Leading from the Middle

A recent story, “Why Time Management Is Ruining Our Lives”elaborates on apps and ideas to help workers be more efficient. It surveys what’s been done before, including Taylor’s classic time and motion studies.
The author, Oliver Burkeman, explains that Taylor was the first scientific manager to devise ways to improve individual production and to get more effort and product - for the same cost - out of a “goldbricking” workforce.
While that is the usual academic, unbalanced view of Taylor, I get the author’s point.
Since Taylorism’s heyday, computers have only furthered the notion of somehow getting more out of an over-worked and over-stressed work force – or in some eyes, applying a well-placed kick to the smug posterior of an unmotivated workforce.
Some believe that improving work “tools”, can improve how we work and how we feel about our work.
Taylor streamlined many tools and processes to help workers be more productive and to be paid more money for their work. Unfortunately, in Taylor’s world the worker was seen as less a thinking, contributing being, but more of a machine to be tinkered with.
Similarly, if one is inundated by e-mail, then there’s an app to manage the avalanche. Too many meetings, ditto. Too much paperwork, ditto. .
Some suggest these apps have helped. Others say nothing has changed or things have gotten worse. Harkening back to Stakhanovism, the more productive you are, the more is expected. If you have a good idea and double your work output through working “smarter”, then, says the Taylor-channeling manager, “let’s double it again”. And so it goes.
This is the difference between using an app to manage your work and working in an organization that, through its leadership, recognizes individual workloads and helps individuals and teams come to terms with getting the job done.
The end is not every individual working to capacity, but for the overall organization to be productive and to have a free flow of ideas to help the organization improve daily.
Burkeman, to his credit, includes the conclusions of a management consultant: “The best companies I visited, all through the years, were never very hurried, … Because you don’t get creativity for free. You need people to be able to sit back, put their feet up, and think…. good ideas do not emerge more rapidly when people feel under the gun – if anything, the good ideas dry up.”
So, slackerism has some virtue after all!
Good leaders know that workers need more than an app to improve their work. They know workers need time away from routine and a work environment in which to consider how they work; they need time to think about the Why of their work and how it can be improved for the organization.
Dale Carnegie Training just released the results of its Global Leadership Study. (Yes, this is the organization that furthers the work of the “How to Win Friends and Influence People” man). The study polled 3,100 workers at all levels in 13 countries.
U.S. employees identified the top five motivating and inspiring attributes of supervisors:
“Encouraging improvement (79 percent)
Giving praise and appreciation (74 percent)
Recognizing performance improvement (72 percent)
Admitting (supervisor) shortfalls before criticizing (68 percent)
… These leadership qualities also have a positive effect on employee retention and satisfaction.”
The report suggests the leaders need to close the perceived gap between what the worker wants from the boss and what he sees the boss doing. For example, workers value “Truly listening to Employees” at 88%, but the behavior, as practiced by bosses is observed at 60%, leaving a gap of 28%.
“Valuing an employee's contribution” comes in at 86% importance for the worker, but it is observed 60% of the time among supervisors.
“Sincere appreciation” is valued at 87%, but displayed among supervisors 61%.
“In the most striking example, 84 percent of U.S. employees said it is important for supervisors to admit mistakes, but according to these same employees only 51 percent of supervisors exhibit this behavior often – a gap of 33 percent.”
The Wall Street Journal’s conclusive look at this study: “Attention, supervisors: You may be the reason your staffers want to leave.”
So, I would argue that effective leadership and followership have more to do with job satisfaction and performance than any performance-improving gizmo or gadget. While an app may boost individual performance, real job satisfaction and real lasting improvement come from a work environment that promotes the best leadership and followership.

UPDATE: An item from NPR with a stopwatch illustration, no less, discusses personal productivity. A cerebral take on the matter. Different from mine. Predates my essay by about three or four hours. Great minds, you know.

© Copyright 2017 John Lubans

 

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