Wearable electronic sensors that captured patterns of communication without recording the discussions have provided data worth taking note of. With remarkable consistency, the data showed that the most important predictor of a team’s success was its communication patterns. And these patterns were as significant as all others factors – intelligence, personality, skills, strengths and the substance of discussions – combined.

Researchers could foretell which team would outperform others simply by looking at the data on their communication without meeting their members or obtaining insight about the content of their conversations.

What data was collected and measured?

What data do the sociometric electronic sensors collect?
•    When people are talking and their tone of voice, but not words
•    Body language, including arm and hand movements and nods, but not facial expressions
•    Body position relative to others – whether people face each other and how they stand in a group

The sensors measure something simple: Are people clicking or not clicking? The sensors produce “sociometrics,” of how people interact – such as what tone of voice they use; whether they face one another; how much they gesture; how much they talk, listen, and interrupt; and even their levels of extroversion and empathy.

The data also reveal, at a higher level, that successful teams share several defining characteristics about the manner in which they communicate:

1. Everyone on the team talks and listens in roughly equal measure, keeping contributions short and sweet.

2. Members face one another, and their conversations and gestures are energetic.

3. Members connect directly with one another – not just with the team leader.

4. Members carry on back-channel or side conversations within the team.

5. Members periodically break, go exploring outside the team, and bring information back.

The data also established that “individual reasoning and talent contribute far less to team success than one might expect. The best way to build a great team is not to select individuals for their smarts or accomplishments but to learn how they communicate and to shape and guide the team so that it follows successful communication patterns”.

The key elements of communication

Prof Alex “Sandy” Pentland at MIT, Boston, as reported in an article carried in the Harvard Business Review of April, 2012, and his team identified three key communication dynamics that affect performance: energy, engagement, and exploration and quantified the ideal patterns for each:

1. Energy is measures by the number and nature of exchanges among team members.

The most valuable communication is face-to-face. The next is by phone or videoconference but with this caution: These technologies become less effective as more people participate in a call or conference. The level of energy depends on the nature of a meeting e.g. about rule changes, upcoming events as opposed to exiting new developments.

The least valuable forms of communication are e-mail and texting.

2. Engagement reflects the distribution of energy among team members. If in a team of three all have a relatively equal and reasonably high level of energy, of interaction with all other members, engagement is extremely strong. Where a team is bigger it is easy to capture or see who participates and who not and to depict this on a diagramme. Teams which have clusters of members who engage in high-energy communication while others members do not participate, do not perform as well.

3. Exploration involves communication that members engage in outside their team and measures the energy between a team and the other teams it interacts with. This could be , for instance, between management, development, sales support and customer service.

Higher-performing teams constantly seek more outside connections.  Creative teams explore more as they need fresh perspectives. Successful teams seem to balance exploration (for discovery) and engagement (for integration of ideas gathered from outside sources).

Note the importance of socialising. Social time turns out to be deeply critical to team performance, often accounting for more than 50% of positive changes in communication patterns. Increase such possibilities not with “beer meets”, but by enlarging the tables in your lunch area so that those who do not normally sit together, can socialise and get to be in the know.

Note communication patterns and make adjustments

The researchers map teamwork and use circles and lines to map energy/interactions, engagement and exploration and thus make it easy to track developments visually. While the readers of this post may not have electronic sensors on hand, you also could dramatically improve the performance of your teams.

Observe during meetings and provide feedback to yourself and others:

•    Who is trying to contribute and is being ignored or cut-off?
•    Who cuts others off and does not listen, thereby discouraging colleagues from providing their opinions?
•    Who communicates only with one other team member?
•    Who faces other people in meetings and who tends to hide from the group physically?
•    Is there perhaps a small group within the team that dominates discussions?
•    Is the leader of a team perhaps too dominant? It may be that he/she is doing most of the talking and needs to work on encouraging others to participate while holding back.

Make notes on these issues which all concern energy and engagement. Once you know what they are, begin fixing them.

Ask teams to rate their days or meetings on a scale of “creativity” or “frustration” (or “best days” and “worst days”). Be ready to be surprised.

Outside meetings observe who is falling into counterproductive patterns such as shooting off e-mails when they need more face time. (E-mailing is positive on the edge e.g. to arrange meetings or to confirm discussions and agreed-upon actions, but should not replace face-to-face discussions.)

The research team also recommended simple approaches such as reorganizing office space and seating, or setting a personal example – when an MD or manager actively encourages even participation and conducts more face-to-face communication. Removing team members and bringing in new blood may sometimes be a best way to improve the energy and engagement of a team.

Most people, given feedback, can learn to interrupt less, or to face other people, or to listen more actively. Leaders should use the data to promote change within their teams.

Team building is an evolving science as are the sociometric sensors. You may or may not wish to use such sensors in your company. Be it as it may, the way you communicate and the channels of communication which you use have a huge bearing on the success of your company.

Talking sense is a bonus.

Albert

PS. The bulk of this newsletter is based on the article under reference. Visit www.hbr.org for the full text The New Science of Building Great Teams and especially for the diagrammes.

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People have a lot of resistance to change. They have entrenched work habits. They have mindsets. A new strategy means learning and doing new things and there is often resistance, for whatever reason, to such learning.
The majority of my clients are truly successful and fear is not a factor for them. However, some are skirting on the edge. It is interesting that even when faced with alarming consequences if change does not happen, such as closing down a company, some clients find it difficult to go into action and change.

Even when confronted with a dire need to change, nine out of ten times, people don’t change – if change is approached wrongly. This was the finding of Alan Deutschman as recounted in his Change or Die – Could you change when change matters most? (Harper, 2007.) He provided three case studies:

1. Heart patients are unable to make the required lifestyle changes in order to prevent their cardiovascular health from deteriorating even further and eventually causing their deaths. Most medical experts view the statistics and seem to believe that their patients are not able to change. Surgeons instill fear with a vision of a reduced life span. Does this approach work? No. Their patients simply slip into denial and will again be on the operating table until nothing more can be done for them.  People stick to their old unhealthy lifestyles even if these are killing them.

On the other hand, various studies provide solid evidence that seemingly hopeless cardiovascular cases have been turned around spectacularly through a change of lifestyle. Why does the medical profession at large not heed how this change has been achieved?

2. Repeat offenders in the criminal justice system are unable to change their behaviour patterns in order to avoid going back to prison. Prison authorities have largely given up on the notion that criminals can be rehabilitated.

Again successful rehabilitation programmes are being run with ex-inmates, 60% of whom become solid citizens. Why do the penal authorities not take note of these programmes and how this change was done?

