Furthermore, new brain research suggests that dopamine – a neurotransmitter that carries chemical messages from your brain to the rest of your body – plays an important role in motivation. Long thought to be the happy neurotransmitter, dopamine is actually the reward and punishment transmitter. This means that its real job is to encourage us to act, either to achieve something good or to avoid something bad. These neuroscience discoveries point to the idea that the brain can be retrained to increase a person’s motivation for rewards.
That means there is hope for your teenage slacker after all. It turns out intentionality is the key missing ingredient for most. When researchers in the UK gathered together a group of volunteers with the goal of regular exercise, the group that was asked to plan and write down their “implementation intentions” – where, when, what, they were going to do for exercise, and how frequently, and for how long – achieved far greater success. Amazingly, 91 percent of this group achieved their goal, as compared to just 29 percent of the control group commitment and 39 percent of the group who learned extensively about the benefits of exercise motivation but did not have an implementation intention. Over 100 separate studies in a wide range of experimental situations have come to the same conclusion: people who explicitly state when and where their new behaviors are going to happen are much more likely to stick to their goals. For whatever reason, our brains need that extra nudge.
If you only have a partial idea of who you need to hire and what those people need to do anyway, why not try a paradigm shift?Instead of packing a bowling ball into a marble bag, try building out only the skeleton of a job description and allowing candidates to co design the fuller description with you in a way that speaks to their strengths and to your needs. Research shows that this approach works well for rapidly changing industries such as technology start ups, advertising, and film production companies where predicting the future is more difficult. It is actually really easy to make your job descriptions speak to the candidate, describe their key objectives, and be open to possible alternative backgrounds. If you want to keep your people — especially your stars — it’s time to pay more attention to how you design their work. Most companies design job descriptions and then slot people into them.
But as they continue to compete for talented people, they will begin to create jobs around them. Keeping job descriptions minimal, instead of the current practice of covering all the bases, creates more possibilities and more opportunities. Unicorns don’t have to be real for people to believe in them. The same goes with the “perfect candidate. ”So why not try something new and allow people to dance on their good foot. In strategy sessions, people often ask questions like: “What would success look like?” and “What action will you take to implement the strategy?” These questions and their answers do not lead to change.
That is because, as we have established above, we have a people problem and people are about behavior. And obviously, if you are asking the wrong questions, you will get the wrong answers. Because we are a culture obsessed with positivism, we look to assets and strengths. Fair enough. But what about weaknesses?The right question to ask instead is: “What current behavior do I see in myself, my team, my manager, or my organization that will make success less likely?”In any team, organization, or coalition, there are strong performers and weaker ones.
There are those that are fit for the task because the task speaks to their strengths and those that aren’t because, well, it doesn’t. Strong performers can be identified by their skills, knowledge and commitment. In any environment, you should know the strengths of the people are at the table. If you take a purely democratic and all inclusive approach, you will miss the opportunity to identify the people who are most essential to achieving your goal. In the case of yourself this becomes about self awareness. Execution is a discipline and, well, it takes discipline to execute.
What I mean by that is having the discipline to organize people, assemble resources, and then generate a plan that others can follow in a methodical and systematic process is what it takes to make progress. Organizations formal or informal and their related processes are largely conservative bodies that don’t like surprises or chaos. Therefore, you have to be as methodical in your approach as possible. This means disciplined project management, feedback loops, data driven decision making, clear roles and responsibilities, accountability measures, success metrics or key performance indicators KPIs, kaizen continuous improvement, scrum, agile, Six Sigma, Lean and so on. Finally, if you’ve made it this far and you really feel like you’re already doing all of these things, and yet somehow you’re still perceived as having an “execution problem,” then consider getting an Implementation Coach.
Coaching is often used in organizations to fix leadership flaws, but that is only one focus of coaching. If the problem is truly endemic, I recommend hiring an Implementation Coach. The role of an Implementation Coach is to ensure that implementation success is a priority, working at the deepest level to build the skills, knowledge, capacities, systems, and processes needed to deliver results and then to ensure those results will be sustained. The main imperative of an Implementation Coach should be to delivering lasting outcomes. Ideas are a dime a dozen. I can give you 20 good ones in one conversation.
Ideas without implementation are illusion. The art and science of success lies in their execution. Put another way, “the devil is in the implementation. ” Many people get energetic about their ideas but fail when it comes time to establishing a systematic approach to execute on those ideas and fail in maintaining motivation. I’ll deal with motivation in some upcoming posts.
