Do You Know The Real Productivity Problem?

By Dr. Larry Baker, CSP

Have you been putting band aids on productivity problems, just treating the symptoms?  One way to tell is by comparing your approach to resolving your productivity issues to approaches that have gone beyond the “treating symptoms” approach. 

Dr. Larry Baker Management Center’s sister company, Time Management Center, Inc., has for nearly 30 years surveyed the productivity problems and time management skills and habits of thousands of employees. Using its copyrighted Pre-seminar Survey, it has tracked results for executives, managers and other professionals representing scores of industries and hundreds of companies.

Results continue to demonstrate the corporate, department and individual strategic, operating and performance issues adversely impacting productivity are deeper, systemic problems in most companies involving a lack of personal development at all levels of employees, including executives. Also, the productivity issues change with time; and they may vary in order of magnitude from company to company.

Employees, at all levels and in all industries, traditionally identify most productivity impediments as time related issues. That should not be surprising. Time has been, and always will be, their only resource they can not control -- increase or decrease and speed up or slow down. 

Time is the world’s greatest equalizer for all companies and all employees.  It provides only 24 hours each day to be divided among employees’ competing interests, opportunities and challenges, both work and non-work. 

Often, limited time is believed to be the “guilty party” causing poor productivity: not enough time to get the work done.  In fact, time is as much a victim of low productivity as it is a variable in measuring it.  Other resources, such as money, materials and labor, are both victims and measures of low productivity. 

There is inadequate use of Time Management assessments.  A lack of Time Management systems, strategies and tools add to the problem, as do poor delegation skills and lack of widely shared 360 degree feedback on productivity issues.  All adversely affect performance from top executives to operating employees.  Likewise, they have adverse impact on the preparation of strategic, operating and performance objectives, as well as on planning and scheduling the activities to achieve them. 

To learn more about how to assess your current Time Management strengths and challenges and how to use Time Management strategies that work.

Below are the top six challenges to productivity and performance, based on year 2006 Time Management Center survey results. They are listed in order of magnitude.  Compare the six challenges to what you believe is influencing your productivity, and that of your department and company.  Also, realize you are reading about timewasting symptoms, typically believed to be the problems.  Look for the underlying problems.

Unnecessary Interruptions and Distractions

Phone calls and drop-in visitors have ranked as the number one timewasting challenge for employees at all levels. It has been number one for the nearly 30 years survey results have been recorded. Many of the interruptions and distractions are not the primary productivity problems. They are the unfortunate symptoms, the consequences, of more deeply rooted strategic and operating problems.

Learning to handle phone calls and drop-in visitors more professionally will help; but, that will do little to reduce their numbers. Clear up the deeper problems, and many of the calls and visits will disappear. For example, I recently coached a manager through learning how to delegate more effectively; and the telephone calls and drop-in visits coming from his subordinates were reduced by more than 60% in less than two weeks. Previously, subordinates had often felt the need to re-clarify their responsibilities - confirm they had authority to make routine commitments and decisions - and verify what feedback he wanted from them, how and when.  Most of their impromptu phone calls and visits were merely symptoms of his poor delegation skills.  As often is the case, he was a major cause of many of his interruptions.

Unnecessary interruptions also result from other symptoms of low productivity: poor planning and ineffective meetings.  What are the real problems … lack of planning and meeting skills.

What is your situation, and that of your subordinates and coworkers?

The inability to handle necessary phone calls and drop-in visits and voice-mail, professionally, just adds to the phone and visitor issues. Many phone call, visitor and voice mail problems originate with the person receiving them, not the callers and visitors.

Poor Planning and Scheduling

It is not from a lack of pencil-paper, computer-based, and portable electronic organizers that keeps this performance issue near the top of the list of productivity challenges. Most personal organizers, regardless of how low- or high-tech, are excellent time management tools. Not understanding the planning and scheduling processes, not knowing the difference between a plan and a schedule and the resulting inability to implement strategic, operational and performance planning and scheduling are what perpetuate disorganization.