3. Companies and employees remain trapped in unsuccessful business practices which they know will not lead them to the next level and may even gradually put them out of business.

General Motors and IBM, the computer mainframe manufacturer, found themselves in dire predicaments as did many other companies. How did they manage successful turnarounds?

Change is possible and it’s not that difficult.

The reason so many fail in attempts to change is based in some common misconceptions of how change occurs.

We think that plain facts and understanding the situation will convince people to change and that people are essentially rational – that we will act in our self-interest if accurate information is provided to us.

Surgeons, criminal justice authorities and MDs resort to scare tactics when they notice that trying to rationally inform and educate people, does not work.

We think that emphasising unpleasant consequences will induce people to change. MDs are stern, admonish and use bonus systems and the possible withholding of bonuses as a threat to induce change. Does fear work? No, not in the long run.

Deutschman delivers a positive message: We are all absolutely capable of changing the deep-rooted patterns of how we think, feel and act. However, we need to replace our misguided trust in facts, fear and force (the three Fs) with three proven keys to change.

MDs take note of the three Rs:

1. Relate: You need to form a new, emotional relationship with a change agent (e.g. a consultant) and with your community (your team) that inspires and sustains hope. If you are pessimistic or doubtful, change will not happen. Exude optimism and hope. A consultant has to believe you can and will change and has to assist you in effecting a transformation. A heavy information-based factual approach will not do it. Short-term consulting is ineffective. Be ready to be in it for the long haul. Turn your team into a community of individuals who will assist each others and you to achieve success.

John P. Kotter, while at Harvard, stated “good analysis rarely motivates people in a big way. It changes thought, but how often does it send people running out of the door to act in significantly new ways? And motivation is not a thinking word; it’s a feeling word.”

Emotionally-charged ideas change behaviour. Have you not experienced this? When you are exited about new possibilities are you not eager to get going?

2. Repeat: It takes new knowledge, application and repetition before new patterns of behaviour become natural and automatic. New relationships give you guidance and direction and you need to learn, practice and drill new skills. View your team members as human capital, as assets, and draw them in. A 12-month programme will provide the foundation and the repetition needed for change. Investing in brief training programmes is a waste of effort. It takes a lot of repetition over time for new patterns to be established. Team members arrive at insights and skills at their own pace. Get all into the gym and exercise.

3. Reframe: During this time of training, new relationships helps you reframe your thoughts about your situation. Change requires new understanding and often also a change in mindset. You also may have to reframe the way you approach and handle your team and they may have to learn to support each other.

MDs give serious attention to these three key factors. They need to be addressed before the transformation that you seek, will take place.

Deutschman advises “to think of change as what you do to remain successful, not what you’ll have to do when your success finally runs out”.

And create short-term wins. Kotter says it always vital to identify, achieve, and celebrate some quick, positive results for the emotional lifts they provide. “Without sufficient wins that are visible, timely, unambiguous, and meaningful to others, change efforts invariably run into serious problems.”

Dean Ornish, a successful cardiologist who runs a change programme found that his patients were motivated by knowing that they could enjoy and improve their lives right now.

Deutschman observes “I’m not advocating change because it makes your life or organization better at some distant time in the future. I believe that engaging with people and learning new skills and ideas are among the greatest pleasures of everyday life. The ideal is not to make a dramatic comeback…but rather to walk around and see other people living and working and playing and say to yourself: “That’s perfect. I love it. I wish I knew how to do that” and then going out and mastering it and feeling the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment and joy of understanding something new about the world.”

Instead of change or die, learn to change and thrive and do it in the moment.

Albert

PS. For more comprehensive information, click on this link http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/94/open_change-or-die.html?page=0%2C0 and better still, buy the book.

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We have developed fixed mindsets about what we can and can’t do and about many other things. We create some realities which serve as positively, but we also create some which do not serve us.

Often we simply believe we can’t. Is it true?

Robert Middleton, an American marketing expert and coach who serves independent professionals such as consultants and coaches, covers this topic in his coaching material. In his newsletter this week he addressed being stuck. How often do we find a good excuse for not pushing through?

This article is very readable and to the point, and I decided to send it to my subscribers in full. I provide full attribution at the bottom of this post.  Robert over to you:

Moving Past “I can’t”

Many years ago Nike committed to a very powerful slogan for their business – “Just Do It.”

And while few can argue with the motivational message embedded in this slogan, unfortunately it isn’t enough to get most people past their already embedded belief:
“I can’t do it.”

If we are honest with ourselves we’ll admit that we express versions of this every single day:

“It’s too much trouble, I don’t have the time, I might fail, it costs too much, the risk is too big, it won’t work anyway, I don’t know where to start, it has to be perfect first, I’ll make a fool of myself, who am I to do this?, I’ll do it later.”

For years I had the famous quote from Henry Ford posted above my desk: “If you think you can or if you think you can’t, you’re right.”

Unfortunately, for too many of us, “I can’t” wins out many more times than “I can.” But as Ford says, it comes down to a matter of thinking. What if it was as easy to say “I can” as “I can’t”?

“It’s easy, I have the time, I might succeed, it’s affordable, the risk isn’t too big, it will probably work, I know where to start, it doesn’t need to be perfect, I’ll make a success of myself, I’m the one to do this, I’ll do it now!”

But it’s not just the words is it? No it’s the belief behind the words. We feel we are just telling the truth with all those “I can’ts.” We’re just reporting on the way it is, right?

Well, no. That’s not the way it works at all.

Last week I came up against a big wall of “I can’t.”

But instead of letting it take me, I examined it.

I didn’t accept that it was true, but instead assumed it was simply a lie that had gotten me in its grip.

“I can’t” beliefs don’t come out of nowhere. No, we’ve had years and years to practice and perfect them.

One day, a long time ago, when we were very little, we failed at something. Perhaps we fell down. It was painful. We cried. But nevertheless, we survived.

This didn’t happen once, but a thousand times between the formative years of one and five. Thousands of little failures, all associated with some pain and upset.

Fast forward to today. After awhile we didn’t need the failure anymore to feel the pain and upset. Just the things in our external environment were reminders of this pain and upset. There are hard things to do, people who might disapprove, reminders of how we failed before.

For instance, in marketing:

- Picking up the phone for a follow-up call
- Asking for a referral from a client
- Writing an article that must persuade
- Speaking in front of a large audience
- Getting a handle on social media
- Asking for the order

All of these have the potential to trigger pain and upset. So it becomes easier to just avoid these things. With these types of triggers, we don’t think anymore, we just react with our favourite version of “I can’t” and that makes us feel a little safer in our limited comfort zone.