For now, remember this: execution is a discipline in and of itself. It is the flip side of the coin to planning and setting the right strategy. You need both to succeed. People want to grow, learn and continually develop. We know from the same Deloitte study cited above for example, that 44% of those employed plan to leave their current role within two years, with lack of professional development as one of the primary reasons. Companies must place a greater emphasis on nurturing and developing their people in order to keep them.
At the same time, the learning and development field would do well to demonstrate the value and ROI of such programs to executives. Demonstrating business impact to leadership and ensuring the right metrics are being used is still the holy grail of employee training even though the field has matured tremendously over the years. Proving value to learners is equally important but so is keeping up with the way learners are evolving at a quicker pace than the learning programs that support them. Digital technology is having a profound effect on the workplace. The days when the office was the hub of productivity are over.
Communication, collaboration and connectivity are being transformed by technology, which has enabled remote work but also collaboration across organizational and geographical boundaries. Traditional face to face meetings are becoming obsolete while collaboration software is becoming omni present. This will change team dynamics as well as procedures and policies. Team productivity will receive even more attention than personal productivity and visual communications will take on an even more important role. The bottom line is that work in the future will be more networked, more mobile, more team based, more project based, more de centralized, more collaborative, more real time and more fluid. The new reality will require better and different structures, models, policies, and procedures to more effectively help people communicate, collaborate and network.
Therefore, leaders must begin to think of themselves as network architects increasingly experiment and role model their openness and flexibility to the new ways of working. Done well, the future of work offers the most exciting revolution since the industrial age in how employees will be motivated and engaged to impact the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profits. Oh yes, and purpose. As the old expression goes: “When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: 1 Those who made it happen, 2 those who let it happen and 3 those who wonder what happened. ”Timeboxing is a technique that encourages you to focus on time rather than tasks.
The premise of the principle is simple. Having more time does not mean more productivity. Think about it: When you have all afternoon to finish a task, you’ll take all afternoon to do it. You’ll make fridge runs, go for coffee breaks, check email or social media here and there, and do other things that are wasting your time. Studies have shown that putting limits on your time to complete a task actually increases the speed of your work.
Such deadlines improve your focus and enhance creativity. Time limits are particularly effective because they force you to ignore distractions and prioritize work. Time limits force you to dive in and power through. This is concentrated time and not the false promise of multi tasking your way into productivity. Once you complete one task, you can switch to the next and timebox that one accordingly.
We each have peak productivity periods. Mine is early in the morning. My brain is freshest. My thoughts are crisp. By the end of the day, I’m pretty well fried. So I know that I’ll do my best thinking work between 5 7 AM.
It is now 6:31 AM. The critical rule of timeboxing is that work should stop at the end of the timebox and progress should be evaluated to know if the goal has been met. Setting a timer is an effective way to do this, especially if you can see or hear!it counting down. Get a big old fashioned LED or wind up one to put on your desk, and you’ll have a constant reminder that your “deadline” is approaching. Shorter sprints, by the way, are best because your brain is able to focus on any given task for up to two hours after which it needs a 20 30 minute break to recharge.
Having an accountability buddy helps you get your work done better and faster. Whether it’s having a running buddy for your exercise routine or a team mate at work, the social facilitation of having someone who encourages you when you feel discouraged or someone who shares some of your goals gives you a competitive edge. You need someone nearby to help you keep pace, expect you to keep going, and celebrate with when you’ve made it to the end. The back and forth and inspiration you can get from an accountability buddy is especially good for powering through work you don’t enjoy. So, find a colleague and see if you can hunker down in a conference room one afternoon and power through your work together.
There’s certainly a time for quiet, deep thinking work, a time for working more loosely without a deadline, and a time for solo work. But when you have something that is a challenge or a stretch for your own current capacity, there is nothing like having an accountability buddy. In life and work, there are things we like to do and things we don’t like to do. Research suggests that combining the things we want to do, with the things we should do, could be a way to get more stuff done. The so called ‘temptation bundling’ technique says to simultaneously combine two differing, but complementary, activities.
