involvement in decision-making.• More flexible workplace.• More learning opportunities to develop work skills.• Personal development to reach potential.• A greater trust in managers.

People are first in the Productive Workplace.It is people that have a critical influence over the profit and loss of a business. Their productivity can make the difference between average and excellent. This means that they are the key to increasing profits. However, we have all heard the cliché that the staff are the employers’ greatest asset but they are treated like the greatest cost.

In the Productive Workplace the whole person is considered, their work life and their personal life. In smaller businesses they are starting to provide some of the fringe benefits normally found in larger enterprises.

These sorts of benefits which were only available to the senior managers are now being offered to their lower-wage employees. This is showing that they view the investment as valuable for improving recruitment, productivity, and staff retention.

This change in approach to employment will ultimately have a positive effect on the workforce. However, there has to be an increase in productivity to pay for these benefits.Research has revealed that there are several positive factors in the creation of the Productive Workplace that affect the whole person. They are as follows:-

• A work/life culture that is more supportive of family and personal life.• A more flexible workplace.



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• Managerial support to manage work and personal life.

The subject of a more flexible workplace is of significance because of the need to juggle the requirements of children, ageing parents in a two income family.

Having said this, the situation must be one which benefits not just the employee but also the employer. This is tough requirement because staffing levels are worked out carefully and there is often no extra staff capacity that can be applied to combat absences.

A possible answer is to incorporate flexibility as an important management strategy to achieve targets. Productivity can be improved along with recruitment and retention where there is effective workplace flexibility. The challenge to business leadership is how to meet this goal and reap the rewards.

Productivity is the key to just about everything when it comes to making a satisfactory profit in today’s business environment.

Years ago, incentive programs became especially popular as a technique to help employees think like managers. Incentives were originally designed to exploit the “what's in it for me” mindset many of us were born with.

Immediately following the installation of an incentive plan, however, many managers make the mistake of believing that they no longer have to lead.

This was a huge mistake!

Incentive plans are no substitute for established leadership techniques. But when incentive programs are combined with quality leadership activities, organizational productivity almost always rises, sometimes by unbelievable amounts.

The most frequently occurring productivity problem according to anecdotal reports is that many employees don’t have a clear understanding how their jobs are measured.

There are two basic reasons:

1. Management has never sat down with their employees and explained how their respective jobs are measured.

2. Management has never taken the time to determine the best ways to measure each job in the company.



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Whichever the case, if people don’t understand specifically what is expected of them in measurable terms, productivity normally suffers.

Preparing a position specification is an invaluable tool that helps alleviate both of these situations. The position specification clearly outlines the parameters of the job, what results are expected, how the job is measured and what behavioural style management believes will perform the job most effectively.

After employees have a good understanding of how their jobs are measured, it’s critically important to take the next step: it’s now time for managers to spend some quality time with each employee discussing ways to produce the desired outcome.

For example, one business designed an incentive plan that rewarded sales people for improving gross margin. What the manager forgot to do was to coach the salespeople on how to deal with pricing objections, sell related items or “up sell.”

Another business offered to pay an incentive if safety goals were achieved, but failed to educate the people on techniques to reduce accidents and injuries.

Yet another business offered to pay an incentive to employees who made suggestions for cost-cutting, but stopped short when no informal idea-sharing sessions were organized to give employees an opportunity to brainstorm ideas among themselves.

These are typical examples of businesses trying to buy the results without educating staff in the process to get the desired results. As you have probably guessed none of these initiatives were successful.

Most employees work hard now, so work ethic is not always the issue. The problem usually lies in a lack of understanding of specifically what to do differently to achieve more desirable results.

Try this: Whether you are launching a new productivity programme or you have an existing productivity programme that has been in place for a while, call a meeting for the specific purpose of discussing obstacles and barriers your people are encountering. Once these obstacles and barriers have been clearly identified show the group how to brainstorm solutions to overcome these obstacles.

Then a couple of weeks later, call another meeting to discuss how the solutions are working and if necessary modify them.



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Based on experience, these additional steps will greatly improve the odds that your productivity improvement programme will be a success and changes will develop in a positive manner.



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Chapter 15Demotivation, Disincentives and DiscouragementIn any organisation, it is sound business practice to reduce any preventable losses. This means for the same turn over and costs, profit is increased with all the attendant benefits to stakeholders.

One of the biggest preventable losses in most organisations is the lack of productive energy applied by the employees. It works like this. We have the choice to put in a certain level of effort into our work. This level may be high or low depending on circumstances.

We have the option to use all our effort or withdraw some or all of it. When we start a new job, we use it all. After a while, the use of this contribution diminishes because of what happens to us.

The most common thing to occur is that our use of this extra contribution is ignored. There is no feedback or positive reinforcement. In addition, we might be told by our peers to, “Slow down!” Because this new standard of performance is a causing some embarrassment and disturbing the history of mediocrity.

Over a period of time this can diminish to a level normally set by the group in which we work. If our effort drops too far, we may be counselled and even dismissed if we do not increase our productive effort.

The amount of contribution we use is a reflection of our perceptions about our boss, employer, or the company. High perceptions equals high input of our contribution and vice versa.

However, there is a level above which we maintain our employment and are secure from punishment. That level varies according to the organisation and local supervision. It is generally understood that this is much lower than the potential level.

In an interesting US study 84 % of employees polled, reported that they are not working up to their full potential, and, most shockingly, 50% said that they are only putting enough effort into their work to hold on to their jobs.

How those employees must have hated their jobs. Imagine the preventable losses incurred by those companies.

The problem is generally due to the presence of negative motivational factors called "disincentives." Disincentives are nagging, daily occurrences that frustrate people and cause them to reduce, either consciously or unconsciously, the amount of discretionary effort they use in their jobs.



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Working in an environment which contains disincentives has a profoundly negative effect on performance in the three critical areas of output, quality and safety. Furthermore, anyone who has ever worked in an environment with disincentives, will testify that their days became meaningless as they reduced their contribution.

These disincentives are not necessarily glaring wrongs. They are simply part of the work culture that have developed in an organisation and become part of its normal operation. The result of neglect than design. Disincentives exist because they are allowed to, and they remain because little or nothing has been done about them.

Some Common DisincentivesFearUnclear expectationsUnnecessary rulesPoorly designed workUnproductive meetingsLack of follow-upConstant changeInternal competitionDishonestyBeing forced to do poor-quality workLack of common sense

Dual standardsWithholding informationUnfair targetsDiscouraging responsesCriticismCapacity under utilisationTolerating poor performanceNot treated with respectPrescriptive blanket rulesOver controlIdeas ignored

When employees find themselves excluded from important decisions, deprived of information, faced with a lack of common sense, and given the same rewards as poor performers, these demotivating forces overwhelm any good the business may try to perform for the benefit of the employees.

Some businesses try hard to improve conditions for their people without removing the disincentives. This means that their efforts are wasted because they are seen as merely lip service to the needs of the staff. So many initiatives fail because the disincentives remain.

Programmes like TQM, Job Enrichment, and Self Managing Teams fail to flourish in environments with disincentives. No matter how interesting or challenging employees’ jobs might be, demotivators and disincentives leave them feeling helpless, disappointed and frustrated.



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It is impossible to gauge the effect or importance of disincentives without the ability to stand in the shoes of the people affected.

Many people in leadership positions are isolated from the daily frustrations of the rank-and-file workforce and simply do not appreciate the seriousness of the disincentive problem.

They underestimate the importance of what they consider to be “minor irritations” in their organisations, not realising how large these irritations appear in the perceptions of employees. To the employees who encounter them day after day, they are not minor at all.

Disincentives tend to affect people far out of proportion to their actual size. It is all to do with the perception of the employees. There is a cumulative effect of these irritations and they grow in size as they are repeated time and again.

Not only do disincentives trigger negative emotions about the employer, but they also drive negative behaviours—such as withholding effort, absenteeism, extended breaks, criticising management, theft, conflict, even violence, vandalism, and sabotage.

Estimating the Cost of Disincentives in Your Organisation

If you want to estimate the cost of disincentives in your organisation, try using this approach:

Ask a sample of employees how much productivity they lose when they encounter a disincentive (such as one of those listed on the previous page). The figure will probably range from one to three hours (depending on the emotional impact of the event).

Some employees don’t regain their productivity for weeks following a particularly serious demotivating event like an adverse performance appraisal. Assume that each person experiences just one disincentive per day

Let’s assume that the actual loss of productivity per disincentive is one hour (a very low figure) at an average of $25 per hour (including indirect costs). Multiply this by the number of employees in your organisation (say, 250) and by the number of working days per year (230). The estimated loss of productivity due to disincentives for your organisation in one year would be $1,437,500.

That’s just assuming one disincentive per day and only accounting for the immediate loss of productivity not other negative effects, such as poor quality,



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poor customer service, turnover, possible retaliatory actions, stress and other associated effects.

Dealing With Workplace Disincentives

1. Identify the highest priority disincentivesTrying to address all disincentives at once is unrealistic. It is far better to attack disincentives one at a time, starting with the one that has the greatest impact. There are many ways to rank disincentives. Ultimately, the best way to identify and prioritise disincentives is just to ask the employees, perhaps in focus groups.

When you ask employees about disincentives, request their responses to the following these questions:1) Is a this place where you are allowed to do your very best? If not, why?

2) What disincentives and discouragers are most widespread in the business?

3) How does each one affect employee morale and performance?

4) How wide spread is it?

Based on the answers to these questions, a list of demotivators can be developed.

If you want to formalise the process, you can establish a group to co-ordinate the demotivator reduction process. This will give the process more continuity and credibility with employees provided that the team gives constant, credible feedback to the work force.

The alternative is go to each staff member and ask them a series of questions that have been prepared previously.

2. Identify demotivating practices.When first identified, you will notice that disincentives are often appear rather vague and subjective. It is vital that you describe how the highest ranked disincentives currently reveal themselves in your organisation, and do so as specifically as possible.

Identify specific examples of demotivating practices in your organisation. For example:Unnecessary rulesThe policies and procedures manual hasn’t been revised for several years; many rules are obsolete; some rules are perceived as failing the TSR test.” (That Sounds Reasonable.)



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People don’t listen to ideasThere is little point in making suggestions for improvement because no-one listens. If they do listen—nothing happens.

3. Define Desired Practices.Identify the practices that should be occurring in place of the demotivating ones. For example:Unnecessary rulesRemove all obsolete rules from the policies and procedures manual. Review rules and procedures at least once a year. Ensure that the employees have the majority of input to the review process.

People don’t listen to ideasSet up a credible forum for the discussion of improvements. Let the group set up the process for analysis and implementation of recommended changes. Let the group manage the feedback process to the person suggesting the change.

Eliminate support for behaviour which is a disincentive.Most disincentives persist because they are being inadvertently reinforced. A well-established psychological principle indicates that when rewards for any behaviour are removed, the behaviour will generally extinguish. Make it clear that these practices will no longer be rewarded—or tolerated.

Provide support for desired practices. Not only do rewards for negative behaviours need to be eliminated, but support for positive behaviours must also be established. Two crucial support factors are training and example. For instance, if your objective is to provide a forum for improvements, then the senior managers should be part of the process. They should be involved in giving recognition to those people who contribute suggested improvements.

The Importance of Management CommitmentFor better or for worse, it is senior management that sets the motivational climate in any organisation. The rest of the organisation generally follows what it sees at the top—and what is tolerated. Almost without exception, once organisations start focusing real attention on addressing the problem, disincentives decrease.

When management clearly identifies and states that particular demotivating conditions are no longer acceptable—and sets an appropriate example to that effect—the rest of the business will usually get the message, and follow the lead.



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Nobody expects disincentives to be eliminated completely or overnight. Some have been around for a long time and are just too deeply entrenched. However, when management makes a committed effort to reduce them, people will take notice.

In some businesses, managers are using dramatic actions to show their seriousness about disincentive reduction. For example, identifying their own responsibility for a demotivation problem, dealing with it and giving progress reports to the affected people.

Although disincentive reduction must be led from the top, employee involvement is an essential ingredient in any organisational improvement process.