Ultimately I noticed that my own “I can’t” had been triggered by not reaching a particular goal. And that felt painful and upsetting. I felt like a failure; I wanted to quit.
But I didn’t try to “power through” this belief and assert its opposite: “I can!” No, that’s violent. That dismisses the reality of the painful feeling. It actually only magnifies the “I can’t” as it fights to survive.

Instead, I just observed it very carefully. I asked if it was really true; I noticed how I was reacting and behaving. And I tried to imagine how I might behave if I wasn’t caught in this belief.

I created some separation between what I might call “the observing me” and “the reactive me.” And I gave “the reactive me” space to just be. I didn’t resist it or try to change it.

And in about half an hour, the reactive me, committed to the “I can’t” belief, just lifted and dissipated like the fog when the sun comes out. Before long it was nowhere to be found.

And all I was left with was “I can” along with a feeling of unstoppable power and unusually rich well-being. Then with little fuss or effort I took the actions I had been avoiding and produced some great results.

So… are you caught in an “I can’t” that is holding you, your business, your marketing, your relationship, your health, or whatever else in your life, back? The first step is to realize that you’re caught in the power of “I can’t” and that it may, in fact, not be true at all.

If you want to get to “I can,” don’t force it. It’s already inside you ready to take charge. But by gently working with the “I can’t,” by observing it and questioning it, it will tend to dissipate by itself.

And then what will you do from “I can?”
Will you take a risk, find the time to learn something new, start a project that is hard but worthwhile?

If you don’t act and prove the reality of “I can” and grow its strength, then “I can’t” will happily find a way to reassert itself.

Many thanks, Robert!

Albert

PS. Robert Middleton’s website is www.actionplan.com. Visit his website. Robert provides immense value. Download some of his free stuff. Join his Marketing Club.

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The result is that many MDs experience serious strain each day. As MD you might consider expanding your already successful company, products and services but baulk at doing as you are afraid that the load which you personally carry will increase. The problem is that you are the system. All operations run through you. You experience unhealthy strain and overwhelm. Any change or expansion will only increase your personal load.

Most entrepreneurs tend to learn and grow by solving problems as they turn up.  And most entrepreneurs work intuitively which mean they do not really think systems. I recommend installing easy-to-use interrelated systems from the strategic level downward.

How many of these systems do you have in place?

If they are in place, are you using them professionally?

1. Direction

A strategic planning system with which you annually generate a meaningful strategic plan with the involvement of all. Small organisations (up to 30 individuals participating) are able to involve all in developing their strategic plan including a mission statement. You would focus on you industry, on trends abroad and within South Africa, on your industry, your competition, and how you are faring versus your competition. I like using a wide-ranging scenario conversation. Thereafter I take my clients through a second round which obliges them to think outside the box/their industry. For this I use a Blue Ocean strategy canvas development approach.

2. Operational

Do you have an operational system? What do you visualise putting into place in the next 12 months? Have you expressed this in an operational plan? I use the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), which also is a performance management system. My clients and their teams track progress by means of milestones and measures. It is not easy to get measures into place, but you need to state your criteria and measure progress – or the lack thereof.

3. Marketing

Are you getting your message out? There’s no point in having strategic direction, doing well operationally and delivering real value to clients if too few people in your market know about you.  Most companies, including very successful ones, do not understand marketing as a system and especially as a process. MDs often think tactically (website, brochure, blog, etc) and not strategically. The thinking that goes into the strategic and operational plans is not in place or their content is not reflected in their marketing. Although referrals are very important these should not be the only source of new business.

Marketing is a learnable topic. Do you approach marketing consciously as a system and process and ensure that you attract all the clients that you need, when you need them and at an income that you want? Are you succeeding in doing so?

4. Execution

Successful companies install a system of execution consisting of a set series of annual, monthly, weekly and daily meetings.  MDs often regard execution as simply “doing what is necessary” or “doing one’s work”. You need to drive the implementation of the objectives on your Balanced Scorecard (BSC) with a thorough review and planning meeting once per month while holding a process BSC meeting each week. The most important planning span is a week, as people are able to think through five days – if you are using a system.

Also install an even simpler additional system consisting of a project list, a weekly list and a Daily Dashboard. The latter one-pager ensures that you each day focus on a healthy mix of important and urgent objectives and to-dos. Most individuals tend to focus on urgent, busy tasks to the exclusion of important objectives (which build the business) – simply as important objectives are usually not urgent. Are you giving sufficient attention to strategic, important  issues?

Kaplan and Norton of Balanced Scorecard fame in 2008 stated having a formal strategy execution system made success two to three times more likely than not having a system. (See http://www.abplan.co.za/blog/2009/02/25/do-you-have-a-strategy-of-execution/)

5. Relations

How you handle your relations, firstly, with your team and, secondly, with your external clients will determine whether you will achieve astounding success or not.

Install a “Team First” system. Your team members are your most important assets. Make a concerted effort at understanding your workplace conditions as experienced by your employees. I use a system of measuring and reviewing 12 elements. Transform your company into “a best company to work for”. Focusing on your team will create the foundation of a superb service for your clients. Team work requires a basic understanding of a few important factors. Teams are not simply a given. Many are dysfunctional.

Next install a Client system. Define your ideal client and install and thoroughly use a Client Management System. Ensure that you consciously use client management processes to deepen your relations and deliver superior results to your clients.

6. Mindsets and Blockages

We all operate from our own mindsets or paradigms. Some mindsets serve us well and some don’t. It is amazing how one can procrastinate or avoid action simply because of ingrained beliefs that constrain us. It’s also amazing how easy it is to turn these beliefs around. Address blockages in a systematic manner. I use a simple, proven exercise on paper which is easy to learn. Whenever I get stuck, I work myself out of an imagined constrain or rut. It’s liberating. I can assure you that anyone can do so with virtually any constraining belief encountered in a work environment. Yes, you can.

What results could you derive from a systems approach?

You will be able to focus on more of the things that reflect your strengths and passion as you wil not be the centre of all decisions. You will have more time available. Overwhelm and negative stress will not dominate.

Your team will be totally involved. Each individual will have a clear understanding of his or her contribution and the purpose of these contributions. Systems are learnable. They provide structure. Your team will provide superior products and services. You and your team members will feel in charge. The profits of confident in-charge teams usually increase.

Your clients will gain.

Intuition is extremely important. But it’s not enough.

Install systems.

Albert

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We are all so used to the idea of having managers around that we might find the notion of doing away with managers downright impossible or absurd. Well, we all know that the role of managers has changed in the last three decades. The advent of the internet has drastically altered communications and the flow of information internally. In addition, employees, especially young employees, are drastically different from their managers. There’s simply less of a need for traditional managers.

