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Continued Thoughts on Doing More with Less
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Does this sound familiar…
“I work at a Fortune 500 company. Each year we have layoffs so more work is given to each of us; no pay increase. This additional work adds 5-10 hours per week. Last year I averaged 60-70 per week and am working more this year.”
“I have worked in Manufacturing for nearly 30 years. Our plant had 4000 employees when I started. Today we have 187 people left, 72 of them are on the executive team. We are expected to come to work an hour early, work through lunch and stay two hours late everyday.”
“I work as a Web Producer for a publishing company. Over the past 6mo. they’ve laid off 50% of our staff. . . . So, now we’re stuck with a limited staff, each one doing 2-3 times as much work, most of which we’re not qualified or experienced in.”
These actual postings from www.cnn.money illustrate one of the key hazards of these unpredictable times: Trying to do more with less. Of course, the concept is a virtuous one—everyone wants to get more return from fewer resources. That’s what productivity is all about.
But real people are paying a real price for unintelligent application of this principle.
The problem is too many companies lay people off and then expect the survivors to pick up the slack, doing two or three jobs at once. The obvious downside is spikes in stress, burnout, quality problems, and disengagement. You can’t expect overwhelmed people to do quality work or to get engaged in what they’re doing.
Everyone wants to do more with less. But the real question is “more of what”? More of the same? Or more of the kind of work that your customers really value?
In our recent book we focus hard on this question. The turmoil we live in is displacing workers in unprecedented ways, and companies are paying a heavy price for mindlessly shedding numbers without re-thinking the business model. Service levels drop, quality plummets, and revenues slide.
On an airliner, serving peanuts to everyone might be in the flight attendant’s job description. But in turbulent air, you really don’t care if the flight attendant does that job. It’s not as important as caring for the safety and well-being of the passengers. Maybe you can do without serving peanuts for a while.
Isn’t it time to stop asking people to do the impossible by trying to work two or three jobs at once? Isn’t it time to push the re-set button and ask what work really adds value and forget the rest?
We’d like to hear from you. Are you trying to do “more with less”? Are you like the people we’ve quoted above? Or are you doing more of what really matters and less of what doesn’t?
Empathic Listening Tips
Being understood by others is the greatest need of all. – Stephen R. Covey
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey describes Empathic Listening as reflecting what a person feels and says in your own words to their satisfaction so they feel listened to and understood. Empathic Listening is not listening to advise, counsel, replay, refute, solve, fix, change, judge, agree, disagree, question, analyze, or figure out. Whether you are familiar with The 7 Habits and are looking for a refresher or new to them all together, here are a few tips to remember when using Empathic Listening.
It is best to use Empathic listening when:
- Emotion if high.
- The other person does not feel understood.
- You do not understand the other person.
- Trust is low in the relationship.
Here are a few Empathic Listening starters, these should help you get started using Empathic Listening.
- So, if I am understanding you correctly you are saying…
- What I’m hearing is…
- You seem…
- You must have felt…
- You feel…about…
What tips have you learned as you have used Empathic Listening in your life at home or at work? We would love to hear from you.
Q&A with Stephen R. Covey
Q: With every working generation, there are changes in what is motivational (e.g., Boomers vs. Gen Xers). As the mix of the generations (and cultures) continues to increase, and new cohorts enter the workforce, what approaches can we use to take advantage of this diversity to build organizational performance?
A: Synergy is celebrating diversity. So, involve people in the question you are asking and let them come up with their recommendations. Initially, start with small groups of three or four people so they are authentic and genuine in their communication and not “politically correct.” Then, let each small group share analyses and recommendations and begin to synergize at a higher level the question you are asking.
The key to this generational question is to be synergistically resolved through deep cooperation and authentic communication. Employ a great deal of empathic listening and restating another person’s point until that person feels understood. This takes a different mind-set and skill set.
How do you use diversity (the mix of generations, cultures etc…) to build organizational performance? I would love to hear from you.
This question and answer with Dr. Covey was featured in the January 2009 issue of Training Magazine.
What is a great career?
When we say that a person has had a great career, what do we mean? That he or she made a lot of money? Moved spectacularly up the corporate ladder? Became famous or renowned in their profession? And what about you? Are you looking forward to a great career? Would you describe your current career as “great”? When you get to the end of your productive life, will you be looking back on a mediocre career? A good career? Or a great career? And how will you know?
HOW do you create a great career for yourself? Can you have a great career and still have a great life at the same time, keeping the things you love – family, friends, work, and play – all in balance?
The answer is YES – look forward to Stephen R. Covey’s new book Great Work Great Career scheduled for release on November 15, 2009. More info coming soon.
Press Release: The 7 Habits Inspire Teachers & Students Worldwide
FranklinCovey Co. (NYSE: FC) announced today that The Leader in Me, FranklinCovey’s Education process for teaching leadership at the elementary school level, is being used by more than 150 elementary schools in the U.S., Canada, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Hungary and the Philippines. The process, of which The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a foundational piece, inspires young students to develop the skills and self-confidence to lead their lives and succeed in the 21st Century. › Continue reading
Creating a Win-Win With Your Child
As a husband, father, grandfather and most recently a great-grandfather, I am thrilled with my growing family. They are my greatest blessing and my greatest joy.
