The business world is booming with axiomatic statements about the need to do more with less. Unfortunately, the tales of workforce reduction are turning into a kind of bragging right. The other day I heard a manager smugly say that she is now doing the work of three people! Really?
The downturn is definitely requiring more from everyone, however, in most cases people are simply doing less with less. It is a myth to think that one can flip a switch and double or triple their capacity overnight. While the fat trimming does create more capacity, it is not at the level required by most cutbacks. So what does this mean for those who survive the cutbacks? Let’s use process of elimination to get to a reasonable conclusion:
Should we just multitask more?
No, multitasking is not the answer. Although multitasking has been widely recognized as an important skill in today’s competitive business environment, research indicates that multitasking not only results in the loss of time, but it reduces our overall effectiveness and the accuracy of our work.
Should we just work more days and longer hours?
No, working harder is not the answer. While there may be some short-term benefit from this extra time, burn out from this tact would further cripple the productivity of the workforce.
Should we re-focus our priorities on the most essential organizational objectives and then set aside the appropriate level of resources required to meet them?
Yes, in my experience this is the best response to the often unreasonable mandate to do more with less.
Let’s face it; everything is not created equal in the workplace. One of the most common mistakes managers and leaders make is to treat all outcomes the same. This is called whitewashing because everything is made to look the same on the surface. When we treat all goals and outcomes the same, we inadvertently divert our energy and attention away from the most critical priorities. In a challenging business environment, this distraction from essential priorities can be a fatal flaw. The valiant, but miserable attempts to do “more with less” risks leaving the more difficult challenges left undone.
Focusing on priorities in this way requires us to be brutally honest about what matters most and to make hard choices about which goals are just not that important. In the end, you’ll get more of what matters most – done.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Mediation Tips For Business Owners
Today’s current business owner and tomorrow’s entrepreneur alike require a range of critical skills to successfully navigate the challenges of doing business. Often overlooked and undervalued are the soft, people skills that mark the difference between deal-making and deal-breaking. One’s ability to mediate opposing interests and find win-win solutions in the face of conflict is a considerable leverage point that can save time, money and get results.
Here are a few quick tips for the businessperson to remember when opposing viewpoints or agendas need to come together:
- Attack the problem, not the person. Remember to be hard on the substance of the dispute but soft on the people. Although emotions may rise, both parties are in the same situation. Step back, separate the person from the problem and make a good faith attempt to put energy into solutions vs. blaming.
- Reframe for easier understanding. The way you speak your mind is often more important than what you say. To hear and be heard, use open language that expresses the simple points. Avoid comments embellished with condescending jargon, personal attacks or negative tones.
- Find ways to create more value. It is easy to focus on a ‘fixed-pie’, or a finite set of value when competing. Try to expand the pie by understanding deeper interests that could lead to other possible points of agreement.
Here are a few quick tips for the businessperson to remember when opposing viewpoints or agendas need to come together:
- Attack the problem, not the person. Remember to be hard on the substance of the dispute but soft on the people. Although emotions may rise, both parties are in the same situation. Step back, separate the person from the problem and make a good faith attempt to put energy into solutions vs. blaming.
- Reframe for easier understanding. The way you speak your mind is often more important than what you say. To hear and be heard, use open language that expresses the simple points. Avoid comments embellished with condescending jargon, personal attacks or negative tones.
- Find ways to create more value. It is easy to focus on a ‘fixed-pie’, or a finite set of value when competing. Try to expand the pie by understanding deeper interests that could lead to other possible points of agreement.
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Knowing-Doing Gap
Each year more than $60 billion dollars is spent on training programs in and by organizations in the United States. It is estimated that an additional $46 billion is spent on various types of consultants who offer their advice to individual and organizational clients. The question is, are these dollars well spent? When people attend trainings, workshops and retreats, or work with consultants to address problems, do they take the new information, knowledge and skills and implement them back in the workplace?
While we learn valuable new ideas and skills at these events, we often become quickly and painfully aware of the challenge of turning them into real changes. This gap between knowing and doing is something that must be understood and addressed if our money spent on training and development is going to be worth the investment.
While the gap is widely experienced, it is surprisingly under-researched. A promising long-term goal is to develop a research-based model to help people understand and close their gaps. In the meantime, I offer the following insight as a starting place to help you turn ideas into action.
I use a simple formula to understand what the nature of the gap is:
This equation illustrates the variables involved and it can be used in the form of questions to guide our thinking both before and after a training or other learning event. Questions like: How well do I understand the topic and how can I improve my knowledge of it? What is my current level of motivation and will that be sufficient when the initial excitement wanes? What are some obstacles to be aware of in changing behaviors or implementing change?
In addition to the above formula and questions, consider the following reminders as well:
Measure your goals on the substance of new knowledge and skill, not on excitement alone. We often experience a let down in motivation as we return to the “real world” and confront the obstacles to implementing new ideas and making real changes. Therefore, as we focus energy and attention on understanding and surrendering to the obstacles that could prevent us from “doing”, we are able to apply our motivation and excitement and keep our anticipated goals in proper perspective.
Start small and be specific. One of the biggest culprits of the “retreat letdown” or knowing-doing gap is the lofty expectation of how much new information/behavior can be implemented. Behavior change takes time and can best be accomplished in focused, incremental spurts. Start small, take one thing at a time and don’t give up.
Take a positive learning attitude. When you find obstacles to implementing new knowledge/skills, try to assess why the block is there. Avoid turning negative and becoming pessimistic. Imagine what’s possible when we can close or eliminate the gap between knowing and doing...
While we learn valuable new ideas and skills at these events, we often become quickly and painfully aware of the challenge of turning them into real changes. This gap between knowing and doing is something that must be understood and addressed if our money spent on training and development is going to be worth the investment.