How essential is it to have a layer of managers supervising workers? Garry Hamel, a visiting professor at the London Business School, observed in an article in the Harvard Business Review, December 2011, that “managers are expensive, increase the risk of bad judgement, slow down decision making, and often disenfranchise employees”. Would you agree?

The role of managers needs a fresh content to make them relevant to today’s needs – and please note, that some major companies have already eliminated this additional expensive and often very inefficient layer of senior employees.

How is it possible to do away with managers? The answer lies in self-empowerment and creating a culture of self-empowerment. Hamel provides an informal case study of Morning Star, the world’s largest tomato processor, with revenues of over $700 million in 2010 that succeeded in getting 400 employees to self-empower themselves. It created a culture of self-management with no manager in sight.

Hamel observes that “your organization probably wasn’t built around the principles of self-management. It’s most likely a bureaucracy – with a thicket of policy rules, a multilayered hierarchy, and a host of management processes – built to ensure conformity and predictability. Control is the philosophical cornerstone of bureaucracy…where managers are the enforcers who ensure employees follow rules, adhere to standards, and meet budgets.”

Self-management practices

Let’s assume that you are not going to fire your managers or that they will not volunteer to walk. Be astute and take note of some self-empowerment practices as your company could gain much if you were to adopt practices such as these:

Make the mission the boss

Your company, if you are one of my clients, has a mission or purpose statement. Hamel observes that every employee should, in addition, be responsible for drawing up a personal mission statement that outlines how he or she will contribute to your company’s main overarching goals and clearly state what they wish to achieve. Says the President of Morning Star to each employee: “You are responsible for the accomplishment of your mission and for acquiring the training, resources, and cooperation that you need to fulfill your mission.” In this plant, everyone is driven by his or her personal mission statement and their commitments, not by a manager.

Employees forge agreements with others

Such agreements are, in effect, operating plans needed to fulfill one’s mission. Freedom is not the enemy of coordination.  The BUs negotiate customer-supplier agreements with one other annually. Each has a profit and loss (P&L) account.

Self-empower everyone

Everyone is driving a bus. You cannot pass the buck up the line as there is no line. You do whatever needs to be done. You run your budget and decide on expenditures needed – if there are funds. (You are not a government which spends itself into oblivion before facing facts.)

Self-management extends to staffing decisions

Employees should be responsible for initiating the hiring process.  They should appoint (or assist in appointing) capable colleagues.

There are no centrally-defined roles

Employees are able to take on bigger responsibilities as they develop their skills and gain experience. Do what you are good at. Focus on your strengths.

Encourage competition for impact not for promotions

At Morning Star there is no career ladder to climb. However, all employees are not equal and compensations levels are determined by expertise. You and your colleagues determine what your contribution is worth. To get ahead an employee must master new skills or discover new ways of serving colleagues. Strengthen your resume with bigger responsibilities – not a bigger title.

Clear targets, transparent data

People cannot self-manage without information. Provide all the information employees need to monitor their own work and make wise decisions. Track metrics indicating success in meeting your associates’ needs.  Publish detailed P&L statements. Colleagues are encouraged to hold one another accountable for results. (“With this sort of transparency, folly and sloth are quickly exposed”.)  Develop cross-company information to calculate how your decisions will influence other areas. Everyone has to have access to the same system-wide data. Eliminate information or business unit silos.

Experienced colleagues serve as coaches

Unilateral decisions are seldom made. Competent, experienced colleagues serve as coaches. Morning Star has a dispute-solution cum mediator process. A dispute seldom lands on the president’s desk.  The fate of an employee does not lie in the hands of a capricious boss. Peer reviews, conducted properly, are bound to be fair.

Accountability needs to become part of your company’s DNA

Peer reviews are thorough. Each person has to justify their use of company resources, acknowledge shortfalls, and present plans for improvement.  Business units are ranked by performance and those near the bottom can expect an interrogation.

Elect compensation committees

Every colleague develops a self-assessment document outlining how he or she performed against agreed goals, targets and other metrics.  Colleagues elect a committee that works to validate self-assessments and uncover contributions that went unreported. They ensure that pay aligns with value added.

(Please note that I have leaned heavily on Hamel’s words. I trust that this effort will motivate you to obtain the full article from the HBR or from the author.)

Own comment

Three of my current clients can confirm that many of the ideas in this article (and post) form part of my Built for Results programme. These clients are moving themselves and their employees to a higher level of proactive self-management. One client with a sizeable staff component has no managers.

My advice to MDs is always not to appoint a new manager simply as the work load is growing. Managers are very expensive overheads. First ensure that your current managers focus on their teams and that they grow each individual. Junior employees are often able to carry astounding responsibilities, provided that they are carefully coached and over time are given increasingly more important opportunities which grow them.

Managers, who offer lame excuses for not building their people to the point where individuals become self-managing, should take note of these trends. Such managers are ensuring that neither they, nor their people nor their company grow.

Of course, MDs also have to make a personal effort to grow themselves and their managers.

All are to take action.

Albert

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Michael Hammer, author of Deep Change – How Operational Innovation Can Transform a Company (Harvard Business Review, April 2004), provided an example in the USA auto insurance business which might also intrigue you. All South Africans will have noted what our insurance companies have been doing over the past five years. We have all seen a series of insurance ads on TV. You may even have experienced a better service. It would appear that some SA insurance companies had taken note of what Progressive Insurance did.  Although you may not in the insurance industry, what could you consider doing with reference to this example?

Now what did a few top companies do to become so successful? Were they positioned in a high-growth industry? Did they diversify? Did they go global? Did they grow through clever marketing?

“No” to all these questions.

They simply “outoperated” their competition. Some offered lower prices and better service than their rivals. And they did it through “operational innovation, the invention and deployment of new ways of doing work”. They came up with entirely new ways of filling orders, developing products, providing customer service, or doing any other activity that companies usually perform.

Each company fundamentally rethought how to do work in its industry.

We all know that Wal-Mart, Toyata and Dell have each fundamentally rethought how to do work in their industries. They gladly show outsiders around. Why worry about being copied? Who can copy them?

Operational innovation is rare. No more than 10% of enterprises have made a serious and successful effort at it.  All the more reason why you should be doing it!

Let’s take a closer at Progressive Insurance. It could not compete against larger players on a level playing field. So it changed the rules. It reinvented claims processing to lower its costs and boost customer satisfaction and retention. The proof lies in its combined ratio (expenses plus claims payouts, divided by premiums), the measure of the financial performance in the insurance industry. In an industry where companies run a 2% loss on their underwriting activities and where they have to recover the loss with investment income, Progressive’s combined ratio beat the industry and it became the USA’s third largest auto insurer.