The theory is that pairing a thing you like with something you don’t like, will give you a greater incentive to do something you might be putting off. For example, listen to an audio book something I like while I run something I despise. The benefit is derived from simultaneity. The risk is associating your enjoyment of the task you like by pairing it with something unpleasant. I may no longer like audio books after I try this and I end up avoiding both. Nonetheless, the technique is premised on finding tasks that complement each other, and perhaps even work better, when combined.
Although sustainability is a question for further study with this technique, we can’t magically become more productive so applying new methods to see what works is worth the effort. It’s important to note that these aren’t the only strategies or strategies to use all the time for productivity. They are best practices and we have to experiment to see what works best for each of us and when to apply which technique. The bottom line however is that developing lifelong habits of productivity is what leads to success. The business world rewards those who produce results—not those who are simply busy.
It is worth your time and effort therefore, to learn the habit of diving directly into major tasks and work steadily and tenaciously until that task is completed. If you regularly set priorities and get important tasks done quickly and efficiently, you’ll be recognized as an effective and productive member of the team or entrepreneur who not only talks the talk but also walks the walk. Your people are your greatest asset. Above all, they should be healthy and happy. To maintain a high performance environment, you have to ensure that employee morale and engagement is high.
Your ability to develop people and motivate them will drive results and keep people engaged. Most people want to work in a dynamic environment where they feel they can thrive. They want to grow personally and professionally through training, coaching, and exposure to new ideas, people and situations. Therefore, you need to promote personal development that leads to additional opportunities for team members. Your top role is to inspire and engage people.
If you don’t engage your teams, your organizational well being will suffer. Finally, make sure your employees are cared for and can attend to their personal lives while they are helping build up your business. Next, you must make sure that you challenge and stretch your employees. You must set expectations that will help you reach your goals for the company. You have to be on top of the short term goals and how they fit with your long term aspirations.
Individual goals must be in alignment with company vision. A lack of alignment in this area will have an impact on performance levels as well as a person’s level of engagement. Set your employees up so they can be their most productive. This does not mean extract out of them an 8 hour day. This is the most simplistic interpretation of productivity.
Give your employees productivity tools and hacks. Train them and build their capacity for productivity. Help them manage time, energy, focus and attention. Make sure your internal processes are not bottlenecking decisions or hampering their forward progress. To compete in today’s environment, you have to free up your employees so they can innovate. You have a pool of creative talent in your organization.
Trust me, you do. If you don’t see it, it’s because you have not learned to tap into it. Creativity plays a large role in high performance work environments. Leaders need foster creativity by continually focusing on ensuring and rewarding creative work. You also need to communicate that everyone plays a meaningful role in achieving the company vision through their own creativity. You need to ‘create’ an environment where team members have the confidence to voice their opinions and concerns.
When people feel that their voice is heard, they will speak up more and take more risks. They will be more engaged and will feel that the role they play is important to the overall well being and success of the company. The surest way to squash creativity is through micromanagement and a focus on things that matter least. People feed off of encouragement. Focus on what they do well. Find their strengths and help your employees triple down on them.
The final key area of focus is process. You can’t have the other three without efficiency in the day to day operations of the company. A good process adds value. Internal process should never be a barrier to getting things done. This is accomplished through the establishment of tested and true internal processes and protocols and through continuous review and improvement of them.
Performance will suffer without a solid foundation for how things are done and a clear directive for what is expected. Therefore, how you want things done and a timeframe for when tasks and projects are to be completed needs to be clearly communicated and mutually agreed upon. This discipline needs to be executed consistently. If you keep changing up your processes, you will demoralize your employees. Before implementing a process it needs to be well thought out and then you need to be open to adjustments and input on improvement as identified by your team. Provide a forum so they can voice their opinions, thoughts and ideas to continuously improve how things are done.
Humans, plants, and animals are made up of cells that learned to cooperate long ago. Together they formed multi cellular organisms, increasing each individual cell’s chances of replication and survival in the process. From these biological building blocks, cooperation prevails at every level of the animal kingdom: Ants that move in formation; mutual inter species grooming rituals; small birds protecting each other from predators; bats that share food to survive; and humans who co edit Wikipedia articles and form lines for the bathroom. These are all examples of cooperative behaviors that have evolved as a result of the benefit we inherit from their practice. Shifting a business model away from a traditional competitive model to something more cooperative requires a real transformation in the way a business thinks and operates. It takes time, energy and effort and it takes communicating the value of the shift towards cooperation both internally to employees and externally to customers.