Therefore, it can be extremely beneficial to set up a team to co-ordinate the effort. Any such team should be broad based, with a diverse, cross-functional membership representing all major areas and levels of the business.

When employees perceive that the war on demotivators is happening, and is actually being fought with vigour, they will begin to see a ray of hope.

Although they may be sceptical, they will feel that something might actually be done about the nagging demotivators that have frustrated them for so long. If you do attack the demotivators in your organisation, you will see a big difference in the commitment of the people and in the willingness to change.

Another Use of Demotivator ReductionOne of the factors that sabotage most productivity improvement initiatives is the prevalence of demotivators. If you are involved in designing a new project or initiative (such as training, safety, customer service, or quality management), you should make sure that demotivators will not undermine its success.

Demotivators in the context of your organisation or those that are inadvertently allowed to creep into your intervention can lead to its ultimate failure. Many technically well-conceived projects fail because the motivational aspects were ignored.

Therefore, make sure that you troubleshoot your project, initiative, or intervention before implementing it. Simply ask yourself and your team: “Are there any demotivators in the organisation or in our project that might undermine its effectiveness?”

Killer Phrases© The Learning Company Ltd Publishing Group New Zealand


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These are used by the negative people who actively have a discouraging effect on other people. We all have a little bit of self-doubt in us. This is exploited by those negative people. They respond to productive suggestions with a wide range of “Killer Phrases.” These conversation stoppers are said with such conviction that you may begin to believe that your hopes for improvements have just been over-optimism.

It is important to evaluate the difference between the person who uses “Killer Phrases” and those thoughtful people who carefully consider any proposal before backing it totally.

Negative peopleA good tactic to identify the negative person is the use of listening skills. For example, if you suggest an improved system and get the emphatic response that, “We can’t afford the time.” Try a response such as, “There must be a way round that.” Listen to the next statement. If it is, “I suppose we could look at our priorities,” Then you can relax. On the other hand if you hear, “There is nothing we can do,” you are facing a negative wet blanket.

These negative people have a profoundly detrimental impact on work groups. It is easy to underestimate this impact because most of us know that collectively we can overcome most obstacles.

A skilled negative person can effectively discourage people from looking for solutions and encourage morale to take a downward spiral. There are some people who are so negative that they would complain about one day following another!

A good tactic is to ask negative people this question, “How do you think other people see you?” Sometimes they don’t realise how negative they are.

The BehaviourThey will always find reasons why things will not work. They will be emphatic. They believe that everything that happens is outside of their control. They infect the positive people. They gain power by tapping into the human despair which exists in all of us. They are convinced that they have little or no power over their lives. They see themselves as victims. They are certain that failure is the only result.

CopingState your own positive thoughts. Don’t argue, "I am right. You are wrong." Suggest alternatives worth trying. If all else fails, ask what the worst consequences might be if a certain action is undertaken. Don't try and find glib answers without research.



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We’ve never done it that way before.......It won’t work.......We haven’t the time.......We haven’t the resources .......We’ve tried that before.......We’re not ready for it yet.......All right in theory, but can we put it into practice? .......Somebody would have suggested it before if it was any good.......Let’s discuss it at some other time.......You don’t understand our problem.......We have too many projects now.......It has been the same for 20 years so it must be good.......What idiot thought that up? .......I just know it won't work.......Let's think it over for a while and watch developments.......That's not our problem.......You'll never sell that to customers .......We can't do it under the regulations.......Don't move too fast.......Why something new now? .......Let's wait and see.......Here we go again.......I don't see the connection.......Won't work in our industry.......Sounds good, but I don't think it will work.......It's not in the plan.......No regulations covering it.......We've never used that approach before.......It'll mean more work.......It's not our responsibility.......Yes but! .......It will increase overheads.......It's too earlyIt's too late.......It will offend.......Our people won't accept it.......Not my idea—can't be any good.......If he thought of it, it can't be any good.......We’re fed up with changes.......Our industry is different.......

Add your own!



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The Solutions to All the Killer Phrases

Whilst these “killer phrases” may seem very negative and overwhelming, they do represent typical comments by people facing change. The solution is relatively simple.

If you think your people will react like this, plan your introduction to change with care.

• Signal the possibility of change well in advance.

• Plan how to respond to all the phrases above.

• Work out how to counter the comments in advance because this will give you a large advantage.

• Test your responses on your most negative person.



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Chapter 16Managing performance.

Most leaders would agree that the quality of the staff and their performance is a critical driver for the ongoing success of the organisation. However, very few organisations have a rigorous and consistent approach for managing the talent.

Most businesses struggle with even the fundamental task of assessing the relative performance of their people. Furthermore, they are worse still at taking appropriate action based on such assessments.

The shortcomings are especially acute when it comes to managing the low performers. Most managers have no trouble identifying their high performers, their medium performers and their low performers. They put effort into recruiting, developing and retaining high and medium performers

Unfortunately, dealing with the low performers is painful and most avoid it. In these challenging economic times, organisations need to have effective leaders at every level, and they need to make tough decisions about performance. There is a clear need to systematically and rigorously assess staff performance in good times and bad. The organisation will retain its vitality if there is an intolerance of low performance.

Research during the last five years, has shown that, as much as an organisation’s success depends on careful management of high and medium performers, it also depends on pruning the low performers. High performing businesses have established a rigorous, disciplined process for dealing with low performing staff and also treat them with great respect so that their dignity is maintained.

Barriers to action.The act of confronting low performers is fraught with emotional, ideological and practical problems. The primary reason leaders do not act on low performers is an emotional one.

They are unwilling to move on people with whom they have worked for many years or people who have contributed to the organisations for so long. In many cases the low performer has formed a friendship with his or her manager over time, and that emotional attachment can cloud the manager’s objectivity.

Even when there is little personal connection, the human tendency to empathise with others comes into play. We have all felt humiliation and loss, and few of us would wish it on others. Disciplining or firing someone is a painful and difficult process for everybody involved.



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There are also ideological barriers to doing the hard work of managing a low performer. Some managers believe that all low performers can be developed into a medium or even a high performer.

They believe that the organisation should invest in people indefinitely for this to happen. Other managers believe loyalty should be reciprocated, even when an individual’s performance is lacking, or that the person is trying his or her best.

This situation is compounded by the changes in the workforce and the changes in the workplace. More and more people are getting left behind by technology changes and changes in expectations. Is it fair and reasonable to continue to employ these people if their contribution is gradually diminishing?

One senior manager, struggled with this issue of fairness. He asked himself, “Do I really want to identify the top, middle, and bottom tier of people reporting to me? Decisions around people’s careers and responsibility to their family-those are the toughest.” In the end, he found the other side of the equation more compelling, “If I don't make the tough decisions about the people who are preventing the business from being successful, then I am putting at risk all the people who are depending on my leadership.”

Finally, practical barriers often prevent managers from taking action. Chief among them is the fear of personal grievance cases and an order for reinstatement. Other practical barriers are often the onerous process of documenting underperformance and the fear that resentment and negativity will spread throughout the organisation.

For all these reasons, most companies fail to deal with low performers.

The true cost of the low performer.The benefits of improving or removing low performing people are enormous, because their continued presence weakens the organisation in many ways. This weakening effect is magnified considerably if that low performing person is in a leadership rôle. Holding on to underperforming managers dramatically pulls down an organisation’s performance and reputation.

Consider that every low performer fills a rôle and therefore blocks the advancement and development of more talented people in the organisation. At the same time, low performers are not usually good rôle models, coaches, or mentors for others.

In the same survey mentioned above, 80% of respondents said working for a low performer prevented them from learning, kept them from making greater



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contributions to the organisation, and made them want to leave the company. Imagine the impact on the morale of the organisation if some of the people are under performing. In fact, keeping low performers in leadership positions not only sets a poor image of the senior management, but also is a disincentive for talented people to join the organisation.

Furthermore, it lowers the standard of the organisation and makes it almost impossible to create a performance focused culture.

Low performers hire other low performers, and their continued presence discourages the people around them. An executive said, “It is incredibly demoralising for the rest of the team if you don't move poor performers out - and the leader looks blind and out of touch.“

Clearly, tolerating low performers in a company negatively affects the better performers in that company. It also has a dispiriting and stressful effect on the low performer who is being kept in the position where he or she is incapable of performing well.

A vice president of strategy and corporate operations in a large corporation, put it this way, “I feel there is no greater disrespect you can do to a person then let them hang out in a job where they are not respected by their peers, not viewed as successful, and probably losing their self esteem. To do that under the guise of respect for people is, to me, ridiculous.”

To build an effective organisation, there must be a culling of low performers in leadership positions. There will be people who have been promoted past their level of competence, people whose performance was acceptable at one time, people who are perfectly equipped to deal with a world which no longer exists.

To make this happen, organisations need to advocate firmness made more palatable and effective through courtesy and manners.

Applied to organisations it means a rigorous, disciplined process for dealing with low performers that also treats each individual with respect and fairness. Such an approach can help to counter the emotional, ideological, and practical barriers mentioned earlier.

A degree of determination and commitment is needed to overcome the procrastination, rationalisation, and inaction that seem to naturally occur around low performers.

Organisations need to establish a disciplined process is that will make managers confront the issue head on. A disciplined approach will also bolster the integrity



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and credibility of the business leadership processes in the eyes of every member of staff.

The discipline of managing low performers requires three steps.

One, low performers must be identified.

Two, An action plan for each person must be agreed. Three, managers must be held accountable for carrying out the action plans.

To identify its low performers, a business needs to have clearly defined performance objectives and assessment standards.

The leader must set distinct goals and measure individuals’ performance against those goals. He or she must also institute a set of leadership competencies which are the skills and behaviours expected of all leaders in the business.

The leader has a critical rôle to play in setting these performance expectations, ensuring that the standard is set high enough and is consistent with the business performance goals.

The biggest challenge is to get managers to admit that they have either inherited, developed, or recruited low performers among their staff. Assessing people in gaining insights to their strengths and weaknesses requires a rich base of information and multiple points of view.

At the very least, three or more people should be included in the discussions about each person’s performance.

Once leaders have identified the low performers, they must articulate the specific actions that will be taken with each person in the coming three, six and twelve months.

The action plan will depend on several considerations. Does the person want to improve? Does this person have some strong skills that are valuable to the organisation? Is this person in a job that is not suited to his or her skills?

Finally, the most important one, is it possible for this person to be trained?

Has a person been in this job for too short a time to be able to judge their performance? Is there is something in the individual's personal life that is sapping his or her energy at the moment?



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How much warning, help, and time has this person already been given? Then, one of three actions need to be taken.

One, improve the low performance to at least medium performance.

Two, move the low performer to a job the better matches his or her skills.

Three, ask the low performer to consider their future.

Some low performers can improve their performance substantially if given the direction and the support to do so. For these people, the action plan should include the specific skills and results that must be demonstrated, clear timeliness for accomplishing these improvements, and a description of the coaching support that will be provided.

The message to the low performer should be unambiguous and encouraging. It is important to remember that some low performers will improve, but others will not. Care should be taken not to over invest time and resources.

Organisations must be very deliberate in ensuring that low performers, like all employees, are treated with dignity, respect, and care. Sugar coating the truth about the low performance is disrespectful and unfair; people need regular and candid feedback on how well they are doing.

Not telling them where they stand deprives them of the information they need to take responsibility for their performance. Telling low performers about their strengths and weaknesses helps them to develop and improve. Most people in leadership positions need to get a lot better at delivering this kind of honest, constructive feedback. Termination for low performance should never come as a surprise.

Telling people to improve without providing the necessary coaching and support is grossly unfair. Low performers need specific guidance on how to do things differently in order to make a significant change in their performance.

The presence of low performers in your business will make the process of improving productivity much more difficult because their lack of ability your contribution well undermine the efforts of the more competent staff.

Just remember, the leader of the business is judged by the majority of staff by their level of tolerance of the worst performer. As a leader your worst performer represents the lower limit of what you're prepared to put up with. This means



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that in the eyes of the rest of the staff they can work down to that standard without any consequences.