Progressive introduced Immediate Response claims handling. Involved in an accident? Call them anytime, 24/7.  A claims adjuster will be quickly at the scene as they work from mobile vans – not out of offices. Progressive reduced the seven to ten days it took to inspect your vehicle to not more than nine hours. On arrival the adjuster speeds up the claiming process. He makes an on-site estimate of damage and, if possible, writes a cheque on the spot. This leads to a reduction in the size of payouts. Would you not be willing to accept less money if it is given sooner and with less hassle?

The benefits for you and for them?  You get faster service without effort – which translates into loyalty. The shortened cycle time reduces Progressive’s cost dramatically. The cost of storing a damaged car for up to nine days is saved and multiplied by the 10 000 claims which Progressive handles daily.  Speedy arrival on the accident scene means an improved ability to detect fraud – before the evidence has faded. Fever people involved in handling a claim translates into lower operating cost.

Call their number or visit Progressive’s website to easily compare their rates against those of other insurance companies. They use an automated credit risk profile process. Their computers check you out with credit agencies resulting in more accurate pricing.

Lastly, Progressive negotiates a two-hour window for selecting the right adjuster who has the experience that matches your type of accident. It also offers a concierge approach to certain types of claims handling. If you can, bring your car to a Progressive claims facility and they will take it from there, give you a car on loan and return your fixed car to you.

How does your company’s operational efficiency compare? Do you have an impressive story to tell?

Operational innovation affects time, cost, and customer satisfaction. It is reliable and low in cost. So why don’t more companies embrace it? Especially when industries are struggling with low growth, stagnant markets, overcapacity, and fierce competition?

Virtually all product and service offerings have become commodities. In this environment, one way to grow is to take market share from competitors by running rings around them: by operating at lower costs that can be turned into lower prices and by providing extraordinary levels of quality and service.

Note, that mere operational improvements are not enough. You need to execute in a totally different way – that is, through operational innovation.  This means a departure from familiar norms. It requires major changes in how business units (BUs) and people conduct their work and relate to each other. It is truly deep change, affecting the very essence of a company: how its work is done. It affects measures, reward systems, job designs, organisational structures and managerial roles.

Operational innovation will never get off the ground without executive leadership. In large companies this type of innovation is rarely perceived as an important endeavour. It simply is not glamorous. In the minds of executives, finance and strategy are at the top, marketing and sales occupy the middle tier, and operations are at the bottom.

Fortunately this post is addressed at MDs of small and medium-sized companies, where the MD is usually the centre of everything. However, such MDs also have to ensure that they in their budget and planning processes explicitly look for process breakthroughs.

Do not loose the distinction between “improvement” and “innovation”. Reimagine current processes.

Operational innovation is worth pursuing. It requires that you and your team members have to focus your efforts. Change is by nature disruptive. Concentrate on those activities which will have the greatest impact on your strategic direction. Rethink you goals and decide which areas will benefit most. Where do you need to focus? On client acquisition, on new product development, on process development, on post-sales customer support, lower direct costs, more added value, simplified processes, stronger client relationships, etc?

Limit you innovation programme to two or three major efforts at a time. To undertake more would consume too many resources and create too much organisational disruption.

Then set stretch performance goals and ensure that they are clearly unattainable through exiting modes of operations – as they have to stimulate radical thinking and a willingness to overturn tradition. Progressive ensured that claims could be initiated in 9 hours.  “Inventing a new way of operating that achieves stretch targets is not simply a matter of crossing your fingers and hoping for inspiration”.

New thinking
•    Look for role models outside your industry – as benchmarking within your industry is unlikely to uncover breakthrough concepts. For instance, Taco Bell transformed its restaurant operations by thinking about them in manufacturing rather than in fast-food terms. Food is prepared away from their premises, delivered and assembled in their kitchens. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care applied marketing segmentation techniques common in the consumer good area and identified patients most likely to have a medical crisis and to intervene before a crisis occurs.

•    Identify and defy a constraining assumption.  Cross docking trucks and loading from one into the other negates the assumption that goods need to be stored. Built-to-order that goods should be produced based on forecasts. Zoom in on the assumption that interferes with achieving a strategic goal, and then figure out how to get rid of it.

•    Make the special case the norm.  Companies often achieve extraordinary levels of performance under extraordinary conditions. Turn this into the norm.

•    Rethink critical dimensions of work. Designing operations entails making choices in seven areas. It requires specifying …what results are to be produced, who should perform the necessary activities, where it should be performed, and when.  It also involves deciding whether each of the activities should be or should not be performed, what information should be made available to the performers, and how thoroughly or intensively each activity needs to be performed.

Getting implementation right
Companies that follow traditional implementation methodologies inevitably take too long.  There is so much to be done, and so much that must be integrated, that months can pass before the innovation is implemented and the benefits start to flow. Create a sense of urgency.

As every proposed major change is invariably greeted with a chorus of “it will never work”, a lengthy implementation period gives opponents an extended opportunity to campaign against it. As more time passes and more money is spent without the innovation or its payoffs seeing the light of day, organisational support leaks away.

It is difficult getting everything right from the start. Ideas that look good on paper don’t always work well in practice. That’s normal. It’s impossible to get everything right from the outset. Only when a concept is tried does one learn what it should really have been in the first place. Learn as you go.

You need to adopt a new approach to implementing operational innovations. Follow an iterative, evolutionary approach. Begin with the best estimate of innovation, build the first version, try it out with customers or users and feed the knowledge gained from tests into a fast-cycle iteration of the next version.

Do not try to implement an innovation all at once. Break large-scale implementation into a series of limited releases. This creates momentum, dispels scepticism and anxiety, and delivers a powerful rejoinder to carping critics.

Operational innovation moves a company to an entirely new level. Once there, focus on additional changes and refinements that will keep you ahead of the pack.  Make operational innovation a way of life.  Develop a reputation with clients and customers for relentlessly improving performance

If you want to deliver new, superior performance, and do it with integrity in an environment in which there is an overdose of hype, and in one in which the customer rules, operational innovativeness might just be what you need to seriously establish your brand – and put you ahead.

Albert
PS. ABPLAN’s Built for Results Programme covers this approach and more.

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Some of my clients whom I coached experienced – each at their own pace – a similar realisation. Something clicked. The light went on. Eyes showed sparkling recognition. An insight had occurred.

What were the main ideas of this interlinked whole?  

1. One cannot switch on the light in someone else

You can only use a process in the hope that your discussion partner switches on the light.

