Respect

In an article in the Harvard Business Journal, the author notes that 50% of employees do not feel respected by their bosses. This directly translates into poorer employee engagement and performance.

 

The simple act of respecting those that you work with, and who work for you, will increase the productivity of the staff. The challenge is that some managers may not be aware that they are not respecting their staff.

 

It is important to respect those you work with and make the effort to treat them how they want to be treated. If you are not sure how your actions are perceived, ask a trusted colleague or mentor to keep an eye out for you. When you learn how your actions affect others, it can be easier to change.

Characteristics of High Performance Organizations

I just read a paper that attempted to determine the factors that create a high performance organization. They author's definition of high performance organization is 'an organization that achieves financial and non-financial results that are exceedingly better that those of its peer group over a period of time of five years or more, by focusing in a disciplined way on that what really matters to the organization'.
Based on the literature review of over 200 articles, the author categorized the factors that influenced success. Those organizations that were high performing had the following characteristics in common:
Autonomy 
1. The organisation has a flat structure: there are few hierarchical layers.
2. In the organisation people of different organisational units can easily cooperate.
3. The management of the organisation allows experiments.
4. The organisation has an open culture.
5. In the organisation organisational members have the freedom to decide and act.
Continuous Improvement and Renewal
 6. The organisation has adopted a strategy that clearly sets it apart from other organisations.
7. In the organisation processes are continuously improved.
8. In the organisation processes are continuously simplified.
9.  In the organisation processes are continuously aligned.
10. In the organisation what matters to the organisation's performance is explicitly reported.
11. In the organisation both financial and non-financial information is reported to organisational members.
36.  The organisation continuously innovates its core competencies.
37.  The organisation continuously innovates its products, processes and services.
Openness and Action Orientation 
12.  Management of the organisation frequently engages in a dialogue with employees.
13.  Organisational members spend much time on communication, knowledge exchange and learning.
14.  Organisational members are involved in important processes. 26.  Management of the organisation allows mistakes to be made.
29.  Management of the organisation welcomes change.
30.  The organisation is performance driven.
Management Quality 
15.  Management of the organisation is trusted by organisational members.
16.  Management of the organisation has integrity.
17.  Management of the organisation is a role model for organisational members.
18.  Management of the organisation applies fast decision making.
19.  Management of the organisation applies fast action taking.
20.  Management of the organisation coaches organisational members to achieve better results.
21.  Management of the organisation focuses on achieving results.
22.  Management of the organisation is very effective.
23.  Management of the organisation applies strong leadership.
24.  Management of the organisation is confident.
25.  Management of the organisation is decisive with regard to non-performers.
31.  The management of the organisation always holds organisational members responsible for their results.
Workforce Quality 
27.  The management of the organisation inspires organisational members to accomplish extraordinary results.
28.  Organisational members are trained to be resilient and flexible.
31.  The management of the organisation always holds organisational members responsible for their results.
34.  The organisation has a diverse and complementary workforce.
41.  The organisation grows through partnerships with suppliers and/or customers.
Long-Term Orientation 
38.  The organisation maintains good and long-term relationships with all stakeholders.
39.  The organisation is aimed at servicing the customers as best as possible.
41. The organisation grows through partnerships with suppliers and/or customers.
42.  Management of the organisation has been with the company for a long time.
43.  New management is promoted from within the organisation.
44.  The organisation is a secure workplace for organisational members.

By learning and implementing these characteristics into your own organization you can improve your processes, leadership, employee engagement and customer satisfaction and become high performing.

To read the complete article:
deWaal, A. (2012). Characteristics of high performance organizations. Journal of Management Research (4) 4, 39-71.

Create positive impact

I just listened to a speaker who said that the purpose of life is to create positive impact. Wow! How profound when you stop and think about that, create positive impact.

When you adopt this philosophy your life takes on a different meaning. You approach life, relationships and work in a different manner. One in which you do your best to improve the world around you and leave it better than when you arrived. 

I will personally take this as a challenge and I encourage everyone to do the same. Create a positive impact in whatever you do. Make decisions for the right reasons. Be great at whatever you do and strive every day to leave a good impression and improve your life and the lives of others. 

People and processes

Leadership is about people.