While the gap is widely experienced, it is surprisingly under-researched. A promising long-term goal is to develop a research-based model to help people understand and close their gaps. In the meantime, I offer the following insight as a starting place to help you turn ideas into action.
I use a simple formula to understand what the nature of the gap is:
Understanding of knowledge/skill + motivation to improve – internal/external obstacles = GAP
This equation illustrates the variables involved and it can be used in the form of questions to guide our thinking both before and after a training or other learning event. Questions like: How well do I understand the topic and how can I improve my knowledge of it? What is my current level of motivation and will that be sufficient when the initial excitement wanes? What are some obstacles to be aware of in changing behaviors or implementing change?
In addition to the above formula and questions, consider the following reminders as well:
Measure your goals on the substance of new knowledge and skill, not on excitement alone. We often experience a let down in motivation as we return to the “real world” and confront the obstacles to implementing new ideas and making real changes. Therefore, as we focus energy and attention on understanding and surrendering to the obstacles that could prevent us from “doing”, we are able to apply our motivation and excitement and keep our anticipated goals in proper perspective.
Start small and be specific. One of the biggest culprits of the “retreat letdown” or knowing-doing gap is the lofty expectation of how much new information/behavior can be implemented. Behavior change takes time and can best be accomplished in focused, incremental spurts. Start small, take one thing at a time and don’t give up.
Take a positive learning attitude. When you find obstacles to implementing new knowledge/skills, try to assess why the block is there. Avoid turning negative and becoming pessimistic. Imagine what’s possible when we can close or eliminate the gap between knowing and doing...
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Not All Halos Are Created Equal
In his book The Halo Effect, Phil Rosenzweig does us all a favor as he defines one of the most intrinsic barriers to learning and performance in the workplace. While there can be several types of “Halo Effects,” essentially the barrier occurs when we make specific evaluations based on a general impression. For example, if we really like the CEO of a company and we see the firm attain great financial results, we might conclude that the company’s leadership and associated strategy is the reason for the firm’s success. In reality, the factors contributing to the firm’s financial outcomes may be unrelated to either the leadership style or strategy implemented by the CEO.
Without going into too much detail, the reason that Halos are all around us is because of our tendency to quickly take in vast amounts of data and to take short cuts in sorting what is important from what is not. While this tendency to generalize has helped humans survive lots of physical danger (that rustling noise might be a tiger in the bushes), it also creates many cognitive problems for those seeking great decisions based on nuanced information.
It turns out that vast amounts of business literature and self-help programs promise to identify the keys to success, but many (perhaps most) of them are based on data, information and assumptions that have been distorted in some way or another by the Halo Effect. As Rosenzweig points out in the following book excerpt, the Halo Effect can also result in other business delusions:
- The Delusion of Absolute Performance: Company performance is relative to competition, not absolute, which is why following a formula can never guarantee results. Success comes from doing things better than rivals, which means that managers have to take risks.
- The Delusion of Rigorous Research: Many bestselling authors praise themselves for the vast amount of data they have gathered, but forget that if the data aren't valid, it doesn't matter how much was gathered or how sophisticated the research methods appear to be. They trick the reader by substituting sizzle for substance.
- The Delusion of Single Explanations: Many studies show that a particular factor, such as corporate culture or social responsibility or customer focus, leads to improved performance. But since many of these factors are highly correlated, the effect of each one is usually less than suggested.
To avoid the adverse impacts of the Halo Effect, I recommend developing a brief checklist prior to implementing important decisions. This list could include questions that force us to review the assumptions that we may have left unchecked throughout our process, including: “What conclusion(s) did I have to accept to arrive at this decision? Can I trust these conclusions or should I revisit them in some way? Where might there be Halos in and around this decision? What new information and data is required to make a better decision?”
If we do this well, we can expose Halos and both elevate the level of discussion within our team and enhance our own capacity to think critically about the variables leading to a decision.
Without going into too much detail, the reason that Halos are all around us is because of our tendency to quickly take in vast amounts of data and to take short cuts in sorting what is important from what is not. While this tendency to generalize has helped humans survive lots of physical danger (that rustling noise might be a tiger in the bushes), it also creates many cognitive problems for those seeking great decisions based on nuanced information.
It turns out that vast amounts of business literature and self-help programs promise to identify the keys to success, but many (perhaps most) of them are based on data, information and assumptions that have been distorted in some way or another by the Halo Effect. As Rosenzweig points out in the following book excerpt, the Halo Effect can also result in other business delusions:
- The Delusion of Absolute Performance: Company performance is relative to competition, not absolute, which is why following a formula can never guarantee results. Success comes from doing things better than rivals, which means that managers have to take risks.
- The Delusion of Rigorous Research: Many bestselling authors praise themselves for the vast amount of data they have gathered, but forget that if the data aren't valid, it doesn't matter how much was gathered or how sophisticated the research methods appear to be. They trick the reader by substituting sizzle for substance.
- The Delusion of Single Explanations: Many studies show that a particular factor, such as corporate culture or social responsibility or customer focus, leads to improved performance. But since many of these factors are highly correlated, the effect of each one is usually less than suggested.
To avoid the adverse impacts of the Halo Effect, I recommend developing a brief checklist prior to implementing important decisions. This list could include questions that force us to review the assumptions that we may have left unchecked throughout our process, including: “What conclusion(s) did I have to accept to arrive at this decision? Can I trust these conclusions or should I revisit them in some way? Where might there be Halos in and around this decision? What new information and data is required to make a better decision?”
If we do this well, we can expose Halos and both elevate the level of discussion within our team and enhance our own capacity to think critically about the variables leading to a decision.
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