The focus on solving planning and scheduling challenges has been the purchase of what is hoped will be quick-fix organizers, usually trying something more elaborate and more expensive. Transferring poor planning and scheduling skills from one organizer product to another resolves little; if anything, it leads to even more frustration – more money spent - higher expectations – but, no better results. The solution to disorganization will not come until the broader, underlying planning and scheduling skills problems are solved.

All of the powerful organizing tools available to you and your associates, with their ever expanding capabilities, can make a difference. But, they must be applied to well crafted strategic objectives and well mapped operating and performance objectives, processes, projects, procedures and tasks.

The most modern tools for driving nails, cutting lumber and keeping things level and plum are of little use without a well drafted blueprint. How well drafted are the strategic, operating and performance blueprints - the objectives, processes, projects and tasks, provided you and your associates to which all apply your organizing tools? Just imagine how much more productive your company and its people would become with well crafted strategic, operating and performance blue prints to guide planning and scheduling.  Then, the time management tools to plan and schedule corporate, department, team and individual work could make a significant difference in productivity.

Unclear Priorities

The challenges dealing with priorities spring from two sources. The first results from what has just been written above about strategic planning and scheduling. A performance plan starts with strategic objectives and operating objectives. When those are unstated, poorly written or poorly communicated, it is impossible for employees to understand company, department or team priorities, let alone set their individual priorities. The second comes from not understanding the language of priorities. Two terms must be used when discussing priorities, importance and urgency. Omit clarifying either, and confusion prevails. Communicating priorities, effectively, demands attention to both importance and urgency. Everything is not equal in its importance or its urgency. That is why different things have different priorities.

The challenge is deciding on the relative priorities of everything competing for time and other scarce resources. The wrong question to ask for each competing item is: “Is it important or urgent?” It is never importance versus urgency.  It takes two questions.  The correct questions to ask for each item are these:

         First -- “How important is it - compared to the other things competing with it for scarce resources?”

         Second –- “How urgent is it - compared to the other things competing with it for scarce          time?”

Remember, clearly defined priorities are always assessed on both dimensions, and the issue to consider is the relative importance and relative urgency of each item competing for time, money and other resources.

The priority challenge is balancing, some time juggling, commitments among numerous items having various levels of importance and urgency - what some call multi-tasking or priority management. All face-to-face and written communications about priorities have to include references to both the relative importance and the relative urgency of all items competing for resource commitments.  Remember, unclear priorities is the symptom; the problem is the failure to clarify and communicate the relative importance and relative urgency.

Excessive Paperwork and E-Document

Generically, it is still called Paperwork.  But e-documents have joined hard-copy paperwork to add a digital dimension.  

The first symptom is “documentation overkill.” The second is poorly written documents. The third is excessive circulation. The fourth is unread documents.  And, the fifth is lack of filing or dis-organized filing. 

Taken together, the five add up to even more symptoms -- piles of paper on desks, credenzas and floors; lost files; overloaded e-mail inboxes; unanswered messages; poorly informed employees and hours of wasted energy, time and money. The challenge is to continue creating, transmitting and saving necessary documents, while discontinuing and throwing out the unnecessary.

You can easily determine if help is needed to organize paperwork and e-documents; just look at the piles and files on top of desks and file cabinets and clogged e-mail in-boxes.  Then too, think about how the simplest of communication needs go unmet, with the consequent missed opportunities and unresolved problems. 

The biggest correspondence complaint is excessive use and abuse of e-mail.  In fact, e-mail has bumped interruptions out of first place as the number one timewaster for many groups surveyed since the turn of the century. 

Analysis of this issue reveals the solutions are as much an ethical consideration as they are documentation, circulation and tracking issues.  The challenge of the e-mail issue is to keep people connected with people and data when necessary eliminate the unnecessary, timewasting e-mail.

