Ducks In A Row: Productivity Backlash
by Miki SaxonLast week’s discussion about the difference between busy and productive featured a comment from Jim Gordon. In a follow-up comment he expanded how he deals with this problem when teammates complain, whether by word or look, that he’s goofing off because he isn’t ‘busy’.
“One strategy I used in my groups was to map out every single task we were doing, have the team agree that it is a fair and balanced, distributed workload, and completed the tasks on my terms. By doing this, I was able to finish everything quickly. In fact, on multiple occasions I gave myself MORE work only to finish it hours before the rest of the team to prove a point. I am not saying I recommend this, as I had the time to do it, but the underlying idea behind the method is what’s important.
What this does is put everyone on a common ground – it makes everything transparent. In a sense, it almost divides the group into a set of individuals. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, unless you have booming chemistry it is the best way to accommodate opposite personalities. Busy people will always like busy people better than productive people (think in terms of “misery loves company”). Productive people will like the other productive people. The idea is to work “together” separately and on common terms. I didn’t run into a single other problem after we began agreeing to these common terms. I would say “I’ll crunch these numbers, translate them, write the report on them, and email it to you if you do this other task… does that sound fair?” If they said “Yes,” then as long as you finish your task, they cannot say anything.”
Smart thinking—especially considering that Jim did this in college (he just graduated).
But what if you’re work isn’t quantitative? It’s a difficult solution to implement when your work day isn’t comprised of set duties.
Think about it. How many of your people really understand what you do and why you spend your time the way you do? And that means that when you’re managing by walking around, which is very productive, they think you’re just goofing off and leaving all the work to them.
The solution is simple, whereas the implementation can be difficult.
The solution is to communicate; to talk. To describe to your people what you do and why, so they see your wandering around the department as a job duty and not a time-waster. To make sure that your people can track your productivity even when you don’t seem busy.
Implementation depends on your willingness to share the details of your work and that depends on your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).
There are many managers who don’t know what they do beyond the obvious parts and you can’t share what you don’t know.
And more managers than you might think don’t want to share; they want to keep the managerial mystique intact, which means shrouding much of the work in secrecy or at least no details.
The former just takes some effort to identify and describe all the intangibles that make up your invisible work.
The latter is between you and your MAP, but as I keep saying, MAP can change and it’s always your choice.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Sounds great for a single, college type project. I am on an ad hoc team of peers at work that is using this approach, dividing the tasks then working separately. As a manager though, I doubt I would make this my primary approach, but it is a good tool to keep around for the right project.
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:00 am
Hi Brian, as a management tool do you refer to Jim’s actions or to mine regarding communicating what your job really consists of?