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Chapter 17Managing the Business of Change

Broadly speaking, bringing about change, is a five stage process. In reality, the divisions are artificial but helpful in understanding the process.

Number one: Recognising the need for change.Number two: Getting the commitment of the critical mass.Number three: Building a shared vision.Number four: Diagnosing current reality.Number five: Getting there.

One of the key questions we need to ask is why does resistance exist? The next question is to ask how can I work at minimising or reducing it? There is a wide range of typical causes of resistance to change. These are rarely simple cause and effect situations, and resistance to change is usually a complex mix of historic, factual and emotional issues, which are not always easy to untangle.

Below is a list of some of the most frequent sources of resistance to change and unwillingness to engage in new behaviour.

• Fear of the unknown.• Lack of information.• Misinformation.• Historical factors.• Threat to core skills and competence.• Threat to status.• Threat to power base.• No perceived benefits.• Low trust organisational climate.• Poor relationships.• Fear of failure.• Fear of looking stupid.• Reluctance to experiment.• Custom bound.• Strong peer group norms.

Listing the possible causes of resistance can be useful because it can be seen that some are easier to deal with than others. Low trust may be a key issue but is a much longer term proposition to fix than correcting misinformation or communicating with staff about training in new skills.



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Identifying possible causes of resistance before you try and introduce change is time well spent and you will be rewarded by greater success in the change process.

Resistance comes in two basic forms. Systemic and behavioural.Systemic resistance rises from a lack of appropriate knowledge, information, skills, and managerial capacity. Behavioural resistance describes resistance deriving from the reactions, perceptions, and assumptions of individuals or groups in the organisation.

So systemic resistance is cognitive and behavioural resistance is emotional. As already described, emotionally based resistance such as low trust is much more difficult to handle than a lack of information or misunderstanding facts.

If the levels of involvement and information are low, the levels of resistance will be higher. This is the essence of parallel implementation. The less I know about plans to change, the more I assume, the more suspicious I become, and the more I will direct my energy to resisting the change.

Once I feel manipulated or uninvolved, I will tend to take a negative view of the change and its effect on me. So I will devote all my effort into not only resisting change but trying to influence other people to take the same stance.

The management of resistance demands attention to the systemic aspects such as information and communication flow. During the uncertainty of the change process, there needs to be considerably increased communication.

The management of resistance also requires attention to the natural individual and group processes of prejudice, assumption perception and conclusion formation. These processes will take place with or without facts.

Don’t underestimate your ability or potential to influence others. It’s no accident that the law on conspiracy, which has been around a very long time, recognises the power of a very few people to influence a large number as well as events. It has long been known that two people together can be a very powerful force for change.

The influencing process is worth while studying. Because, if we are to change anything, it involves persuading people to behave differently to the way they have done in the past.

We need to know what has to change, and we need to know how to change. This brings us back to parallel implementation again. One of the most important



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motive force in altering behaviour is the process of involvement in the organisational change and development of the reasons for it.

It cannot be stressed enough that early involvement has the greatest influence on the development of lasting change.

Any proposed change that is designed to alter behaviour will ultimately fail if it is prescribed without discussion and without options.

It seems that the imposition of change is a guaranteed way to develop resentment.

People will find huge reserves of energy to resist imposed change. In the workplace, imposed change without discussion is a recipe for resentment. And it is well-known that resentful staff will lower productivity and quality as well as discovering all sorts of obstacles to progress.

Resistance to change.Twelve Reasons why People Resist Change at Work.

1. The purpose of the change has not been explained clearly or convincingly enough.

2. Reasons for the changes have not been explained or justified in the minds of the people affected by the change

3. People believe that they are going to be put under pressure by the changes because of an increase in their workload.

4. They think that they will fail under the new system 5. They can’t see how they will benefit from the change. 6. They are worried that their authority and status will diminish. 7. For political reasons they go blindly with someone else who is resisting

change. 8. They are resentful because they were not consulted prior to the change.9. They are afraid the new system will generate added restraints and their

freedom will be curtailed.10. The promoters of the change suffer from a complete lack of credibility.11. Previous changes have not worked and required a lot of extra work before

they were reluctantly reversed.12. There is an automatic negative response to anything new because the

affected work force have a complete lack of trust in the management of the organisation.

Nowadays, change is a fact of life. It is a necessity for economic survival in business at present. There are three ways of looking at change. Firstly, you can



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be a change victim or, secondly, you can lead change, or thirdly, you can retain the status quo and do nothing.

If you become a victim of change, you are never going to catch up. Changes will be imposed on you and your business, leaving you the feeling of being on a treadmill with no respite. We all suffer from this to a certain extent.

This treadmill is the outcome of fighting to maintain the status quo as you fall further behind.

This leaves one viable option and that is to lead the change before it is imposed on you. Leading change requires a different mindset, a different approach to the business of business whilst avoiding the pitfall of introducing change for the sake of change.

The fast pace of change is daunting to many people and they struggle to cope. The reality of life is that change is going to increase both in tempo and in amount.

These people have difficulty in promoting further change such as improving productivity because of all the other changes are taking place at the same time. In this fast moving and demanding environment some business owners become change averse and then wonder after twelve months how it happened.

Sometimes you will hear the comment, “We’ve had so much change recently, it would be good to draw breath and consolidate for a while.” The sad news is that, while you stop and draw breath, your competitors are making inroads to your market and customers.

Improving productivity without change is an impossibility. Regrettably, a lot of changes in the workplace are painful because the changes have been designed to suit the change makers, not necessarily the people who have to operate with the changes. However, improving productivity is a prudent business decision and change is an integral part of the process.

If improving productivity is a necessity how can you develop the most appropriate focus or approach? How can you overcome the inbuilt resistance to change?

Within the organisation or business there exists considerable untapped resources of ideas, creativity, innovation, and a desire to change for the better. It is suggested that these resources are used to introduce change.

One of the paradoxes of modern business is that to remain successful you must provide a stable environment in order to be productive. You must also adapt



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constantly to new market pressures, changing customers, new technologies, much more information, as well as changes within the organisation.

Ask these three key questions.• Is your business ready for planned change?

• Do you have the right mixture of skills in your business to make the change happen?

• What can you do to ensure that the implementation process will be successful?

Support of the management at every single level.The support of the management team is critical at all stages of the planned change. Improvements in productivity rarely take place without the complete support of the management team because they are an integral part of the change.

The very top management have a crucial rôle to play in leading this change. They must be visibly encouraging the change so that they are setting a leadership example by endorsing the changes.

Sometimes it is hard to sell them the need to change because often they are concerned with the organisation’s stability which they see as the best way to get a return for the people who invest in the business.

Selling the change to the top management is no different than selling increased productivity to the people more affected by change. The key is to answer this question before it is asked. “What’s in it for me?”

The more answers you can give to that question, the more powerful your influence to win the support of the top management group.

What can you do to deal with this resistance to change? 1. Start off with the End in Mind and Communicate Fully

Explain where you want to be in a given time frame. Tell staff all the reasons why the change is needed and how they will gain as a result. Ask your staff if the end point is fair and reasonable. Explain what the objective of the change is and how they will benefit.

2. Get Your People Involved Meet with your staff. Invite questions, suggestions and ideas. Write their suggestions down so that they can see you are taking them seriously. Make them feel a part of, not a party to, the change.



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3. Introduce Changes Gradually and well in Advance Surprise and shock jolt and can cause conscious and unconscious resistance to change. Spoon feed major changes gradually bit by bit well in advance. If the change is a major one, break it down into digestible pieces.

4. Focus on What’s In It For ThemUnless you can clearly and convincingly demonstrate What’s In It For Them, you will struggle to get the change accepted.

5. Sell it to The Influential People FirstIn the process of change there are two factors. Firstly, the people with influence and, secondly, the weight of support.

6. The People With InfluenceIn most organisations a handful of staff provide the unofficial leadership for the others. Win the co-operation of these key people, and winning acceptance from the others will be simplified. It has been said that 5% of people are the initiators and the other 95% are followers. Identify this 5% and concentrate on dealing with their objections first.

Remember that often the people with influence don’t actually hold a leadership position. Identify them and get their support.

Once you have listened to their input, adopted some of their ideas and convinced them, you will find that the introduction of change will be much smoother. Once you have convinced these influencers never be too proud to ask what is the best way of introducing the new method, system or practice.

Obviously, in your efforts to institute change, try and include these initiators in the group of change agents.

7 The Weight of SupportIf you consider any group of people the threshold for lasting change is the support of a certain proportion of that group. Exhaustive research has shown that the proportion is about the square root of the number of people in the group. It is not a finite number but one that seems to wield considerable influence. So for a group of thirty six, get the support of six of them and the rest will follow. If the size of the group is fifty, convince about seven of them.© The Learning Company Ltd Publishing Group New Zealand


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8 Dispel the Myths EarlyWhen you can honestly dispel fear and anxiety, the sooner you do it the better. Assure people that the new system or method will not threaten their jobs, income, security, status. Explain how it will make the work easier and more pleasant. If they oppose the change, find out why, and through logic, reason or demonstration, convince them of the benefits.

Think about this from your point of view. Do you like change?

It is only when you have the right environment and mind set are you able to adapt naturally and skilfully to the demands and pressures of change. Furthermore, anything that reduces the shock and impact of change, is beneficial to the whole process.

The biggest problems that face us are our experience and our comfort zone. Our past experience which, ideally, should sharpen our judgement and wisdom, often serves as a roadblock to progress.

People tend to become snug in the comfortable and convenient ruts they dig for themselves and fight all attempts to change their comfort level through imposed change.

Because of our rapidly changing world, we are becoming more cynical about imposed change. Prescribed change is the biggest obstacle facing business today.

What many of us need is the urgent resolve and the follow up action to prise us out of these ruts

Communicating ChangeManaging change often causes problems. Poor communication is usually the reason behind some of the failures in managing change. Often, the process and the effects of the change have not been thought through. Some of the some of the elements that cause the problems and suggested remedies include the following:

Expectations are not managed. If someone is brought in with the purpose of improving productivity, there can be a wide variation in the level of expectations. The planning for change and the speed of implementation can also contribute to the varying levels of expectations. Errors in communication can lead to disappointment if the planned changes occurred to quickly or too slowly.



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The wrong messengers are used. Employees tend to trust information from managers, front-line supervisors and union representatives. Understanding the culture of the organisation will help to decide the best messenger for change. Is it the supervisor or the manager or someone else? Is it Human Resources in conjunction with the union? Is it the executive team?

Communication is too sudden. Leaders need to prepare employees for changes, to allow time for the staff to get used to the idea of change. This time also allows staff the opportunity to provide feedback and to discuss the impact of the possible changes before they occur. At the beginning of the change its a good idea to include managers particularly if they are expected to implement changes and communicate the changes to staff.

Communication is not aligned with the practical realities of business. Sometimes the messages are ambiguous or skirt round the reasons for the change. Sometimes the messages are not couched in the right language which is practical and relevant to the current situation. This immediately creates a lack of credibility among the people who may have to operate under the changed circumstances.

The communication has to be honest and relevant to be accepted by the staff. Too often the reasons behind the change and the projected outcomes are not believable to the staff. The message should be concise, consistent but most of all, it should be in the context of the overall goal of the organisation



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Chapter 18The Practical Science of Behaviour

It seems strange that we spend so much time and money training managers and people in leadership positions all about the financial aspects of business but almost completely neglect the understanding of human behaviour.

An organisation employs people because it requires them to do things. The behaviour of people is the only way anything is accomplished in business. It follows, therefore, that understanding the management of behaviour is the single most important skill for a leader in business today.

If we are improve quality, reduce accidents and increase productivity, the people who affect these factors must change their behaviour. They must do more of one thing or less of another.

Again, the one thing executives, managers, and supervisors should know the most about is human behaviour. This applies to executives, managers and supervisors in every organisation. Central government, local government, universities, schools, hospitals, all aspects of industry and commerce, charities, and so on.

If they don't know the conditions under which people do their best, the organisation may survive but be horribly ineffective.

There are many management systems around today. They all proclaim that their methods are the best in bringing out the very best in people. However, they seem to ignore the basic laws of human behaviour.