One cannot give advice or sketch what would obviously be beneficial for the other person, and hope they will agree. Take it as a given, what is a reality and a truth for you and works for you, is not a reality to any other living person. We all see situations through unique lenses and mindsets which were created over a lifetime. No one can see what you see. Nor can you see what they see.

Do not try to persuade people to do what’s good for them.  Helping people to achieve self-actualisation does not work. Brains are pattern-making organs with an innate desire to create their own novel solutions. You only get a rush of excitement if the insight is your own. We only become exited by someone else’s brilliant ideas if we can give it our own original (even more brilliant) twist. So do not try to convince others of a particular solution or answer. Use authentic enquiry and delve into their situations or problems with them and hope they will get a brilliant flash of insight – theirs, not yours.  (This is difficult to grasp, I can confirm. I have so many ideas that no one adopts although it will be so good for them.)

Do not dwell on the past. Do not get stuck. It’s wasted energy. Focus people on future solutions instead of on past problems, let them come to their own answers, and keep them focused on their insights. Provide feedback and support to take their ideas and solutions further.

2. Do not overload people with new ideas

Brains can only deal with a limited amount of new information during a discussion or presentation. If you want to introduce new direction or policy get to the point and group your points in a few clusters. Even if you have thought matters through for days and are bursting with great ideas take note your audience can barely remember 10%.  Slow down, present and work in small slices.

Make ideas crystal clear and simple. Simplicity trumps complexity.

Inject emotions into your ideas and delivery. Brilliantly bland ideas are not exiting.  And do not deliver them as a given. Ask, what do you think?  Involve others and allow them to take over your ideas as their own. Accept it as a compliment, if this happens.

3. Practice, practice, deliberate practice

Many of us admire professional athletes of various sports disciplines. We intuitively know that it took years of committed hard training before they reached their peak and impressed us.

When we initiate change or a new direction we expect our staff to perform professionally within a week or two. Why do they not get it? We explained it so nicely, even twice.

How long does it take any professional to become professional?  On average, five hours a day over eight years or 10 000 hours. How many years did it take you before you really got to be an expert at what you are doing?

And professional athletes have professional coaches. Should we as leaders and managers not be professional coaches?  How much time do we spend each week in coaching individual team members?

How quickly do managers learn new concepts? Have you read a business article, marvelled at its useful ideas and the next day could scarcely discuss its main concepts with a colleague? You had to read it again, make notes and could then discuss a few elements. You tried to coach your team and had to return to the original source and study some more.  There is nothing wrong with you. Your brain simply had to be programmed with repeated study and practice.

Why should a staff member be any different?

4. The solution and your behaviour

Do we not all tend to focus mostly on the logical side of problem-solving and on our ability to come up with immediate clever solutions, while seldom being aware of our behaviour? Admit it, we all can recall situations which we addressed with the right knowledge and intentions but blew it, as our behaviour did not bring out the best in those around us. Do you have a proven ability to create a ‘”Best Day” virtually every day for your team as opposed to “Worst Days”? How often do you display toxic behaviour?

Learn to analyse your best and worst behaviours. At the end of each day (for 20 work days), identify one problem which you solved and then analyse how you handled it. Examine your behaviour. Do a little 10-minute exercise each day. Being more supportive and nurturing can just be what’s needed for your future success and that of your company. Don’t doom a plan by executing it with a blunt toxic axe.

5. How well do you handle crucial conversations?

Every conversation that a manager holds with a staff member is a crucial conversation.  Examples would be a Monday-morning meeting or a one-on-one meeting in your office. How do you handle such conversations? Do you create a safe environment by putting your staff member at ease, do you stick to the facts, avoid using negative judgmental words or phrases, and do you see others as decent, valued co-workers?

Read and reread
What do you do or fail to do? I do hope that you will be motivated to turn to these five posts again. Their ideas are all part of a manager’s toolbox. All were based on extensive research by respected authors.

I got a light-bulb moment when I realised how these ideas all fitted together and how usable this package is.

What will a reread do to you?

Albert
PS. Join the conversation and leave a comment.

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However, behavioural change – and business success – has a much likelier chance of occurring if we heed new evidence about change. Breakthroughs in cognitive science about how our brains function contain pointers worth taking serious note of.

People are predisposed to resist some forms of leadership and accept others. David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz in an article The Neuroscience of Leadership (Strategy + Business, Summer Issue 43, 2006) reported several conclusions that could make the art and craft of leadership more effective:

Change is pain
Organisational change provides sensations of discomfort to your working memory, which is a short-term, fairly overtaxed “holding area”.  When people encounter something new this memory is frequently engaged. Change obliges your working memory to actively compare and consider benefits.

Another part of our brains is the habit-centre. It has neural circuits of long-standing habits developed because of extensive experience and training. This part functions exceedingly well without conscious thought in any routine activity thus freeing up the processing resources of your working memory.

You learn to drive a car really well “without thinking”. If in another country you try to drive on the opposite side of the road, the act of driving becomes difficult.

In a company a situation of strategic or organisational change, any change of a hardwired habit takes a lot of effort and attention. Change leads to a feeling of discomfort which leads to avoidance (or flight).

Leaders tend to underestimate the challenges inherent in implementation.

Certain ways and means of inducing change are less successful than others.

Behaviourism doesn’t work
Take note that change efforts based on a carrot and stick approach, that is, on typical incentives and threats, rarely succeed in the long run.

Humanism is overrated
A person-centered approach (inspired by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow) is usually not sophisticated enough. This school of thought assumes that self-esteem, emotional needs, and values could provide leverage for changing behaviour. Help people to reach self-actualisation. The carrot and stick approach was abandoned and the focus was on empathy.

This approach might produce an effective solution – provided enough time is assigned to the process. However, do not use elements of persuasion. Many managers (and consultants) believe that they should convince people of the value of change. Instead, managers should recognise that brains are pattern-making organs with an innate desire to create their own novel connections.

When people solve problems themselves the brain releases a rush of neurotransmitters like adrenaline. Rather than lecturing and providing solutions, effective managers ask pertinent questions and support people in working out solutions of their own. But even a Socratic approach can backfire when wielded by a leader who is trying to convince others of a particular solution or answer. Do not try to cloak an effort to persuade as authentic enquiry. The brain picks up the difference and resists.

Even if it is their own interest to change, a behaviourism approach is usually not sophisticated enough to induce people to change.

Focus is power
The …“mental act of focusing attention stabilizes the associated brain circuits. Concentrating attention on your mental experience, whether in thought, an insight, a picture in your mind’s eye, or a fear, maintains the brain in a state arising in association with that experience.”

We now know that the brain changes as a result of where the individual puts his or her attention. The power is in the focus.

People who practice a speciality every day literally think differently, through different sets of connections, than people who don’t practice a speciality.