Survey research results reveal that reading industry, business and professional publications are among the top activities for which executives, managers and other professionals strongly state they want more time. The overt sign of the reading problem is easily spotted; look for the stacks of unread industry, professional and trade magazines piled on the corners of desks, credenzas, file cabinets and floors.  One symptom not so easily spotted is covert; it is the professional, business and industry obsolescence among executives, managers and other professionals. Many cannot keep up with the routine reading load required to stay abreast with cutting-edge developments that have long-run impact on their companies’ abilities to survive and grow in highly competitive markets. What signs of professional obsolescence are apparent in your company? 

See the free article, “PROFESSIONAL OBSOLESCENCE: Making Time to Read - a Time Challenge”; it is a free download at …
www.manage-time-better.com. 

Ineffective Meetings

From year-to-year, meetings bounce around positions three to six among the rankings of productivity challenges. Poor meetings occur because chairpersons and participants do not know their role responsibilities, refuse to learn them or choose to ignore them.

Executives and other higher level employees usually cause the greatest productivity loss and highest time and financial costs to their companies from poor meetings. Traditionally, they have earned higher incomes and spent more time in conference rooms than lower level employees.

The greater use of project teams, work cells, quality teams, task forces, self-directed work teams, etc. has exposed employees at all levels to more meetings, and their adverse impact on productivity.  Most companies have not provided these new meeting attendees any more or better training for chairing and participating in meetings than they have for those who were traditional meeting attendees.

Meeting problems manifests their corruptive forces on the results of strategic planning meetings, problem solving meetings, performance review meetings, informational meetings, etc. The unfortunate consequences include ineffective plans, poor decisions, unclear priorities, mis-information and other causes of performance impairment.

The solution begins with a top level commitment to eliminate meeting problems. It continues with a commitment to learn the roles of effective chairpersons and participants—and their use of meeting planning, agenda and follow-up procedures. It ends with recognizing and rewarding those who fulfill their commitments to improve their meeting skills.

You do not have to wait on your fellow executives, managers and other professionals to commit to having better meetings before you get started. The next meeting you chair or participate in can be your first practice session.

Ineffective Delegation

Delegation is thought of mostly as a one-on-one, boss-subordinate activity. It is thought of rarely as a chairperson-meeting participant, project manager-team member, or a self-directed-team activity.

Delegation is a productivity issue because it is a critical management function. It is often misunderstood, consequently misused, and abused. It never affects the productivity of just one person. It can have a positive or negative impact on a group, department or entire company.

If a boss is sharing an assignment with just one subordinate, or a self-directed work team is sharing assignments among its members, the dynamics are different; but the basic elements of the delegation process are the same. There must be a clarification of responsibility, authority and accountability. Learning the role of each element is critical to successful participation in delegation - for the boss and subordinate, and for peer members of a team or other groups.

When those delegating couple the know-how and skills of being an “asker,” rather than a “teller,” with the basic elements of dele­gation, they will have mastered the process.  Typically, the person delegating does too much “telling,” instructing, and not enough “asking,” questioning to learn how well the assignment is understood.  People learn by listening, not talking.

There are many other productivity issues that people naturally relate to time use and misuse. In year, 2006, the six above were the most troublesome to those surveyed. Given the variety of professions, companies and industries included among those surveyed, it is probable that the same issues are your concerns, as well as those of your associates and your company. There are many ways these issues can be dealt with, and better results will follow.

If you and others in your company are troubled with time issues and problems, you now can discover your Time Management strengths and opportunities to improve.  In addition, you will have access to hundreds of Time Management tips that enhance your performance and increase your productivity.  All are included in the Time Management strategies and Time Management tools which are parts of an overall Time Management system.  Learn more about this amazing time management tool.

If you, your department or company, need productivity consulting, coaching or education,   Dr. Larry Baker is who you need. His approach is to create viable solutions for different productivity issues in different situations. He has the experienced-based sensitivity needed to tailor his approaches to consulting, coaching and educating to the environments and cultures of different industries, companies and personalities. Call Dr. Baker now, 770-218-8122, to begin achieving the productivity gains needed to make you, your associates and your company as successful as you want all to become.