Behaviour takes place because of the outcome of that behaviour.When most people see someone doing something that is out of the ordinary, they ask, “Why does that person do that?” We look for the answer in what happened before the behaviour.

We seem to think that the behaviour was caused or motivated by some internal force, or by some external force. However, some behaviour appears to occur without any apparent external motivation, we become confused.

All the available research on behaviour indicates that the reason for behaviour is because of what happens after that behaviour. An example is that if your elbow itches, you scratch it. This relieves the itching and you stop scratching. The reason for the behaviour of scratching was the relief that you get.



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This way of looking at behaviour will be counterintuitive to a lot of people. It is worthwhile remembering that behaviour is public and measurable.

On the other hand, attitudes are private and very difficult to measure. We tend to use the words behaviour and attitude to mean the same thing and we believe that attitude is reflected in a person's behaviour. Whilst this is a natural belief, science shows slim links between attitude and behaviour.

If we just focus on behaviour we can measure changes and we can discuss it. When discussing people's attitudes you are never actually sure that you are getting the right information.

Discussing attitudes can also create resentment because they are private and the moment you say that someone has an indifferent attitude, you have a problem because it is criticism of an internal mechanism. However, there is no problem with discussing behaviour because it is in the public arena and visible to all.

You have everything you need to understand people when you observe theworkplace behaviour and observe the consequences of that behaviour. This has great implications in any business.

If you focus on understanding behaviour, you are able to tell what works and what doesn't simply by looking at the effect any intervention has on the behaviour of people. Did the behaviour increase or decrease, change or stay the same?

The most practical way to lead people is to:

• Decide what you want to achieve

• Measure the current behaviour so that you can identify changes

• Install a precise change.

• Measure the result of that change.

This is no different to any other sound business practice.

This is best illustrated by project which we successfully completed for a client. The objective was to reduce workplace accidents by 50%.

We examined the current behaviour to find out why people were hurting themselves in the workplace.



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As a result of our examination we designed a training course based on behavioural change and follow-up coaching in the workplace to reduce accidents.

We measured the results of the change and were pleased that the accident rate dropped by over 80%.

Not knowing why things get better or worse is always a problem for any business. If it gets better “for no reason,” later it will probably get worse “for no reason.”

The implications of understanding behaviour have great relevance to the process of improving productivity. As mentioned before, the single most important skill for a leader, it is a comprehensive understanding of human behaviour.

Because of the importance of human behaviour in the profit and loss statements of the business one may naturally think that the concept of leadership and human behaviour should be number one in any personal development plan. Furthermore, it would be the subject of reviews, refresher training, leadership discussions and feedback.

Many graduates end up in leadership rôles, without any understanding of human behaviour. This situation is the source of much bad feeling in the workplace and is totally avoidable.

Creating a Productive EnvironmentCreating an environment in which people can feel good about you, themselves, and each other and feel confident that they can meet their own needs while making a contribution to the group.

The answer to “How do you create a productive environment?” consists of some pretty basic but not always easy-to-implement concepts:

• Expect the best to get the best; set high standards and expect people, especially yourself, to meet them.

• Be enthusiastic about the group’s goals and mission, about the individuals within the group, and about yourself.

• Allow people to make mistakes from which they can learn and share with others.

• Recognise and reward success or accomplishment, but don’t be afraid to give negative feedback provided it is constructive.



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• Understand what people want for themselves and what they’re willing to give in order to get what they want or need.

• Encourage co-operation within the group and positive competitiveness with other groups.

• Encourage productive disagreement while helping to resolve conflicts.

• Be the example you want in others.

Sometimes, when you’re dealing with people who don’t seem to care about anything, you think, “To hell with it. Fire 'em.” Well, that may be personally satisfying, but it is not the best management plan. It is too expensive and may have a devastating effect on the remaining staff.



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Chapter 19Feedback guidelines.

Giving feedback:1. Focus on the behaviour of the individual or the group, not on the personality or the character.

2. Make it specific (what, when, where, etc.).

3. Describe the person's behaviour; do not judge it.Example: The way you dealt with that mistake left the person feeling that they had not been helped. If you had to do it again and help them, how would you handle it?

4. Direct it at behaviour that can be changed, not at the permanent characteristics of the individual.

5. Make it timely, either at the moment the behaviour is occurring or as soon afterward is possible.

6. Remember that people are uncomfortable receiving feedback, even if you are handling it the best way possible.

7. Whether the person agrees to continue (positive feedback) or to change (negative feedback), express your appreciation for them listening to your feedback.

How to Reinforce Desirable Behaviour.One of the characteristics of effective leaders is how they reinforce the behaviour that they want. In today’s business world this is one of the least used yet most effective techniques to guarantee that people will continue to behave in a certain fashion.

Behaviour, if it’s not reinforced, will gradually be extinguished. What happens is, the person performing the behaviour will discontinue that behaviour if there is no recognition. The exception will only occur if there is some inner drive to work that particular way.

As human beings, we like it when our efforts are appreciated and are motivated to continue to make that effort.



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Motivated contributors are proud employees. They feel they belong to something worthwhile. They matter. Their performance reflects their self-image. Recognition is a two way street.

One of the great negative initiatives in business, is to create “The Employee of the Month.” What this means is that everyone else failed. This seems to be a counter-productive way of recognition. It is ironic that the business that promotes employee of the month, recruits and describes their people as “the team.”

Letting employees know how much you appreciate their input makes them more receptive to what you are trying to do. On the other hand, meaningless praise serves only to confuse people about what behaviour is desirable and what isn't.

Here are three specific steps that help communicate appreciation.

1. Describe the results you are recognising as specifically and immediately as possible. This has the most effect if it is done when the person is actually performing the desired behaviour.

2. State why these results deserve your personal appreciation.

3. Reaffirm your recognition and continuing support.

An ExampleA person in a leadership rôle is walking through a production facility. All around the working area there are signs that safety glasses must be worn.

There has been a problem with people not conforming to the safety regulations. The manager sees a worker who has been reminded on several occasions previously to wear safety glasses.

Manager: “Hey Jack, good to see that you're wearing your safety glasses. You are a great example to the new guys who risk their eyes.”

“Imagine what it would be like to go to their home to tell their wife and kids that their husband and father is in hospital and is likely to lose his sight.”

“Thank you very much for your support. Your action may save someone’s eyes ”



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Performance Management Seven Step Method

è Remember that your objective is to help the person lift theirperformance, not to punish them.

è You cannot change other people’s behaviour. Only they can change their behaviour.

è Your rôle is to create the environment for change.è If a large change in behaviour is necessary, it is sometimes better to

break the change down into manageable steps.è Remember, it is your behaviour which sets the tone of the process.è It is your behaviour which creates a “no blame” environment.

This method can be used only after discussions and agreements about expected performance have occurred. It is unwise to assume that the person specifically knows the standard of performance expected of them unless these discussions have taken place and there is agreement.

1) As soon as you notice that the person’s performance is not up to the previously agreed expectations, point out the difference between current performance and agreed-on expectations.

2) Focus on the behaviour or performance and clearly explain how it adversely affects the organisation, the group or an individual.

3) Get the person's opinion of the situation.

4) LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN. Repeat the opinion back to the person to show you completely understand their point of view.

5) Ask for ideas on how the person can correct the situation. LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN. Repeat the points back to show you completely understand.

6) Agree on an “action plan.” Agree on a date for a follow-up meeting.An action plan is confirmation of agreed, future, acceptable behaviour. It repeats and reinforces the level of expected behaviour. It allows the person to participate in the planning process and is more likely to give them ownership of the standard. It allows the person to measure their performance against the agreed plan. It provides a guaranteed forum (the follow up meeting) at which progress can be measured and you can give positive recognition for behavioural change. Where needed, it provides a record of the steps that were taken to correct the behaviour or improve the performance in the event that stronger measures must be taken.

7. Express confidence that the person can achieve the agreed outcome. Offer help if necessary..



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Note that these seven steps follow the basic principle: “Focus on the behaviour or situation, not on the person.” Corrective action and praise have this in common: people innately want to improve and contribute, but first they must understand the problem. Asking the person’s opinion allows the individual to be involved in their own corrective process. Finally, the “action plan” provides agreed, specific points against which progress may be measured.

An Example

Jim is a Supervisor and one of his staff, Dave, has started to arrive at work late. The following conversation illustrates the simple use of the Seven Step Performance Management Method.

JIM. “Hi Dave. How are you? I have asked you in to discuss an important matter. Until recently, you have demonstrated a high standard of timekeeping. In fact, I have used you as a good example to our younger members of staff. I have noticed that during the last two weeks you have not been on time for our 7 o’clock start.”

DAVE. “Yeah well.”

JIM. “During recent team talks, you have agreed that it is reasonable to be ready to start work at 7 am. When you arrive at work at 7.15 or 7.30 it causes me difficulties. Some of the other staff have asked me why they should bother to turn up for work on time. One of them said that it was unfair. Being late means that you miss all or part of the Team Talk. We could be talking about a “near hit” which means that you miss vital safety information. It may mean the difference between being badly hurt or avoiding injury. Is there anything we can do to fix the situation?”

DAVE. “Well, my wife started work two weeks ago. I give her a lift to work on the other side of town. She starts at 7.15. It takes me at least 25 minutes to get here depending on the traffic. If I drop her off at 6.30, she has to wait 45 minutes in all weathers. She can’t even get into the building until 7 o’clock, so she has to wait for half an hour in the cold.”

JIM. “Let me get this straight. Your wife starts at 7.15 and you drop her off at a time so that she only waits outside for the shortest possible time. Her workplace is 25 minutes drive from here which means that you are always going to be late under this arrangement.”

DAVE. “Yep. That’s it in a nutshell.”

JIM. “Well. How are we going to fix this situation?”



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DAVE. “Me and the wife have spoken about it and we have a couple of ideas. Now she has been there two weeks, she has got to know some of the other women. One of them lives close to us and my wife is going to ask if she can get a lift and share the petrol costs. If that doesn’t work, I could try and get a ride from Mark who also lives in our neighbourhood.”

JIM. “OK, you have thought about the situation and found some options. Tell me, does your wife drive?

DAVE. “Yes but we only have one car. We could buy another one, however, this would delay us paying off our mortgage.”

JIM. “Hmmm. Another option worth considering is.........”

DAVE. “Hey! She could drop me off at work and then drive to her job. It would cost more in petrol if she had to come back and pick me up but it would solve the problem. Hang on, we finish at different times. I suppose I could go home with Mark. It’s worth considering.”

JIM. “OK, so now you have three options. One, your wife can give you a ride to and from work. Two you can get a ride with Mark. Three she could drop you off and you could go home with Mark. That’s good. You have some options. When shall we meet again to review the situation?”

DAVE “How about a week. I should have the whole thing sorted out by then. I feel much better now that we have had this talk.”

JIM. “So during the next week you are going to do what?”

DAVE. “Firstly, I am going to discuss it with my wife. Then I will talk to Mark. I am certain that I will be able to get to work on time.”

JIM. “I am looking forward to our meeting next week. Dave, I appreciate your co-operation and I am confident that you will make the necessary arrangements to return to your high standards of punctuality. Thanks for your time. By the way, here is a copy of the notes I used for this meeting.”

(JIM hands him a copy of “How to Deal Fairly With Performance Issues.”)



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Chapter 20A Plan for Easily Improving Methods.

One of the most important ways of increasing productivity is to improve the current methods. The best source of ideas for improving the current methods are the front line supervisors in conjunction with their teams. They have a very special view of the whole process. Their day-to-day work often involves dealing with recurring problems.

In any productivity improvement plan, there must be the opportunity to improve methods. Improving methods has been described as “ organised common sense.” Because it makes sense to develop practical plan to make better use of manpower, machines and materials that are now available.

The resources which are available may include, staff, machines and equipment, materials, finance, time, space, knowledge and skill, experience and ability. A Method Improvement plan asks the question,” Are we making full use of the resources already available?”

Always enlist the help and ideas of the people doing the job.

This practical way of improving work methods contains six distinct steps.

