Archive for March, 2009

Ever wonder what life looks like inside a results-only work environment (ROWE)? Now you can catch a glimpse through the Girl Scouts Gone ROWE blog that chronicles the journey and transition of the Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council from a traditional work environment to a ROWE. 

Jessica Lawrence, their CEO, initiated a ROWE less than a year ago and both she and Daniel Malyszka, Director of Human Resources, are sharing their story through this unique blog.

Here are a few posts to get you started:

• “To accrue or not to accrue? That is the question” talks about how they handled vacation/sick/personal days when they transitioned to a ROWE. 
• “From a GSSGC employee’s perspective” shares the benefits of ROWE through an employee’s eyes. 
• In “Should a CEO ROWE?” Jessica shares openly about being a recovering “face time junky.”  

If you are thinking about transitioning to a ROWE or have already made the leap, let me know! I’d love to hear about your experiences, challenges, successes and share them here on the blog.

Part of building a results-driven team is hiring for results. This activity will help you create results-based job descriptions for all the positions in your company. These job descriptions can be used during the recruiting, hiring, and interview process to guide you towards hiring self-directed and motivated employees that are capable of working independently. Additionally, results-based job descriptions are great tools for performance management, feedback, and coaching because they establish clear expectations and accountability. 

What is a job description? A job description is a written description of the outcomes, measurements, and reporting relationships for a particular job.

3 Characteristics of a Well Written Results-Based Job Description:

1. Clarifies the outcomes or results for which the person is responsible.
2. Establishes how progress and success will be measured and by whom.
3. Explains the consequences of meeting, exceeding, or falling short of achieving the desired result. 

As you create or rewrite your job descriptions, be careful you’re focused on results, rather than activities. Activities are not results. Activities lead to results, but activities are not outcomes. You don’t want to create a company that’s focused on being busy (e.g., lots of activity) rather than accomplishing something that matters (e.g., results). A result is a measurable, desired outcome. An activity is a tactic or task completed to achieve the result. 

Once you’ve completed this activity, put your new job descriptions to use. During interviews discuss your unique work environment and ask questions around the results-based job description you’ve created. When you purposefully hire for results, tie performance to results, and reward for results, you’re more likely to see those results achieved.

Coworking is an emerging trend and alternative way to work for work-at-home professionals, independent contractors, telecommuters, and people who travel frequently and are tired of working in relative isolation. Coworking is a casual, social gathering of a group of people who are still working independently, but are interested in the synergy that happens when talented workers gather in a shared space. 

The video above is about Jelly, which was started in New York City back in February of 2006. Many Jelly groups are based out of other people’s homes and some meet in local coffee shops with free Wi-Fi. There are also more formal coworking spaces which have desks you can reserve, printers and fax machines, meeting room access, kitchens, and more—basically everything you’d expect to have if you worked at a “real office.”

Coworking IS NOT:

• Structured
• A business incubator
• An executive suite
• Sitting in Starbucks working on your laptop

Coworking IS:

• Flexible and adaptive
• Social
• Collaborative
• Informal
• Community-minded

If you’re tired of working at home alone—or even tired of working in your cubicle every day—find a coworking group near you and check it out. You may not want to do it everyday, but you might just find it to be a refreshing alternative. To find a location near you check out wiki.workatjelly.com and http://coworking.pbwiki.com. And let me know what you think!

One of the main components of workstyle design is purposefully designing the way you work, rather than mindlessly going with the flow. Most people work a traditional 40-hour work week in an office, putting in 8-hour days, Monday through Friday, sometime between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. That may work well for some people, but have you ever stopped to ask yourself if it actually works for you?

When I help clients identify their unique workstyle we talk about how, when, and where they are working. They usually discover that if they tweaked X, Y, and Z they’d actually be more productive in less time and produce better results.

Take a look at these 3 areas to begin purposefully designing a way of working that fits for you.

1. How You Work

There are several things to ask yourself to determine how you work best. First, what’s your preferred interaction with others? Do you work best alone or on a team? Do you prefer to be in a leadership role, a cooperative role, on an interdependent team, competing against others, or serving others?

Also consider the pace of your work: Do you work best in sprints or slow and steady long intervals? Or do you need the freedom to vary your pace depending on the task at hand? Do you work well under pressure? 