Management is about processes.

Those individuals that truly want to be successful and help themselves, their coworkers, employees and organization grow will use both.

Leadership is the ability to connect with people and influence them toward a central purpose. Leaders are present at multiple levels in and around organizations and teams and some leaders elevate their group while others bring it down.

Ideally, leaders work to improve and bring people up, but that is not always the case. Effective leaders hold high standards and their influence is to raise the bar for performance.

Managers seek to create systems and make things run more smoothly. They seek to understand what is the best way to accomplish a task and then create a system to do it that all the time. In this way, there is little energy wasted and things run smoothly. Unfortunately, this is assuming that there is one way to do things. Most of the time there are numerous ways of accomplishing tasks and the environment is always changing so that the process is evolving. Managers that seek input and are constantly striving to make things better will be successful.

Managers that seek to have operations run smoothly, elicit input from their people and work with them to achieve greatness are the most successful. These are the individuals who have blended their ability manage both their people and their processes.

Power of systems

Yesterday, I was at an event and saw a bunch of people scrambling around to prepare. This particular situation was due, in part, to having new employees who were not fully aware of their responsibilities, but it got me thinking about the value of creating systems.

When an event or a process needs to be completed more than once, and needs to be done the same way, it is wise to create a process for how to do it. This makes it very easy to create consistency, decrease set up and take down time, and systemize the process so that everyone knows how things are going to be done and what needs to be done.

When organizing an athletic event, this includes making sure the floor is clean, the gym is scheduled and blocked off, the bleachers are out, the facility is set up for the sport, the score board is set up and in running order, the referees are scheduled, the benches are set up for home and away teams, there is water available for athletes and other necessary equipment is set up and ready to go.

This can be put down into a checklist to be done the day of, just prior, and at the conclusion of every event for that sport. Once this is created, it should be communicated with all the individuals who are responsible for that sport and copies should be kept in an easily accessible manner.

Having a system in place makes it much easier for everyone involved and allows updates to be done easily, and errors to be evaluated and addressed quickly.

 

Helmets do not prevent concussions

This is a nice article that discusses the fact that helmets do not prevent concussions.

The type of helmet worn did not have an impact on sustaining a concussion, or the amount of time lost in the case of sustaining a concussion.

 

This reinforces the fact that helmets are not able to prevent a concussion, although they can prevent other head and facial injuries.

 

A lot of concussion prevention is strength, awareness and proper technique training. Focusing on those aspects of prevention may be more beneficial than strapping on a new helmet and thinking you are safe.

The Essential Drucker

The more I learn the more I realize how little I know.

This book was no different, Peter Drucker is an expert on management theory and his viewpoints forced me to think and expand my understanding.

 

He argues that having a product is irrelevant if there is no consumer. In order to have a consumer, one has to understand them: who they are and what they want. Only by learning about the customer can he create a product that the customer wants.

 

The consumer is the one who defines the business. Their purchasing decisions determine where the products go and how they are being used. Learning how customers use the product can improve the ability to meet customer needs and wants more effectively.

 

Knowledge workers need a challenge. They become stagnant and mentally bored without it. They can achieve a challenge by performing new tasks, starting a new job, or volunteering time in a non-profit organization.

 

People respond differently to leadership strategies. It is important to know how each person reacts and then apply that strategy with that person.

 

The foundation for effective leadership is thinking through the organization’s mission, defining it and establishing it, clearly and visibly. These basic tasks, although not easy, determine the future of the organization. It sets the table for the product, the customer, the objectives for success and how the organization seeks to finds its place in the world.

 

The essence of management is to make knowledge productive. In this era of knowledge workers who are paid to think rather than perform manual labor, it is important to get them to contribute effectively to the organization’s mission.

When managing workers it is important to ask them to identify what they feel their role is and how they contribute to the organization. Bases on this, ask them to define their own performance goals for accountability. Their view will not be the same as the manager view and this approach helps to bridge that gap. 

 

He also discusses time management and how we do not know how time is allocated in the day. Keeping track of the day to see how it is spent is effective at noticing patterns. Once patterns are formed, it is then a matter of eliminating the non essential tasks and focus on what each person does that contributes the most.