Step One SelectAll methods can be improved but it’s common sense to select a job that needs improvement now.Select a job or task that you can quickly:Make work saferMake work easierReduce excessive movementEliminate bottlenecksGive better serviceIncrease output

Step Two Analyse and RecordBefore you can improve anything, you need to discover the current practiceWatch the job being doneList all activitiesNote all the difficulties

Step Three ExamineThe first things to examine are the key activities. They must be examined from five different angles. Purpose, Place, Sequence, Person, Means to help understand the whole situation.



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Purpose. What is achieved? Why is it necessaryPlace. Where is it done? Why there?Sequence When is it done? Why then?Person. Who does it? Why that person?Means. How is it done? Why that way?

Once there is a clear understanding of the job process, it is possible to ask challenging questions.

Is the job necessary? Is there a better way?Purpose. What else could be done?Place. Where else could it be done?Sequence. When else could it be done?Person. Who else could do it?Means. How else could it be done?

Make a note of all the ideas that are thrown up by this questioning process.

Step 4 DevelopReview ideas and note trendsEliminate—Simplify—Combine—RearrangeMake the method safeList the activities of the improved method.

Step 5 InstallChoose best time to introduceSell the changeTrain the users.

Step 6 MaintainCheck frequently.Listen to the operators.Give clear feedback on their performance.

Seek opportunities for further improvement.DesignIs the quality standard correct for this job?Would a small change in the design of the product or equipment, improve quality, reduce material use or reduce time?

LayoutIs there an economical use of space?Is everything convenient to the work area?



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Can both hands work together?

HousekeepingAre working areas clean and orderly?Is rubbish taking up space?Is everything in the proper place?

PaperworkCould duplications of work be reduced.Can sorting, summarising, recording, copying, checking be reduced or simplified?Can the design of forms be improved through better spacing, less wasted space, standardisation and simplification to reduce work?



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Chapter 21Humour and Happiness Will Improve Workplace

Productivity.

Humour is an important human function and an asset in the workplace. Humour breaks the ice and shows that the person is human and it helps to build a bond between people. Sharing is an important social function, and sharing humour is an important part of helping to build relationships.

When people are in groups they tend to laugh more, sometimes because of the other people laughing. It is very hard to keep a straight face if you are in the company of people who are laughing.

The Victorian concept of “work” meant that it was a burden carried out by people performing monotonous tasks in an unfriendly and dangerous environment. “Work” has been described as the place you are when you want to be somewhere else. However, the workplace can become a place of enjoyment rather than the gruelling and tedious business of the job.

In a humorous environment, people feel relaxed, supported and behave in a more open fashion. People work better together in this sort of environment. How often do we actively try and create this environment in the workplace? Do we frown when we hear laughter, knowing that the deadline has to be met?

Think about this, most people tend to feel more isolated and threatened when they work by themselves. Their performance is often less effective. On the other hand, people working in a humorous environment as part of a team tend to produce a higher level of performance. This is because they are free to explore, to play, take risks and most of all to make mistakes.

Studies at Stanford University have found that laughter creates an increase in white blood cell activity and produces changes in the balance of the blood. They say that laughter may increase the body’s production of the neurotransmitters necessary for alertness and memory.

Scientists studying brain based learning say that humour stimulates both the left and right sides of the brain. The “right brain” connects the memory to the pleasurable moment of laughter. The “left“ brain ties the subject content to a memorable emotional moment.

What this means is that people tend to understand the message better and remember it longer when information is accompanied by humour. It has also been suggested that using humour reduces stress and that learning can take place in an environment of reduced pressure.



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To understand the effects of laughter we have to look at the physiological results of laughing. Whenever we have a good laugh we feel better. This is because laughter triggers the production of a body chemical called catecholamine.

What is interesting is that this chemical enhances our alertness. At the same time laughter causes your brain to produce hormones called endorphins. These are the body’s natural painkillers. Anxiety and depression cannot exist for a long time with physical laughter present.

The laughter releases pent-up emotion and that is why we joke about tragedy and misfortune. It is our way of coping with the negative effects of distressing experiences or news. The laughter allows us to function in spite of the tragic events.

Group acceptance and a feeling of group membership is accelerated when humour is used. It removes social barriers and creates a sense of belonging and cohesion.

Once a group is used to using humour among its members, it becomes a deterrent for bad feeling or even aggression. Sometimes humour can dissipate a negative or hostile climate with the effect of giving time for people to get rid of their anger.

Someone said that if you can find humour in anything bad, you can survive it. Humour is the opposite of the negative emotions such as stress that produce negative symptoms such as high blood pressure, depression and ulcers. Humour produces positive emotions with positive symptoms such as greater tolerance to stress and the dissipation of pent-up emotions.

It seems that humour is a vital skill to cope in today’s workplace.

Why Happiness is Good for You.According to research, happiness is really good for your long term health. Optimism, a close cousin to happiness, protects the heart and lungs, seems to boost natural immune systems, reinforces the always-wavering self-esteem and helps reduce long-term stress. You can learn to be happy and optimistic.

Happiness and optimism are two feelings that have previously been ignored as serious areas of medical enquiry. This has now changed and there are several studies that have been published showing how important happiness and optimism are in the workplace. Happiness is a quality which is clearly evident in productive workplaces. Effective leaders create this environment because they are aware of the benefits.



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Optimism.Optimistic people will always see the good as well as the bad and it makes us more attuned to our values and optimistic people tend to be quite aware of their effect on other people.

Optimism has been described as a frame for how we view the world. Everything that we encounter is put into our optimistic framework. It is very hard to assess scientifically but, like happiness, is gaining attention for serious research.

Optimists often get bad reviews, especially from pessimists, who think they are unrealistic and uninformed. There used to be a belief that optimists block or deny negative information. Research shows that it is just the opposite. Both pessimists and optimists note the negative information but it is pessimists that don't seem to respond to the positive information. Optimists, do respond to the positive information.

The health benefits are significant. Not only do optimists almost always have better emotional adjustments but also most optimists showed higher immune responses to illness.

The positive effect on heart and lungs are dramatic. Working with data on 1300 men in “prime heart disease years”, researchers found that optimistic people do much better.

Happiness.Happiness is not as simple as inheriting a large sum of money or winning a lottery. Only 10% of happiness comes from individual circumstances, 50% is from genetic biological variables and 40% is uncharted.

Research now proves that happy people are more active in pursuing goals, are more energetic, more likely to be hired and less likely to be fired. Many people believe that the key to happiness is the pursuit of goals.

Pessimism.Some pessimists make a distinction between being happy and being right. They refuse to reframe events in a more positive manner. They don’t use a sense of humour to cope with trauma or forgive other people. This is how happy people cope with life.

Tracking them over ten years scientists found that “optimists were about half as likely to develop heart disease, even when other factors were controlled like smoking, hypertension and family history.



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In lung function, a potential risk factor for early death and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (the third leading cause of death), it was found that optimism, was in fact, protective over a seven year period.”

It is suggested that the following are new optimism and happiness building strategies.

• Do things. Activity and clear goals make people happy. If you are uncertain about a goal think to the deeper core values that it represents.

• Make it fun. Remember the “big picture.” Where do you want to be in five years? Ten? Twenty?

• Don’t focus so much on one thing, so that if it doesn’t work you don't get bogged down.

• Don’t compare yourself to others. • Don’t regret decisions you made, adapt instead.• Be kind to others: people will mirror your behaviour.• Schedule time to appreciate what you have.• Stop obsessing about endlessly negative thoughts.• Substitute positive thoughts. Visualise yourself relaxing on a sun drenched

beach• Check yourself at pre-arranged times.

The Link Between Happiness at work and ProductivityThe single most efficient way to increase your productivity is to be happy at work. No system, tool or methodology in the world can beat the productivity boost you get from really, really enjoying your work.

The 9 most important reasons why happiness at work contributes so much to productivity.

1. Happy people fix problems. They don’t complain.If you don’t like your job every problem looks enormous. This means that you are less likely to fix it easily or quickly. On the other hand, if you are happy at work you just fix problems as they occur.

2. Happy people are more creative.To solve problems you have to come up with new ideas all the time. It’s very hard to be creative unless you’re happy. This even flows on to the following day as the creative effect continues to have some residual contribution.



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3 Happy people are easy to get on with. Happy people are a lot more fun to be around and consequently have better relations at work and better teamwork with their colleagues. This happiness means that you have more satisfied customers and more sales.

4. Happy people are more optimistic.They have a much more positive, and optimistic outlook, they are much more successful and productive.

1. Happy people are much more motivated.High motivation translates into high productivity.

2. Happy people are healthier.If you don't like your job and you are unhappy you are more likely to contract disease and be stressed out. This leads to excessive sick leave which destroys productivity.

3. Happy people are easy to train.When you are happy and relaxed you are much more open to learning new things at work and increasing your productivity.

4. Happy people make less mistakes.Because happy people are more optimistic they don't mind admitting their mistakes and fixing them. Furthermore, they don't mind sharing them so that others can learn.

5. Happy people make better decisionsThey make more informed decisions and better able to prioritise their work. Conversely, unhappy people are often unable to see the big picture and focus on a narrow view of the situation.

Apply this to yourself. Think of a situation where you felt that you were really working well. Your output was at its highest. You were working “in the zone.” Were you doing something that made you happy? Was it something that you love doing?

Without question, there is a clear link between happiness at work and productivity.



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Undoubtably, the most productive workplaces are also the happiest. Doesn't it make sense to look at your work environment to see how you can increase happiness at work. The rewards are huge.

If you want higher productivity the best thing you can do is to remove all barriers to happiness create an environment that encourages happiness.

Take time out for a week and consider how you can make your workplace happier. Ask your management team to help you. Get opinions from the shop floor. Set out a plan for increasing happiness in the workplace.

Whatever you do, avoid assuming what will make people happy. You have to ask them.



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Chapter 22The Magic Process of Motivation

Here is a person who is bored with his job. He is a junior manager called Bob. He doesn’t actually hate his job he is just dead bored with it. He’s been doing it for a long time. When you go into his office you notice straightaway that he is a keen target shooter.

His office is filled with trophies won at shooting tournaments and in a prominent place is a framed target card. If you show an interest and look at the trophies, he will give you the background of the win, the opposition and the records broken with great enthusiasm.

However, when you talk about his work he becomes disengaged and shows little interest. The job no longer presents a challenge to him.

Bert works in maintenance and dislikes every minute of it. If you try and talk to him about work he is uncooperative and unwilling to discuss it. If you try and talk with him you may get a grunt.

However, if you bring up the subject of coins he immediately changes to become animated, all of a sudden he is fully engaged and will talk with great enthusiasm about what he is doing in his local coin club. He will tell you about his latest acquisition and the difference between the value and his purchase price.

Jenny is a typist who has been working in the same job for 15 years. Ask her to do anything for you and she becomes most uncooperative. It's a struggle to get her to type the letter. The younger workers refer to her as the “resident grumpy dinosaur.” But if you want to engage Jenny, ask about her marathon running.

Her desk has a photograph of her finishing the Boston Marathon and her living room is full with photographs of her marathon finishes. She is passionate about running even though she took it up at the age of 40.

In today’s work environment, few drop dead from exhaustion but many mentally shrivel and die from a lack of fulfilment.

Have you ever wondered why people like Bob, Bert and Jenny exhibit such intensity about their interests away from work but drift through their jobs without applying much discretionary effort?

It’s not because they are lazy. Far from it. They are basically disengaged. It’s because their non-work activities are giving them something they aren’t getting from work.



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Imagine what their levels of productivity could be if they got the same reward from doing their jobs that they get from their hobbies.

Think about some of things that really capture your attention and compare them to your job.

How to Create Engaged StaffHere’s what you do and how you do it.

To get people engaged about any activity, no matter what it is, either a hobby, or a job, the activity must have four basic components.

• A challenging and relevant goal.• A way to keep score, so people can see and measure their progress.• Total control over achieving the goal. • Recognition or reward.

Bob is a good example. For Bob, the goal of winning shooting competitions has got a really significant meaning. He keeps score by counting the trophies and keeping the target cards. Although he may blame the wind, or the weather, Bob himself has the most control over where the bullet hits the target.