Is variety of task important to you? Do you like performing the same work activities over and over, or are you better when your responsibilities are constantly changing?

Finally, ask yourself about structure: Do you need clear guidance and expectations? Or are you a “fly by your pants, make it up as you go” type of person?

2. When You Work

Which hours during the day are you at your best? Is it first thing in the morning? Mid-afternoon? Late evening? If you aren’t sure, start paying attention to how you feel during the day. Are there times when you’re dragging yourself along? Times during the day when you feel “in the zone?” 

Keep a log over the next week and see what patterns emerge. See if you can figure out a way to shift some of your most important tasks into your best hours and save the menial no-brainer activities for your off-hours.

3. Where You Work

Where you are physically doing your work can make a big difference in your level of productivity. Where is the best place for you? Is flexibility of location important to you? 

Do you need the freedom to change the place you’re working to suit your mood or the task? Is a cubicle best for you? An office with the door closed? Do you need to work alone or is coworking with others best? Do you want to work from the beach? Your back porch? Starbucks? Your home office?

Is it important that you’re able to determine your own schedule? Do you need flexibility to move between work and personal tasks throughout the day?

Figuring out your unique workstyle is highly personal and looks different for everyone. What’s your “my-work-fits-me” solution? What did you discover from this exercise? Leave a comment below and let me know how, when, and where you work best.

Shannon Proudfoot shares an interesting look at work-life balance and the recession in her recent article for the Financial Post on Canada.com. If you’ve been looking for a way to cut costs AND save jobs, shorter workdays may be an option.

In the article, Proudfoot writes about how this worked well for Kellogg’s during the Depression:

“During the Great Depression in the 1930s, Kellogg’s instituted a six-hour workday in its plants to take up the slack of too many people and not enough jobs, he says. Within two years, workers were accomplishing as much in six hours as they had in eight because they were less tired and more efficient, he says, and the policy was so popular – even with its accompanying wage reduction – that remnants lasted into the 1980s.” 

The article goes on to mention several benefits of shorter work hours:

• Increased productivity
• Increased efficiency
• More alert or energetic employees 
• More time to care for aging parents
• Reduced childcare costs
• Reduced commuting costs
• Flexibility to accomplish household tasks

As you can see, there are many reasons a shorter workday might be a good fit for your small business. Very few people truly need a full eight hours to accomplish their work—there is always wasted time because humans aren’t meant to sit at a desk and focus for a full 8-hours a day. 

The article also cautions employers against “one-size-fits-all thinking.” Every employee is different and shorter work days will work better for some rather than others. Talk with your team about the impact reduced wages and a shorter work day would have on their lives. 

Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think. Would this work in your company? Why or why not?

Ricardo Semler, author of The Seven Day Weekend and CEO of Brazilian-based Semco, is well-known for breaking all the rules of traditional management. At Semco there are no job descriptions, no corporate mission statements or values, they don’t have an HR department, there’s no dress code, no set schedule (people can work wherever and whenever they want), and no performance reviews. And over a six-year period, the company grew from $35 million in revenue to $212 million, with virtually no employee turnover. Clearly, Semco is on to something.

In this video he talks about his employee-friendly management philosophy and discusses how he’s applying the same ideas to a new type of school. A school that was named by Bill Gates as a “school of the future.”

For a quick overview, here is one of my favorite quotes from Semler, describing how employees are treated at Semco:

“Don’t be a nanny. Most companies suffer from what I call boarding-school syndrome. They treat their employees like children. They tell them where they have to be at what time, what they need to be doing, how they need to dress, whom they should talk to, and so on. But if you treat people like immature wards of the state, that’s exactly how they’ll behave. They’ll never think for themselves or try new things or take chances. They’ll just do what they’re told, and they probably won’t do it with much spirit. At Semco, we have no set work hours, no assigned offices or desks, no dress codes. We have no employee manuals, no human resource rules and regulations. We don’t even have an HR department. People go to work when they want and go home when they want. They decide when to take holidays and how much vacation they need. They even choose how they’ll be compensated. In other words, we treat our employees like adults. And we expect them to behave like adults. If they screw up, they take the blame. … Ultimately, all we care about is performance. An employee who spends two days a week at the beach but still produces real value for customers and coworkers is a better employee than one who works ten-hour days but creates little value.”¹

Semler’s ideas may seem a bit radical at first, but he’s clearly on to something. When we turn our focus to results and truly trust our employees to act like adults, our business will benefit. Which parts of the video and quote resonnated with you? What can you take and apply to your business?