Even still I’ve wondered over the years what mistakes I have made as a father. Of course, there are mistakes along the way. Looking back I think one of the things I would have done differently as a parent is spending more time developing informal win-win agreements with each of my children. Doing this consistently and over time, covering the different phases of their lives would have been beneficial.
Because I traveled a lot, I felt that I often indulged them and went for lose-win too often. Instead I would have liked to pay the price to take the time to build relationships through win-win agreements.
You may ask, what is a win-win agreement? › Continue reading
Do more of what matters.
Last week in our webcast, The 4 Key Principles for Getting Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times, we had several questions submitted that we didn’t have time to answer. We thought we would take the next few posts and answer some of them here. One of our participants, a hospital administrator, asked, “How do you keep employee morale up when you’re asking them to do more with less?”
The answer: Don’t ask them to do more with less.
Instead, ask them to do less of what doesn’t matter and more of what does matter.
Morale has little to do with how hard people work or how tough the job is. People will do extraordinary things and work incredibly hard if they feel their contribution matters. › Continue reading
Do you know the goals?
The Center for Advanced Research at FranklinCovey recently completed a large study on goal awareness in U.S. organizations. The results were alarming. We found that 44% of companies, governments and other organizations reported no goals at all. In addition we found that even when goals have been established, a large percentage of employees have no idea what they are. For instance, we found that 74% of employees in government could not name even one of the goals of their departments or agencies. Overall, only 15% of American workers could name all of the 3 main annual goals of their work units or companies.
In a related study, using a larger sample of respondents but not distributing the respondents proportionately across industry sectors, we found that close to half of front-line employees blamed corporate leaders for not clearly communicating their goals to them. A full third of senior executives agreed with them. Furthermore, even when goals were known, 41 percent of workers said they did not understand what they personally were supposed to do each day to help achieve their company’s goals.
The study is based on results of surveys to 530 companies and 6,778 employees over a 5 year period ending in 2009. In some cases, the responses were weighted to provide an exact replica of basic U.S. industry categories.
It seems that when large numbers of workers show up to work each day not knowing why they are there nor what they are supposed to do all day, that business is probably operating very inefficiently, and that means poor service and lower profits.
It is crucial for employees to know both their team’s goals and their organization’s goals. What can you do today to get up to speed on your organizations goals? We would love to hear from you.
Click here to read the entire report
What is the value of Loyal Customers for your organization?
Most organizations consider customer service as a value. They’ll tell you it’s important to them to treat their customers well. But how do they know what their customers are thinking, how do they accurately and reliably measure how they are doing?
Typically when asked how companies measure customer service we hear one of three things:
- They have no measure
- They have an unreliable one (but they don’t know it)
- They have an unreliable one (and they do know it, but that’s what you have to put up with in customer service)
One of the most common ways we see unreliable customer service surveys is in the use of email or “back of receipt” surveys for data gathering. You’ve probably experienced this before – you go to a store and at the bottom of the receipt there is a website where you can take an online survey on your experience in that store. If you take the survey, (and I do now, since I’m fascinated with how others get their customer service metrics – but my guess is most of you probably do not) you may be asked to answer anywhere from 10—50 questions on your experience. This survey data is used to rank the stores and to get feedback on all the elements of the customer service experience. › Continue reading
The Reset Button
What happens when your computer gets overloaded?
It slows down. Everything takes longer. It starts giving you error messages. Soon it freezes, and then it crashes.
It’s the same thing that happens to you when you get overloaded. There’s a natural principle at work here: the things I have to do are infinite, but the capacity I have to do them is limited. (In my case, quite limited.) In our new book, Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times, we talk about how to “push the reset button” on your work and your life when things get scary.
Here’s the issue: At work, everybody’s trying to do more with less. But the real question is, more of what? Are you just trying to do more stuff whether customers value it or not? Are you trying to do the jobs of people who aren’t here anymore, whether those jobs are worth doing or not?
Push the reset button. Ask yourself, what’s the job that really needs to be done? What job do my customers want me to do more than anything else?
Say you’re the only finance person left after everybody else is let go. Do you really need to keep track of every single data point that’s always been tracked? What are the company’s real needs right now? Protecting cash flow? Getting accounts receivable paid up?
Figure out what the organization really needs you to do. Then focus on that job. Instead of trying to do 2 or 3 jobs that “kind of, ought to” be done, strip yourself down to the job that you must do and that only you can do.
I hear you giggling. “Tell that to my boss.” No, you tell it to your boss. In these scary times, nobody—including you—can afford to carry responsibilities that aren’t core to the organization’s purpose.
What else can you do to succeed in the middle of the wild ride we’re all taking right now? We would love to hear from you.
Get a copy of Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times for 30% off.