Finally, Bob finds the trophies, the camaraderie, recognition, friendships and the challenge to be a meaningful reward for his efforts.

Bob would lose interest in his hobby if any of the four components such as the goal, the score, the control and the recognition were absent.

If you were to examine Bob's job, you would find that at least one of those four components did not exist.

These four components are the building blocks for motivation. Imagine what it would be like if your staff are excited, productive and engaged. What difference would it make to your workplace?

It’s time to remind you of a couple of facts.

You don't employ anybody. Everybody works for themselves and have their own reasons

Your team members don’t care a lot about what you want. They care that what they want.



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Unless there are certain things in place, you will never get what you want if your team are not getting certain things. They need the right authority, they need the ability and skill, they need relevant, effective training and they need the correct tools to do the job, most of all they need respect.

Have you ever found yourself saying something like, ”It is very hard to get motivated staff these days.” If your staff are not motivated look at your own performance as a leader.

Again, you might find this a bit brutal but it’s true. Your staff’s engagement is a reflection of your leadership skills and your ability to create an environment that contains those four vital components.

One of the reasons we get happy is the effect of doing a good job. When we get good results we feel better about ourselves. However, when people feel good about themselves it doesn’t always produce good results. It’s other way round. Good results make people feel good about themselves.

People expect supervisors and managers to be, among other things “motivators.” Now that is not as simple as it may seem, not only because the material with which you have to work may not be amenable to motivating, but because it could be that motivating other people is not even possible.

The debate rages on: Can you or can you not motivate anyone other than yourself? Management consultants usually take one side (motivation comes from within the individual), motivational speakers and writers take the other (you can motivate someone else).

If you define "motivation" as the energy or drive that mobilises a person's resources toward achieving a goal, motivation comes from within. In this sense, only you are responsible for your own motivation--for what drives you.

If you define "motivator" as a person who influences other people, helps them reach a goal, provides incentives for success, creates a positive, productive environment in which goals can be achieved, you can be a motivator. In this sense, almost anyone can be a motivator.

Motivating includes cheerleading (exhorting, psyching up), but often cheerleaders turn off more people than they turn on. Moreover, the cheers have only a short-term effect. Instead of cheerleading, positive, supportive behaviour and reasonable enthusiasm characterise an effective motivator.

From these definitions, it follows that you can motivate people for good or for evil. Draw out the best or the worst from them.



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Motivation MadnessHundreds of thousands of words and theories have been written about motivation. There have been many hours of debates and even arguments but it really doesn't matter.

Basically speaking, how on earth is any manager going to understand motivation because of all the conflicting reports that are couched in language which is very hard to understand.

Knowing the theories of motivation is not going to help a supervisor motivate a member of staff to arrive at work on time. I have simplified the concept of motivation down to a form with which I have been able to train other people.

Fundamentally, there are two types of forces which are applied to individuals. There is external force and there is internal force.

There are two conditions under which this force is applied.

Reward and punishment.

It looks like this.

Outside forces Internal forces

Reward

I’ll pay you if you do this….

I want to do this….

Punishment

I’ll sack you if you don’t do this….

I don’t want to do this….



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Now, you know from your experience and the way you react that number one doesn’t work. You can’t bribe people to improve their productivity on a consistent basis. Human nature dictates that what was a money motivator yesterday requires more money today.

Number three definitely doesn’t work, yet we keep on trying to punish people into compliance.

Number four consistently doesn’t work and leads to a huge lack of co-operation.

Number two always works yet the most common forms of motivation in the workplace is one, three and four.

This is where the madness comes in. We operate in the areas that don’t work. We try and pay for increased productivity and wonder why it doesn’t work. Then when we don’t get it we try to punish people into productivity.

During this productivity drive we forget that if a person can’t see the point of doing something----they won’t do it. Furthermore, if they don’t think it is fair and reasonable, they definitely won’t do it.

The key to improving “People Productivity” is obviously number two. All the strategies and tactics in this book are designed around number two. This is the essence of leadership.

It is the job of a leader to create an environment where people want to do things because it is their choice to do them. We expend all this energy without considering how to get to the situation where the person actually wants to do it.

For the business owner, the clear goal is to create an environment that causes people to want to do things that we want them to do, because it is their choice.

It really pays to remember this famous saying because this is what we are talking about in terms of motivation.

“Leadership is the ability to get a man to do what you want him to do, when you want it done, in a way you want it done, because he wants to do it.”Dwight D Eisenhower



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Chapter 23How to Reduce Absenteeism

Is your business or organisation suffering from terminal absenteeism? It’s an illness that strikes nearly every business, leaving it weak and down in profits.

In America, absenteeism claims

• ·3.2 percent of all scheduled work hours

• ·9 days lost per employee per year

• 1 employee in every 15 on a weekly basis

Absentee costs are difficult to quantify. American experts estimate direct wage losses of more than $35 billion per year, and that's just the beginning. Employers also need to consider the costs of supplementary or replacement workers. These costs include:

Regular wages, overtime wages, and company benefits

Administration of recruitment, selection, induction, and trainingPenalty costs resulting from delays

Absenteeism also has less tangible costs. It forces managers to deal with problems of morale, discipline, job dissatisfaction, job stress, team spirit, productivity, turnover, production quality, additional administration and overheads.

To summarise: You don't just have an absentee problem. You have a profit problem.



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The Perfect Absenteeism Programme

Sorry, you are out of luck, there isn’t one. That is, there isn’t one absentee programme that works best for all businesses.

A programme that works well for highly skilled professionals, for example, may be totally ineffective for less skilled labourers.

However, there are some basic rules for designing your perfect absentee programme.

The key to increasing attendance is the skill and ability of the front line leader or supervisor. Unless they have the correct tools, they will have little influence

Some of these suggestions improve the work environment. Others develop supervisory skills and support systems. All will reduce absenteeism. Follow a majority of them and your attendance records should show significant if not dramatic improvement.

1) Let your staff know what level of attendance is expected of them.

2) Measure and track absenteeism.

3) Give feedback on attendance by discussing absenteeism with the staff.

4) Help employees maintain or improve their attendance records.

5) Carefully match people to jobs.

6) Recognise good attendance performance.

7) Let them know straight away when they are not meeting the agreed on attendance performance.

8) Promote safety and health.

9) Train supervisors to support the absentee program.

10) Fine-tune the absentee program to meet specific company needs.



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How to Control Absenteeism

These methods of control are some options. Which do you do? Or could you do?

• My staff only talk to me when they phone in absent.• I always warn staff who have bad attendance records.• I have set clear expectations about attendance through my policy.• I counsel staff when their attendance starts to deteriorate.• I apply my attendance policy consistently• I record every absence• All my staff have read the attendance policy and signed it.• I ask my staff to provide medical certificates for absences.• I always discuss absences during my Team Talks• Every week I analyse my daily attendance records.• After every absence, I interview the member of staff and keep notes.• I recognise good attendance records.• My performance is judged on the attendance of my staff.

Here are the absence records of a team of assembly line workers. It shows there is an attendance problem with some people. Tolerance levels should be set when the person joins the business and repeated frequently in the form of expectations.

Unplanned Absences Assembly line 5

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Alex C

Alex N

Alice R

Anton V

Bill G

Chris W

Dave T

Frank P

Gayle K

James L

Mary H

Millie R

Sally L

Sid M

Vern D

Vic C

Day

s lo

st



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Chapter 24Delegation, Development and Personal Productivity

How Well Do You Delegate? Here is a questionnaire to help you find out how well you delegate. It has been designed to help you identify areas where improvements can be made. Circle the number that best describes you. The greater the number the more that statement describes you. When you have finished, total the numbers circled and mark your final score.

1 At work, I focus on planning organising, motivating and controlling, instead of doing tasks that others could do 5 4 3 2 1

2 Each of my team know clearly what I expect of them 5 4 3 2 1

3 I keep people informed and I involve team members in goal-setting, problem-solving and process improvement activities. 5 4 3 2 1

4 I carefully consider who to delegate work to, matching person and task 5 4 3 2 1

5 I view delegation as a way of developing the skills of people in my team, and I assign work on this basis 5 4 3 2 1

6 When delegating work I always brief team members fully 5 4 3 2 1

7 If a problem arises I give the person doing the task the opportunity to resolve it themselves. 5 4 3 2 1

8 When I delegate work I focus on the end results, rather than the means to accomplishing them. 5 4 3 2 1

9 I support and help team members, but I do not allow them to pass on work for me to do. 5 4 3 2 1

10 When I delegate tasks I agree in advance how progress will be monitored. 5 4 3 2 1

11 When delegating work I am always positive and confident, showing trust. 5 4 3 2 1

12 I always give credit for successes. 5 4 3 2 1



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Total score _________Evaluation for Delegation Self Assessment

A score between 52 and 60 suggests that you are doing well in the area of delegation However, it may pay to give a blank copy of this questionnaire to a trusted member of your team to see if their evaluation matches yours.

A score between 34 and 51 indicates that you are getting by, but could probably improve your delegation skills in certain areas. Again, you may have been too hard on yourself. Get your score verified by a trusted team member.

A score below 33 means that you need to make changes. Again, you may have been too hard on yourself. Get your score verified by a trusted team member

Teach YourselfOnce you have verified your score through a trusted team member, go back and look at the questionnaire. Where you have scored less than 3 examine the statement and develop a plan for self-improvement in that area.

After a few weeks, re-evaluate your performance with your trusted team member.

This is a great way to delegate your improvement in delegation to a member of your team.

Read through the next part and use that to guide you through the whole delegation process so that you can lift the productivity of your team.



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How Can Delegation Improve Productivity?The link between delegation and productivity is interesting. There are considerable benefits for everyone involved. Firstly, it allows decisions be taken at a level where the details are known. Secondly, it reduces delays in decision-making but only where authority is delegated close to the point of action. This means there are no hold-ups in production whilst a decision is being sought.

When you are in a leadership position, your time is extremely expensive and extremely scarce. If you think about it from your point of view what would you do with 15 or 20% more time in your job? Would you be able to focus more on productivity matters than previously?

This is a far better use of your time as a leader, because you will be able to have time to stand back and see the big picture. You will get relief from the routine and the less critical tasks, and this will extend your capacity to manage.

The extra time will enable you to think and plan for the future, and this includes time to plan to avoid problems and time to deal with them when they occur. In turn this will lead to better time and stress management as a result.

From an organisational point of view, delegation will allow you to develop skills and experience in your staff making them much more valuable.

Analysis all round the world has pinpointed personal development as the most important driver for staff. Everybody wants to work to their potential. The biggest gain is the degree of motivation that delegation provides for your staff.

Achievement in new areas will enable them to apply more of their discretionary effort to the task in hand. So, correct delegation will contribute to the productivity of the individuals once they have mastered the tasks.

The other effect of correct delegation is that you will develop trained and competent people who are ready to step in and provide support when required. This is incredibly useful in maintaining productivity levels to cover when people are sick or on holiday.

It also provides the opportunity for promotion when somebody leaves so that you are not left with a critical vacancy which may have a negative effect on your output and productivity.

You also benefit from the full use of the skills exhibited by your team because you will be then in a position to analyse what they can do



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Your teams will develop greater confidence as they develop greater competence. This confidence will translate into contributions to discovering how to improve processes that will have a positive effect on levels of productivity. They will also have the opportunity to use different skills and develop further. In turn this will give them a greater interest, a higher level of involvement and job satisfaction.increasing confidence that comes from greater competence

So effective delegation has many benefits. It ensures performance and improves performance. It develops people and can also help motivate them to higher levels of productivity.

Apparent barriers to effective delegation Delegation has few disadvantages, but in practice many leaders find it difficult. The usual excuses include:“I can do it better”“I enjoy doing it”“It has to be done immediately”“I don’t want to complicate things”“I want to keep my hand in”“My boss wants me to do it”‘It will take too long to explain, I may as well do it myself.”