Doing so, is a worthy investment which will bring enormous benefits to the enterprise in terms of enhanced efficiency, productivity and competitiveness. It starts with hiring and on boarding practices that seek out and foster a cooperative mindset and spans to coaching mentoring and performance management practices that reward and nurture cooperation. As is the case with a company, your brand has to do with your persona, with how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you. Your brand is your reputation and your story, told in a consistent and compelling manner. Your brand is not your business card, it is your calling card. It’s what you are known for and how people experience you.
Your brand goes with you everywhere you go. It changes jobs with you. Your brand can open doors to new opportunities or shut them down. Your brand is the culmination of your strengths. Identify them and then triple down on them.
Simultaneously, weaken your weaknesses. Identify the Kryptonite around your neck and toss it into the ocean once and for all. It’s important to realize that when figuring out how to solve a problem, there is always an enormous amount of research and data analysis you could potentially do. Instead of trying to perform all of it, which is the equivalent of trying to boil the ocean, consultants focus on doing enough research and analysis to thoroughly prove or disprove the key drivers behind the problem they are analyzing and ignore everything else. By focusing their time and energy on the ‘key drivers’ of the problem, they dive into the largest and most salient aspects of the problem that, if solved, would have the biggest immediate impact.
For example, if you are looking to cut costs, there may be a plethora of different ways to do that. Instead of spinning your wheels analyzing all of the potential cost saving areas, you’re better off focusing on the two or three costs that, if reduced, would have the largest overall impact on the organization. Most people see a wall, accept that it is there, and never examine the problem or even “push” against the wall to see where the resistance is coming from. Because no one has really checked, it may well be that the obstacle or constraint they were referring to was there years ago and no longer exists. Instead of thinking about what cannot be done, consultants think about what can be done.
They use the obstacle as an opportunity to think of creative ways to overcome it. When you hit a wall, find a way to climb it or burrow a hole in the wall to get to the other side. Don’t just stand there and wonder why you hit the wall. Focusing on strengths does not mean forgetting about your weaknesses and not working to improve them. But tripling down on your strengths will get you where you want to go faster than always pondering why your fail.
A good consultant will hone in on and leverage you and/or the organizations’ talents, skills, or assets to make you even better at what they’re already good at. They will help you match people to environments or roles that are also congruent with their skills, knowledge, and assets. They will recognize this simple truth: most people are good at the things they enjoy, and they enjoy the things they’re good at. Consultants help determine the real problem – the problem behind the problem if you will. Often the client is trying to tackle a technical problem, when the issue is actually a business problem. It doesn’t help, for example, if you improve the efficiency and speed of your operations if the overall leadership strategy is driving the business off of a cliff.
Finding the root cause requires persistence. It all starts by acknowledging the real situation. Ask yourself: “Is this same issue occurring again?” If your answer is “yes”, you are just facing and the symptoms are coming back again and again, you have a problem on your hands that requires a root cause analysis. People are prone to all kinds of cognitive biases – be it false consensus or status quo bias or confirmation bias, or any of a variety of others that blind them to seeing the root cause of the problem or a viable solution. People are often blinded by their very focused view of the world, and often get stuck on industry views, trends, and group think within the company. Culture can stall innovation and constrain options.
Consultants look for what’s behind the words someone is saying. Challenging all the basic assumptions is a good start to problem solving. In many cases the problem presented by the client is the wrong problem – they are asking the wrong question, and they just don’t know it. In 1966 the prominent psychologist Abraham Maslow said: “It is tempting if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. ” When you only have one tool at your disposal, you fall prey to confirmation bias believing that the solutions to problems demand solutions we already happen to have at hand.
When limited tools are applied inappropriately or indiscriminately, results suffer. When a variety of tools are leveraged and customized to fit the situation, you are able to unlock the art of what’s possible. Build up your problem solving tool box with techniques you can adapt to a variety of situations. In my experience consulting, nearly all the external constraints on a problem. To start, learn to ask probing open ended questions and see where they lead. Why is this important?How much does this impact the business?Why are you doing it this way?If you started from scratch today, would you do it the same way?What does that really mean?What matters most is don’t try to be clever or seem brilliant .
Sometimes the right questions are being asked, and forcing some clever alternative is actually the wrong approach. Strategy consultants and problem solving professionals recognize that developing insight takes practice and takes active listening skills. With practice and time, your problem solving process will become easier and you’ll be ‘nailing’ it like a pro.