-————————————-

1. Ricardo Semler, “How We Went Digital Without a Strategy,” Harvard Business Review, 78, (2000): 52.

Photo by gemsling

In celebration of National Napping Day, take a nap this afternoon guilt-free! Napping Day is always the Monday following the onset of daylight savings time—the perfect opportunity to catch up on that hour of sleep we lost yesterday. Give yourself permission today to take a nap—even if it’s only 15 minutes—you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, energized, and ready to tackle the rest of the day!

Americans tend to be sleep deprived and hold negative attitudes about napping during the workday. It’s not something we do because it feels like a waste of time—we’re too busy to nap! However, my sister-in-law who works in Singapore for a Chinese company was recently encouraged to bring her pillow to work and join her colleagues who all take afternoon naps! Now that’s a workplace trend I could get behind! 

No one is too busy for a catnap. If only for today, give in and enjoy the restorative power of a quick snooze. Happy napping!

This is the final part in this series on change from the book Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. If you are in a position of influence, want to motivate others to change, or want to change your own behavior, you need to grab a copy of this book. 

The premise of Influencer is that if you want to change behavior, you must impact motivation and ability on three different levels: personal, social, and structural. Today I conclude by talking about two aspects of structural influence:

1. Structural Motivation: Design Rewards & Demand Accountability

Creating structural motivation is about answering the question “What’s my payoff and is anyone watching?” In Part 1 of this series we talked about personal motivation and if you can tap into that in a big way, extrinsic rewards won’t matter as much. Intrinsic motivation typically goes a long way in driving behavior change. 

When you do provide rewards, keep in mind a few things: 

–> Rewards don’t need to be large; small, heartfelt tokens of appreciation are often the best.
–> Reward small improvements in vital behavior along the way – don’t wait for massive results to provide a reward.
–> Only use punishment as a last resort and if you do opt to use it, provide a clear warning before hand. Make sure everyone knows negative things will happen if changes aren’t made to turn things around. No threats.

It’s also important to create a culture of accountability—one where the team, rather than just the manager, hold others accountable. Work with your employees to determine how they think they should be held accountable for changing their behavior. How will progress be assessed? How often will you receive updates? If a problem arises, who will be notified? What’s the standard process for review and feedback? Hammering out these details will provide the structure necessary for your change efforts to succeed.

2. Structural Ability: Change the Environment

“You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success—or are they holding you back?” ~Clement Stone

We often don’t notice things around us or our environment, but it’s far easier to change things, than people, and changes in things can have a permanent impact on how people behave. What can you change in the physical world to help your people thrive? Are there work procedures, job layouts, or reporting structures standing in their way? Work with your team to brainstorm ways you could change things, rather than behaviors.

Influencer presents a practical and actionable model of change that any small business can follow. Before you attempt to change something else in your business, consider both motivation and ability at the personal, social, and structural level.

Chris Ferdinandi, creator of the Renegade HR blog, wrote a great post the other day on “Why Your Employee Sucks at His Job.” Rather than complain about poor performance to HR or another colleague, do your best to identify the source of the problem.

Ferdinandi suggests taking a look at the following 5 causes of poor performance:

• Lack of knowledge, skills or abilities.

If this is the issue, train your employee, hand the task off to someone who does have the ability to get the job done, or hire someone else. And then look at your hiring or onboarding process to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

• Incorrect role expectations.

Performance may be a problem because your employee doesn’t know what is expected of them. The fix? Tell them and be clear.  

• Lack of motivation.

While there can be many reasons a person lacks motivation, the quickest way to solve this is to ask the employee what motivates them. And then do your best to make it happen.

• Lack of resources.

Are your expectations for performance reasonable considering the resources available to the employee? If not, provide what they need – or change the performance target.

• Lack of energy.

This is my favorite and ties in perfectly to workstyle design. We all work best at different times of the day, in different locations and environments, and when we’re working on different types of tasks. You can read more about this in my post, “When Do You Work Best?” The bottom line is, don’t try to force your employees into a box (or cubicle). Let them have control and choice over how, when, and where they do their work.

Take some time to read the full article and I’m sure you’ll walk away with some good ideas for dealing with performance issues in your organization.