It is important to recognise these for what they are: excuses to justify what you want, not real barriers. However, there are genuine obstacles to delegation and these include:

• Understaffing• Confused lines of authority• The wrong people in the wrong position• A culture of fear, criticism or blame• Underdeveloped people• Staff who are totally disengaged.

In many organisations delegation is often undervalued.

Too many managers find it risky, with little reward attached. It should also be remembered that it is harder to delegate if you have poor communication skills, or if there is a lack of trust or resistance to delegation among your team.

You may therefore need to consider your own leadership style and how to build up the trust of others around you before starting to delegate.

There are a number of key stages in successful delegation.



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PreparationDecide what tasks and responsibilities to delegate. You must focus on the results that you want to achieve and have clear, precise objectives. This may require careful consideration and planning, possibly discussion with other colleagues, but it is vital for everyone involved that you are clearly focused and can pass this on.

You may also need to give some thought to priorities: what should come first? Is the work just piling up on everyone? If this is the case then delegation may not be the solution. Always consider the importance and urgency of the task that you are delegating.

Match the person's skills to the tasks requiredThe skills required should be carefully considered. The level of task should be challenging but appropriate. This is another vitally important aspect and one where delegation can go horribly wrong.

In order to delegate effectively we need to be able to identify which of our daily tasks could be tackled by other people. The person who is being required to do the job must understand it and have the personal skills and competence to tackle it, even if it is different, important and challenging.

Discuss and agree objectivesAll aspects of the task, should be talked through. Having allocated tasks you need to agree targets, objectives, resources, review times and deadlines. (Remember that when setting objectives they should always be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results Related (or Relevant) and Time Centred.)

It is vital that you gain acceptance through two-way communication. Be sure to check understanding and gain explicit agreement to your plan. One of the ways that this can be done is to talk in terms of expectations and ask if your expectations are, Fair and Reasonable.

Provide resourcesResources, especially time, should be made available. Make sure that you provide all the necessary resources, as well as the authority to complete the task, and give all the necessary back-up.

Define responsibilities clearly and be there to advise when appropriate. Always follow up your actions, and plan how you will monitor and control events.



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Delegate authorityYou must provide the person completing the task with sufficient power and authority to make it happen.

Monitor progressProgress should be regularly checked without interfering or undermining. The frequency of regularly checking progress can be sometimes difficult.

It comes down to how well you know the person that you've delegated the task to. If you check them too often you are a snoopervisor and if you don’t check them enough you are neglecting them.

This is a great opportunity to coach and help the person. This is the time to answer questions and if necessary give a little bit of direction. It is also the time for encouragement, something that is often missed in the delegation process.

It is well worth remembering that delegation without control is abdication. This does not mean interfering when there is no need, but control does mean checking progress: not haphazardly but at pre-planned and agreed specified times. Control also involves verifying that things are on track.

The purpose of monitoring and control is to make sure that the delegated task is completed successfully and that the desired results are achieved. The key to monitoring is to ensure that the person completing the task remains accountable.

Review the overall performance.This is best done by discussing with the person how they felt about the task. What they would do differently in the future. What have they learned from the experience. How they felt the whole task had gone. Finally, checking their achievements against the original objectives.

When to delegateYou should delegate when you cannot allocate sufficient time to your work because you have more then you can effectively carry out by yourself. You should delegate when you cannot allocate sufficient time to your priority tasks.

You should delegate when you want to develop your staff and the job can be done by your people.

Delegation tipAs a leader, you shouldn't wait for difficulties in time pressures to decide to delegate. It is a lot easier and productive to delegate when you are not forced to



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do because of circumstances such as overload. Also, as a leader, your job is to achieve success through the efforts of other people. It is suggested that the sooner you start doing this the better and easier will be for you.

What to delegateTasks that you don't need to do yourself are ideal for delegation. You have to be aware of the difference between delegation and dumping. You are not just getting rid of difficult, tedious or and unrewarding tasks, neither are you simply trying to make life easier for yourself.

Delegation could make your life more difficult initially, but in the end it will be much more rewarding and successful. One of the secrets of what to delegate, is your favourite job. Let everybody know what your favourite job is and immediately delegate it providing you have someone who is capable of doing it or learning it.

This will send a signal that you are not dumping unpopular jobs on your staff. Sometimes you have to use your selling skills to persuade people that it is to their advantage to take on more challenging tasks.

You should certainly delegate routine and repetitive tasks which you cannot reasonably be expected to do yourself: and you must then use the time you have gained productively.

You should also delegate specialist tasks to those who have the skills and ability to do them. You cannot do it all yourself, and you cannot be expected to know it all yourself. You have to know how to select and use expertise. To do this you need to make it clear what you want from the experts, and ask them to present it to you in a usable way.

You may find it useful to think about your job, listing all of the things you do, and decide.

• What must you do yourself?• What could others do with my help?• What could others do better than me?• What must others do?• Who would you delegate to? What tasks would you give each person?• What would you do with the extra time?



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Chapter 25Putting It All Together. A Plan to Improve Productivity.

Okay. In the preceding chapters I have introduced a vast array of information, strategies and tactics to improve productivity levels in your business.

Now is the time to put it all together and make it work for you. Each business is different and please remember that you will have to tailor this to your particular business because the culture within it will dictate the order in which you do things.

1. Step back from your business and assess it honestly. Is absenteeism a problem? Have a look at your leadership resources and ask yourself if these can be improved? In your plan to improve productivity the quality of the leadership within your team and yourself is of paramount importance. Low leadership skills will inevitably lead to low productivity levels. Make sure that plans are in place to improve leadership skills before starting your productivity improvement plan. Check out the barriers to improving productivity. Remove or minimise them where possible.

2. Honestly assess the disincentives which are present in your workplace. Discuss them with your team and work out ways of removing the disincentives because any attempts to improve productivity will fail if they are still present. It may take a few days or even weeks to eliminate them altogether. Don't be surprised if you are unaware of some of the disincentives which are identified by your staff. Make a note of them and in conjunction with your team work out how to eliminate them.

3. Put together a plan.Putting the plan together must include the people who are going to work it. A failure to involve the people will guarantee that the plan will not be successful. At every step of the way get commitment from the team. When you go on to set targets make sure that they are involved and committed to achieving that particular result.

Good leadership always starts with solid, specific, written goals. Sit down with each person (or group if it’s a group goal) and decide, in no uncertain terms, what key results they want to achieve by a certain date.

To help people set good goals, follow these guidelines:

Be sure their goals are stated in terms of results to be achieved, not activities to be performed. For example, making more phone calls is an



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activity. Increasing sales revenue by 20 percent in the next six months is a result.

State goals briefly and write them down. This helps increase clarity and commitment.

When you can, let people set their own goals. Self-set goals are more meaningful. But if people want you to set goals for them, do it. What matters most is that you both understand what has to be done.

Set only a few goals for each person or group and rank them in order of importance. More than two or three goals end up becoming no goals.

Check goals for compatibility, so that the achievement of one does not preclude achieving another.

Goals that are challenging, but attainable, get the best performance. Encourage people to choose battles big enough to matter but small enough to win.

One of the most crucial things to remember about goals is that

People Do What gets Measured

This makes it imperative that every major goal has a scoring system that reflects the results you are trying to get. Every major goal should have a measurable standard of excellence.

It is important for people to know and understand their goals. But they cannot “DO” a goal. They have to behave in ways that will lead to the achievement of a goal. So the next step is to identify the kinds of behaviour most crucial to achieving a given goal.

4. Set mutual expectationsThe next vital step is to set mutual expectations. Find out what your team expects from you as the leader. Let them know what you can deliver on what you can't and the reasons why.

At a separate session let your team know what you expect and check to make sure that individually and as a group they believe that your expectations are fair and reasonable. If at any time an individual believes that your expectations are not fair or reasonable, you must deal with the situation. The first thing to do is to find out why. It may be that they have misinterpreted your expectation or they believe it's going to involve them in a vast amount of extra work.



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To identify the necessary behaviours to reach the mutually agreed on goals, try this:Choose from the list kinds of behaviour you feel are most crucial to achieving the goal. Rank them in order of importance and write them down.

Ask those responsible for achieving the goal to do the same thing without having seen your choices.

Meet and reach mutual agreement on what kinds of behaviour are most important for successfully achieving this goal.

Identify the behaviours needed.• Solid solutions

• Risk taking

• Applied creativity

• Decisive action

• Smart work

• Simplification

• Quietly effective behaviour

• Quality work

• Loyalty

• Working together

5. Measure performance.Work with your team to set up a way of measuring performance. Identify which performance needs to be measured, how it is going to be measured and who is going to measure it.

Measuring performance is best done by the person performing the tasks because this actively involves them in discovering how they are getting along.

The best measures give people frequent feedback so they can monitor their performance and adjust as needed.



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6. Set up methods of feedback.Visual feedback in the form of graphs is one of the most useful. This enables trends to be picked out fairly early and also targets can be represented clearly. Ask your team how they would like to see their progress towards their goals. You may be surprised by their innovation.

7. Improve methods.Improving methods should be a continuous operation so that improvements are being made all the time to the way things are done.

Often when you start improving methods, you can see quite clearly that familiarity and neglect have allowed wasteful practices to develop in the workplace. If you are suspicious about a particular method that is used in the workplace ask how long it has been done that way. It may need changing if it's been in place for five years.

Consider the changes which have taken place over the last five years and check to see that the method is still relevant. Improving methods with the staff is often a quick way to reduce waste and losses and to improve productivity.

8. Become better at delegation, grow your peopleAs you become better at delegation so your personal productivity will rise. Just think of it this way, every time you do something which you should delegate you are denying the opportunity for a member of your team to improve their value to your business. You’re also stifling their personal growth.

9. Understand motivation and apply it.As a leader, it is imperative that you continue to learn. In today's tough business environment, the more you understand motivation the more you are able to be in a position to get the very best from your staff. Beware of the problem of being so immersed in your business that you cannot learn. Use delegation to free up your time so that you can allocate time each day to improve yourself, develop your leadership skills and plan your business progress more carefully.

10. Create a happier workplace.This can be tough. When the best strategy is to remove all the demotivaters from your workplace and, in conjunction with your staff, work out what initiatives need to be made to make a happier workplace.



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During the whole process, use the power of positive feedback. Achieving a major goal may take some time and people need frequent reinforcement to keep them encouraged and excited. Look for the good in people and let them know that you value them. Catch them doing it right as frequently as possible.

Someone once said, “ Brains like hearts, go where they are appreciated.”

A failure to give positive feedback will guarantee that the behaviour you desire will be extinguished.

Remember that positive feedback is the most under-utilised management and leadership tool as well as being one of the most economical and effective.

For positive feedback to work you need to follow these guidelines.

• Be sincere because insincerity will not work in your favour and will create resentment.

• Be specific because a vague, “ Thank you” is meaningless and does not represent the value that you are putting on the work which the other person has done.

• Use positive reinforcement when it is due. This means when it is due because the level of performance and when it is due which means straight away.

• Make a positive reinforcement personal and private if necessary.

As a leader you need to be absolutely certain of what you are going to recognise in terms of positive reinforcement.

To be successful in your efforts to improver productivity, it is suggested that you consider the following strategies to recognise using positive reinforcement.

• Reward solid solutions instead of quick fixes.

• Reward risk taking instead of risk avoiding.

• Reward applied creativity instead of mindless conformity.

• Reward decisive action instead of paralysis by analysis.



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• Reward smart work instead of busy work.

• Reward simplification instead of needless complication.

• Reward quietly effective behaviour instead of squeaking wheels.

• Reward quality work instead of fast work.

• Reward loyalty instead of turnover.

How to get it wrong.In my first leadership rôle, I was in charge of 13 people. I can still remember vividly one mistake which I made during a team talk. One of my team had worked through lunch to meet the needs of one of our internal customers. At the end of the team talk, I publicly commended the person who immediately blushed.

This person was highly embarrassed at being singled out for recognition. Although my intentions were first-class, I had created a situation that alienated the rest of the team as well as the individual. What I didn't know was that this person was very shy and the rest of the team felt sorry for him because he had been singled out from the group.