Deliberate practice plays a huge role in achieving success.

Expectations shape reality
People’s mental maps, their theories, expectations, beliefs and attitudes play a more central role in human perception than was previously understood. (Tell someone a pain-reducing pill is being administered and they will experience a reduction in pain, despite the fact have received a placebo, a sugar pill.)

People experience what they expect to experience.

This has important implications for business. Put the right people in positions that are extensions of their personal maps. For instance, two individuals work in a call centre. The one views customers as troubled children, and sees complaints as needing to be allayed. The other views callers as busy but intelligent professionals and hears valuable suggestions of improving a product or service.

How would you facilitate change?
One way of facilitating change is by cultivating moments of insight. A large-scale change in behaviour requires a large-scale change in mental maps. This requires an event or emotional experience that allows people to change their attitudes and expectation more quickly and dramatically that they normally would.

During moments of insights a complex set of new connections is being created which has the potential of overcoming the brain’s resistance to change. But this requires a deliberate effort to hardwire an insight by paying it repeated attention.

“Leaders wanting to change the way people think or behave should learn to recognize, encourage and deepen their team’s insights.”

People need to own any kind of change initiative for it to be successful.

Attention density shapes identity
For insights to be useful, they need to be generated from within, not given to individuals as conclusions. People will experience the excitement of insight only if they go through the process of making a connection themselves. The moment of insight is a positive and energizing experience which helps fight against the internal and external forces trying to keep change from occurring, including the fear response.

The term attention density is used define the amount of attention paid to a particular mental experience over a specific time. The greater the concentration on a specific idea or mental experience, the higher the density. With enough density, the individual thoughts and acts of the mind can become an intrinsic part of an individual’s identity.

You’ve probably had the experience of going to a training programme and getting exited about new ideas, only to realize later that you can’t remember what the new ways of thinking were. Specific research has shown that a training programme alone increased productivity 28%, but the addition of follow-up coaching increased productivity 88%.

Small bites instead of large blocks
Given the small capacity of the working memory, many small bites of learning, digested over time, may be more effective than large blocks of time spent in workshops. The key is getting people to pay sufficient attention to new ideas.

Perhaps any behaviour change brought about by leaders, managers and coaches is primarily a function of their ability to induce others to focus their attention on specific ideas, closely enough, often enough, and for a long time enough.

How can leaders, managers, consultants and coaches effectively change their own or other people’s behaviours?
Start by leaving problem behaviours in the past. Focus on identifying and creating new behaviours. In due course, these may shape the dominant pathways in the brain. Use a solution-focused questioning approach that facilitates self-insight, rather than through advice-giving.

If Rob does not reach an objective, do not focus on his non-performance, as this might lead to forming cognitive connections (also know as reasons or excuses) as to why the objective was not reached. Although these excuses might be true, they do little to foster any change.

Rather focus Rob’s attention on the new circuits he needs to create to achieve his objectives in the future. Ask: “What do you need to do to resolve challenges like this?” This might lead to an insight. If the manager regularly asked Rob about progress, it would remind Rob to give this new thought more attention.

Remind people of their positive insights and do so one idea at a time. Behaviourists call it “positive feedback”, which is a deliberate effort to reinforce behaviour that already worked. If conducted skillfully, this is one aspect of behaviourism that has a beneficial cognitive effect.

How to change a culture?
A leader might wish to change the way that an entire company thinks. A common approach is to conduct a cultural survey. The aim might be to identify the source of problems.

A better alternative would be to paint a broad picture of being more entrepreneurial without specifying the changes that individuals need to make. Ask them to picture the new behaviours in their own minds and in the process develop energizing new mental maps. These might have the potential to become hardwired circuitry.  The team would focus on their own insights and the manager would regularly provide “gentle reminders” so that these entrepreneurial maps become the dominant pathways. He also needs to catch the team when they get sidetracked and gently bring them back.

The power truly is in the focus, and in the attention that is paid.

The answer to all challenges to change
In a nutshell: Focus people on future solutions instead of on past problems, let them come to their own answers, and keep them focused on their insights.

Apparently that’s what the brain wants.

Focus on incremental progress against measures, and develop a fine-grain awareness of processes and how to improve them. In daily and weekly meetings participants could systematically talk about the means for making things better, and in doing so, train their own brains to make new connections.

The discomfort of managers
Few managers are comfortable putting these principles into practice. Our management models are based on knowledge. We follow a “transmission” approach to transferring information – exemplified by lectures and textbooks where knowledge is transmitted to a passive receiver. This is the prevailing teaching method used in universities and business schools. Managers tend to use models that they have endured. For many managers, “leading others in such a new way may be a bigger change, and therefore challenge, than driving the other side of the road”.

Change is all about learning
Peter Drucker said: “We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”

The authors of the article, on which this post is based, observe: “In the knowledge economy, where people are paid to think, and with constant change, there is more pressure than ever to improve how we learn”.

As a consultant, I have to make some serious changes.

Albert
PS. You will find the article under reference at www.strategy-business.com/rss .

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Most of us know that our listening retention ability is between 7% and 9%.

It follows that attending a coaching session does not make much of a difference in altering behaviour. It has been established that only 10% to 15% of attendees enjoy a straightforward “talking-head lecture” which many coaching presentations are. What’s more, only 10% to 15% of the attendees take some aspects of what they learned home and put it into practice.

Could we not all agree that these troubling facts are realistic, judging from our own memories and our own paucity of action after a “lecture”? The figures might even seem a bit high.

Highly interactive coaching sessions (some with lots of bells and whistles) do succeed in pushing the enjoyment factor from 10-15% up to 95%. The bad news is that this improvement does not change the low 10-15% number of people who apply what they have learned.

These application percentages are dismal, but there is a way out of this dilemma. How to ensure that your company’s return on investment (ROI) in coaching is higher? How to improve the implementation factor to somewhere approaching 95%?

Firstly ensure that for any coaching you have a well-prepared, very brief coaching module and supporting diagrammes or a professional PowerPoint presentation.

Then follow these 5 steps:

If you are a participant:

1.    Preview the learning material which should be made available to you at least a week prior to the coaching session. Study it. And also learn to do mind mapping. It will boost your initial understanding tremendously if you were to take a pencil and prepare a mind map of the main concepts on an A4 sheet. Or use free mind mapping software.

2.    Participate in the coaching workshop. In a talking-head session (such as a university or college lecture) where most attendees do not participate, their enjoyment and learning is low in both, if they simply sit and listen. If you actively participate in a highly-interactive workshop (where the coach afterwards receives rave ratings of 9 or 10) your enjoyment could be as high as 95%, but regretfully your retention will still fall miserably short (10-15%). Do you and you manager seriously want it to improve? Carry on with the next three steps.

