Focus: Executive Suite
FOCUS
EXECUTIVE SUITE
BY JOHN MACEK
Working smarter, not harder
During college, I worked summers at an automotive assembly plant. I worked in many positions, but my favorite one by far was sweeping floors. The beauty of this mindless task was that it allowed me to observe interactions between workers and foreman. As a behavioral scientist in training, it was an opportunity to observe what I was learning from the books. Many workers protected their jobs by looking busy, especially when a manager or time–motion expert came on the scene. While managers tried to accomplish as much as possible with paid employee time, employees tried to make their jobs tolerable by acting busy irrespective of what they accomplished. If they worked efficiently, they were assigned more work and penalized if they did not meet the new expectations. In a purchase-of-time culture, personnel see little or no connection between what they accomplish and what they are paid. If they accomplish more during a shift, they could well cause a friend to lose their job. Job security depends less on actual productivity than appearing productive. Work rules reward longevity, not efficiency or work well done. Personnel are very adaptive and quickly learn the game. Although the idea of buying personnel time is a commonly-held attitude, it’s extremely inefficient. Employers often reward work slow down with overtime pay. Why accomplish a task in six hours when 10 will do? As I moved up the ranks of management and had more control, I changed the rules. I said: “I don’t want every ounce of your blood. I want output. I want you to work smarter, not harder. I want you to have energy left at day’s end to do what’s important to you and energizes you.” Initially, people were guarded. Most workers had been trained to please their manager; that meant looking busy. I wanted productivity, not just time. I wanted people to feel pride and accomplishment in their work so that their job became a greater source of personal satisfaction. Making work rewarding encourages people to work smarter. In the end, I got more done for time spent and much better quality. People still hustled, but did so out of a sense of pride in their work and satisfying customers. If an employee found a better way, I did not add to their job description. Instead, I offered them project work that interested them. I would ask them to research equipment or job shadow someone in another area. That gave them cross training. When they gave a report on their research, they felt recognized and rewarded. Job shadowing gave them an opportunity to see more of the picture, created trust between departments and added to their individual skill sets. Punching the clock remains essential in assembly settings where every function must be covered before the line can start up and run. In an intellectual and service economy, however, buying time fosters inefficiency. An intellectual economy thrives when personnel with wide-ranging skills merge their expertise into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It encourages fresh thinking, invention, better products and services, and greater customer satisfaction. An intellectual economy motivates through leadership, recognition, information sharing, employee engagement and cheerleading. Output is everyone’s responsibility. If you encourage your personnel to work smarter in order to provide better products and services, everyone wins. Work can actually become its own reward when it provides dignity, respect and opportunity for people to meet their goals and aspirations. CRW
Janesville-based John Macek has been in management for more than 30 years, 17 years as a CEO. He originated the Macek Management Checklist of 20 critical management skills. He writes short-format management training material that he publishes through Bosshandbooks (www.bosshandbooks.com).
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