It took me over six weeks to win back some trust from the group. I should have known the characteristics of my team in greater detail. With the benefit of hindsight, this recognition should have taken place in private.

Recognition, rewards and incentives all come in different forms. The best source of suitable recognition, rewards and incentives is the people who are going to receive them.Here is a partial list:Mementos such as etched glassware, engraved plaques.A letter of commendation from the company owner or president.A short day (paid time off)A framed certificate.A special training course for personal development.A bonus.Flowers for spouses.A free meal.Movie tickets.Gas vouchers.Tire vouchers.



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Christmas hampers.Magazine subscriptions

Appendix 1An Explanation of Productivity.

Productivity is best described as a ratio to measure how well a business, individual, industry, or country converts input resources such as labour, materials, time and machines into goods and services.

Productivity is usually expressed in ratios of inputs to outputs.

The three elements of productivity comprise the following sequence—Inputs, Conversion and Outputs.

Productivity

Inputs.Inputs include the following, materials, tools, equipment, people, systems, and leadership. Looking at these one at a time we can see that it is a relatively complex mix of factors.

Materials. The quality and quantity of input materials can have a positive or negative effect on the conversion processes and ultimately the outputs.

Tools. One of the key inputs to maximise productivity, is the type and quality of the tools to undertake the work efficiently.

Equipment. The equipment used is critical to the conversion process. It should be up-to-date, well maintained and appropriate for the task in hand.

People. This input will have a marked effect on the conversion process and the outputs. The people employed should have the correct skill levels and be trained in developed for their work. They should have the right information, the necessary experience and expertise in the appropriate areas of the business. They should possess the right level of motivation or be able to be motivated.



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Inputs Conversion Outputs





Systems. This is one of the overlooked inputs when considering productivity. The systems and procedures should ensure that the business can undertake the conversion process efficiently.

Management. This is another critical area of inputs. The management should have the leadership style, skill and ability to efficiently lead the conversion process. They should possess the right level of competence and be able to adapt, cooperate, change and have the right level of resourcefulness and motivation.

Essentially, they should demonstrate a willingness to learn and apply a flexible approach to change. Most of all they should have the trust and co-operation of the people involved in the conversion processes. The management and supervision should possess the leadership skills to initiate, develop and install changes to ensure that the conversion process is effective and efficient.

Conversion process.The conversion process can best be described as the activity carried out by the enterprise that changes the inputs to the outputs. For example, it may be a manufacturing company that takes steel plate and makes it into agricultural machinery. It may be an insurance claim that is processed for payment.

Outputs.Increased volume. This means that the business is able to reach a much wider market.

Improved services. This output enables the business to deliver better quality, faster delivery, and increased value to the customer.

Reduced costs. As productivity increases, unit costs reduce. This leads to larger margins, greater profit and more sales.

When you consider the outputs, the goal of increasing productivity is extremely financially rewarding for any business. A by-product of increased productivity is the sense of fulfilment gained by not only the managers, but also the people involved in the conversion process.

At this point it is important to remember that an enterprise cannot increase its productivity, but its people can. With the correct leadership and the correct inputs, productivity increases of well over fifty percent can be achieved.



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Appendix 2

Case StudyEngineering Business Increases Productivity by over 76%

The Project.The project was initiated by the owner of a group of companies because he felt that one of the divisions should have been performing at a higher level. As a result he asked Peter Mitchell, Managing Director of The Learning Company Ltd, to look closely at the business to see what opportunities there were for growth.

In four weeks Peter identified 18 different ways of increasing profit totalling many thousands of dollars. In the middle of May he produced a report detailing the changes that were necessary and offered to steer the business with the company manager through the changes. He explained that it would take 10 to 12 months to initiate the changes and cement them in place as part of the normal operating procedures within the business. The owner of the group of companies agreed and the project was started in earnest in the middle of May.

The BusinessThe engineering business is part of a group of companies that has been established for many years. This division of the group was started some ten years ago and has gone through a process of growth by adding to their capacity and capabilities.

The group has an excellent name for good workmanship, customer service and innovation and has a very good reputation for being flexible and reasonable to do business with in the region and throughout the country.

The StaffDuring the last ten years, the staff have been fairly stable with most turnover at operator level. The company manager was transferred from another operating division when the company started and has remained in charge ever since, guiding the organisation through a series of changes and challenges.

Within the staff there is a considerable fund of knowledge and experience. The experience is mainly practical with some managerial and supervisory experience. The company manager had attended a leadership programme two years before the start of the project and reported that he gained a lot from it but was unsure about the practical application of some of the principles.

Within the organisation the employees generally work well together although there is a trace of the traditional “them and us” feeling between the operational



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team and the office staff. At all levels there is a reasonable degree of co-operation.

Previous YearStaffingThe normal hours of work were from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. There was a night shift which started at 4 p.m. and finished at 2:30 a.m.

During this financial year, absenteeism was a problem with operational staff not turning up for shifts. This put a serious dent in the output as the remaining staff tried to operate the machines effectively.

Overtime was worked on some Saturdays.

Financial PerformanceThe financial performance last year was not exciting. During the financial year net profit was 9.59% of revenue. Profits were not consistent and some months it produced losses. The overall performance was disappointing in spite of a lot of hard work being carried out by the employees.

It has been calculated that the profit generated during this financial year was derived almost totally from the supply of materials. There appeared to be little profit from labour. This situation means that any job that involved re-work produced a loss because of the cost of the labour. Furthermore, the business was not robust enough to maximise profit on all work undertaken. A proportion of their work created minimal, if any, profit because the customers supplied the material.

Because of its patchy performance and irregular profits, it failed to make a steady contribution to the group of companies of which it was a part. However, their largest customer was the parent group that provided some 35% of their revenue. In spite of this, the business did not seem to be running very effectively.

Efforts had been made to improve the performance of the business but had failed. There was a “cost plus” way of pricing all work which missed opportunities to capitalise on urgent and “rush” jobs. Perhaps, the most disturbing aspect of the business was the practice of trying to win large jobs by reducing the margins on material. This had the desired effect and large jobs were secured but the profit in them was so low as to make them uneconomical.



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This YearStaffing levelsThis year there has been a radical change in the organisation. The night shift was closed and hours were reduced. Now the operational staff work from 6.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. This equates to a net 10 hour day.

The change in hours represents a 24.2 % reduction of hours worked. Natural attrition was used to cope with the reduction of operational staff. During these staffing changes, the existing staff were consulted at every step during the process.

FeedbackA series of strategies were developed to give all members of operational staff feedback on their performance. The organisation was set up in such a way that the operator had a considerable amount of control over productivity but without any meaningful feedback. This meant that there was no incentive to work effectively.

Now the individual members of staff receive daily feedback on their workplace performance. They also are able to see a visual record of their unplanned absences which has helped to create an improved attendance pattern although there is still considerable scope for further improvement.

PricingPricing was examined and price rises were initiated immediately because comparisons with similar organisations revealed that their prices were at the lower end of the range.

The price rises were quite subtle and so small that they would not create a price shock. It is proposed to further reduce the work carried out using the customers’ material to ensure that each job produces the optimum profit.

PlanningA process of production planning started and is providing a better work flow. However, this still requires refining to include a slightly tighter form of scheduling jobs.

MarketingThis year a whole marketing package is being assembled to change the position of the business in the market place.



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New business cards and a new brochure have been designed. These changes give the reasons for prospective customers to give their jobs to this business. They clearly state the point of difference the business has over the competition.

Productivity.There has been a considerable increase in productivity during the last five months. Machine utilisation has climbed from 43% to over 75%. Many factors have contributed to this rise including feedback, training, performance management, motivation, team talks and better planning. This resulted in an increase in operator productivity because with the ending of the night shift (a reduction in hours of 24.2%) productivity has still increased to over 75%.

As part of the strategy to increase productivity, it is interesting to note that no financial targets were used nor were there any financial incentives to the staff.

The only reward that the operators received was the occasional catered lunch on Friday. However, the regular team talks enabled each operator to talk about his productivity on the previous day. It was also an opportunity to discuss any problems or barriers that had effectively restricted output and provide solutions.

Training and CoachingAll the changes were introduced by the manager as result of training and coaching. He kept an open mind on the changes and embraced them heartily. He has a strong desire to be successful and is well on the way to achieving his goal.

Other ChangesThere have been a lot of changes and there are more to come. With a major exercise such as this, it is important to manage the change but also err on the side of introducing slightly less rather than too much. Too much change, too quickly will arouse resentment among the people affected by the change. This means that changes have had to be thought out carefully and the consequences monitored. Working out what to change is easy. Working out how to do it is not simple or easy.

The other changes that have been installed include the following:-• Writing Job Descriptions for key staff

• Performance Feedback all staff

• Setting Mutual Expectations

• Investigating quicker ways of producing quotes

• Using estimating techniques to give a faster service© The Learning Company Ltd Publishing Group New Zealand


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• The analysis of customers to discover the Ideal Customer profile

• Using marketing to build a larger customer base

• Clearly identifying unprofitable jobs and not doing them

• Improving response times to urgent work

• Better planning and scheduling

Financial PerformanceThe first two months of this financial year beginning in April were not very good.

The Bottom LineHowever, the next five months showed a considerable improvement. In those five months up to October, the business produced more net profit that in the previous twelve.

Revenue has been lifted by 12% since the beginning of this financial year.

Net profit is up from 9.59% of revenue last year to 18.31% of revenue in the last five months.

From May when the project started, through to October, there has been a lift in net profit of 347% in comparison to the same period last year.

Financial Projections All indications are that net profit will at least double for this business by the end of the financial year in March.



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Appendix 3

Personal Productivity Case StudyDavid was falling behind at work. Every morning when he woke up he started worrying about the work load ahead of him. After work each day he went home thinking about all the jobs that were uncompleted because he hadn’t gotten around to doing them.

David is a 28 year old maintenance engineering manager in a large manufacturing facility. The company was going through a growth period and new plant was being installed on a regular basis. Keeping up was becoming more and more difficult as he tried to oversee the new plant, equipment installation and testing plus the maintenance of the existing plant that was working 24 hours a day to keep up with sales.

With his project board covered with jobs and notes and people all around him competing for his time, he started to look at various productivity tools and systems and quickly settled on the one to use.

He started tracking his time and decided to segment his working day for different tasks. Firstly, he set aside time for no interruptions so that he could concentrate on planning. Next he allocated time for commissioning new plant and equipment. Then he set time aside for preventative maintenance programs for the existing plant and equipment.

Finally, he planned the following day’s tasks at the end of the working day. He started to notice that he was getting more work done and not feeling as stressed out in the mornings and evenings.

But he still felt, that he could be more productive. While he was thinking about his next initiative he realised that some of the jobs that he was doing he didn’t really enjoy. But there were other jobs and tasks he looked forward with anticipation to doing them.

While he generally enjoyed his job, especially helping to design manufacturing systems and training staff to use new equipment, some of his tasks he found boring and generally unfulfilling. Jobs like doing statistical returns, analysing costs and writing reports. These tasks didn’t take up much of his time but he found them boring and tedious because of constant interruptions.He talked to his boss about it, and they decided to give those tasks to a graduate engineer who would work for David. This freed up a little time for David, but mostly it allowed him to work on those parts of his job that he really liked. Consequently David became a lot happier at work, and that’s when his productivity sky-rocketed.



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Now he had the will and energy to spend more time with his people and the creativity to think up and implement new ideas. His feeling of stress totally vanished and he quickly became more optimistic and positive. People co-operated a lot more and his work became easier the more he enjoyed the challenge.

While his productivity system had definitely helped him to get more done, the productivity boost he got from being happy at work was many times bigger.

David is now working way less hours - and getting much more done. And most importantly, he’s enjoying work a lot more. His colleagues and peers are amazed at the transformation from being stressed to enthusiastic.

If you want to get more done at work, the productivity gurus and academics out there will tell you that it’s all about having the right system. You need to prioritize your tasks, you must keep detailed logs of how you spend your time, to do-lists are of course essential, you must learn to structure your calendar, operate an electronic diary and much, much more.

The solution to improving personal productivity could include all those techniques but you should start by liking what you do.



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