3.    Process the information and enrich your initial mind map in a manner which is meaningful to you. Expand you map and add new concepts. Also copy in free-hand style diagrammes, if these were supplied.  You will retain much more. This is especially the case if you relate the information to your own work situation; if you visualise how you will use it. How and where could you apply your learning when you get back to your office?

4.    Practice on your own – with personal assistance. The key to achieving a 95% rate of application is follow-up one-to-one coaching. Coaches are to follow up their group coaching sessions with a series of one-to-one coaching sessions. New neural highways have to be formed in your brain. Supplement this essential additional coaching through the formal use of Action Learning, where the members of a group assist each other. Here each would highlight an important application problem and the members would ask insightful questions which assist the presenter to find a meaningful solution. Try it.

5.    Produce proof to yourself and to others that you are taking action. Apply your new understanding and learning and get new or improved results. If you cannot apply knowledge, you do not know it. If you are stuck in any way, again go though this 5-step process. Ask your Action Learning members to assist you. (After an Action Learning meeting, the presenter of the problem would go away with new insights, apply these insights and report back until the learning has been integrated and results have been obtained.)

Preview, participate, process, practice and produce over and over again until you become a recognised expert at what you are doing.

Our aim in coaching should be 95% for both enjoyment and application. This will take real determination, commitment and effort.

MDs should actively support the learning process. Insist that managers hold participants accountable. Are they, after a coaching session, applying some of their new knowledge? Do their managers and encourage and assist them to do so?  Admittedly, it will take time and real effort to reach new heights.

Celebrate new learning and application.

A dramatic improvement in learning and in obtaining results is possible.

Albert

PS I am indebted to Bruce Elkin, www.bruceelkin.com, a professional coach, for the statistics about learning rates, to Toni Krasnic, www.conciselearning.com, for his excellent learning model and to the late Prof Reg Revans, the father of Action Learning, which is being used in Nokia, Samsung, Boeing, GE, Motorola, Marriott, General Motors, Deutsche Bank, and British Airways and in hundreds of other companies.  (For more information visit: http://www.actionlearningassociates.co.uk/regrevans.html .) For excellent free software visit www.xmind.net .

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“What motivates people on a day-to-day basis is the sense that they are making progress.”

These findings are the result of research by Teresa M. Amabile of the Harvard Business School and Steven J. Kramer, a researcher/consultant, which stretched over 15 years, as reported in an article in the Harvard Business Review, May 2011. Simply the title of their forthcoming book The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement and Creativity at Work creates a need to know more.

What do you rank first when asked what you think drives motivation? Most managers put recognition of good work, incentives, interpersonal support, and clear goals first. Very few (5%) rank progress first.

Inner work life
Take note that people are more creative and productive when their inner work lives are positive – when they feel happy, and are intrinsically motivated by the work itself, and have positive perceptions of the colleagues and their organisation.

Inner life can fluctuate from one day to the next and affect performance with it that day and even the next day. Have we not all experienced this personally?

Progress (“best days”) and setbacks (“worst days”)
In researching 26 project teams in seven companies, covering 238 individuals who supplied nearly 12 000 daily diary entries, the researchers found that the most common event triggering a “best day” was any progress in the work by the individual or the team. The most common event triggering a “worst day” was a setback.

Catalysts & nourishers vs. inhibitors & toxins
Two other types of inner work life also occur frequently on best days: Catalysts, actions that directly support work, including help from a person or group, setting clear goals, allowing autonomy, providing sufficient resources and time helping with the work, openly learning from problems and processes, and allowing a free exchange of ideas.

Nourishers are acts of interpersonal support and events such as shows of respect and words of encouragement and emotional comfort.

Each has an opposite: Inhibitors, actions that fail to support or actively hinder work, and toxins, discouraging or undermining events such as disregard for emotions, and interpersonal conflict. Inhibitors and toxins affect inner work life directly and immediately.

As manager the best thing you can do for your people is to purposefully provide the catalysts and nourishers that allow projects to move forward while removing the obstacles and toxins that result in setbacks.

Meaningful work - to the person doing it
When we think of progress we tend to think of achieving a long-term goal or a breakthrough. Such wins are relatively rare. The researchers point out that even small wins can boost inner work life tremendously. Take note, that the key to motivating performance is supporting progress in meaningful work. ”Making headway boosts your inner work life, but only if work matters for you.” Simply working hard and achieving a task is not enough.

The work has to be meaningful to the person doing it.

Implications for managers
All of this has implications for each and every manager. If you loose your cool every now and then, you may negate the good work that has been done.

Developing long-term strategies and goals can often be seen as more important than ensuring that subordinates have what they need to make steady progress and feel supported as human beings.

Take note that even the best strategy will fail if managers ignore the people who try to execute it.

What should managers do?
•    Establish a positive climate and focus on one event at a time. When things go wrong focus on problems. With the inputs of your team, identify the problems and their causes and develop a coordinated action plan.

•    Stay attuned to your team’s everyday activities. Be non-judgemental and your team will willingly update you on setbacks, progress and plans.

•    Target your support according to recent events. Each day, anticipate what type of intervention – a catalyst or the removal of an inhibitor; a nourisher or some antidote to a toxin would have the most impact on team members’ inner work lives and progress.

•    Become a resource for your team rather than a micromanager. Check in on employees and do not check up on them.

Micromanagers do four things regularly:
•   They fail to allow autonomy in carrying out work.

•   They frequently ask subordinates about their work without providing any real help.

•   They are quick to affix personal blame when problems arise, leading subordinates to hide problems rather than to honestly discuss how to surmount them.

•  They tend to hoard information to use as a secret weapon. When subordinates perceive that a manager is withholding useful information, they feel infantilized, their motivation wanes, and their work is handicapped.

The Progress Loop
Inner work life drives performance; in turn, good performance, which depends on consistent progress, enhances inner work life.

Managers need not be able to read the inner psyche of their workers to ensure that they are motivated and happy. Just show basic respect and consideration and focus on supporting work itself.

Facilitate the steady progress of your employees in meaningful work, make that progress applicable to them, treat them well, and they will experience the emotions, motivations and perceptions necessary for great performance.

The researchers conclude: “Their superior work will contribute to organisational success. And here’s the beauty of it: They will love their jobs”.

Albert

PS. The publication will be released in August 2011. Also consider buying a copy of the article The Power of Small Wins from HBR at www.hbr.com. It contains a very useful daily progress checklist in table format. If any one of my current SA clients wants to join me in ordering the book, please contact me.

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