Category: Visible Leadership

Smoking is good for you. Fact.

cigs

Productivity trumps presenteeism every time. Sure, input is necessary but output is what really counts. And we know that taking time out, little and often, helps us to stay sharp and to deliver. Here’s a little something that Katherine Wiid found out about and told me which may interest you:

A man by the name of Boice, has extensively researched the productivity of academics. Do you know that there is a differential of 7:1 between the best and ordinary academics?

Highly productive academics
* work early in the morning before the household gets up for 1 to 1.5 hours (maximum)
* work on one project at a time and working at it a little every day
* work in snatches of about 15 minutes and take mini breaks
* stop.

Of course, then they go into the office and attend to the busy-work of universities and the complementary work of teaching. In working regularly every day and STOPPING, they achieve 7 times more than people who “binge” work.

Despite this, we often see people running from meeting to meeting, oh so terribly busy. It feels like a competition to outbusy everyone else. What’s the driver? Fear? An attempt to make oneself indispensable? Whatever it is, a long day with no breaks serves no one well.

Which brings me to smoking. I was with a friend yesterday who suggested that maybe smoking is good for you? What!! He explained…

Most organisations I know barely if ever bat an eyelid when a smoker gets up, and pops out for a cigarette break. And yet they can be gone for upwards of fifteen minutes, several times a day. Imagine the questioning a non-smoker would get if once every hour or two they got up and wandered off for quarter of an hour. “Haven’t you got work to do?” “Aren’t you busy enough?” It probably wouldn’t be tolerated; peer group pressure at least would likely make the habit fail. Yet a much more dangerous habit at least brings with it the potential benefit of increased productivity. So you see it turns out that smoking is good for you.

OK I’m kidding, and so was he. It isn’t. What is much better is to create a culture where it’s not only OK to take regular breaks, it’s encouraged. So, if you are in a position of visible leadership. Take a break. Encourage someone to join you. Do it again, and again. Just enough that other folk know it’s OK to refresh and recharge for their benefit, and your benefit, and the customers benefit, and the shareholders benefit…

Are You Committing Leadership Malpractice?

Over at the Harvard Business Review, Susan Cramm has written a very interesting piece about leadership malpractice. The article starts:

“There’s only one kind of leadership malpractice: wasting the lives of those we lead.”

I imagine there must have been a huge temptation to just leave it at that and submit the shortest HBR blog ever. Susan Cramm goes on to highlight a few leadership howlers that can soak up and waste huge amounts of precious time. These include:

• Sponsoring a project that isn’t ready for prime time.
• Overloading star performers.
• Managing jobs rather than careers.
• Refusing to address performance issues.

The article is worth a read to learn more about these, however one point in particular stood out for me. Cramm calls it: Negatively Labelling Others.

She uses a particularly angry example that makes me think of a spoiled child stamping their feet to try and get what they want. The outcome she suggests is a self fulfilling prophecy where staff just act out, rather than act right. I prefer to think of it as doing what we say we will, or maybe just actions speak louder than words.

Authentic leadership is powerful stuff. It can make, and break an organisation. You probably think I’m talking about the guys and (regrettably few) gals who sit round the top table, right? Well it’s not just them. In the West, we seem to be obsessed with looking upwards for leadership. In doing so we miss out on lots of creative, energetic, engaging work being led at all layers in the organisation.

Too often the leader is called upon to make a great speech. Rallying the troops I think they call it? My experience shows me that too often their subsequent behaviour completely contradicts their bold words. For example I know of a CEO in a global business who implores his staff to complete the quarterly attitude survey, and yet has never done so himself. So how can he even contemplate what it feels like to participate, let alone understand the huge frustration that comes from the subsequent lack of action? He talks about the importance of open communication yet he won’t blog, he says it’s a waste of time. Is he fearful of what his staff may ask of him and say to him? I don’t know but I do know he says one thing and does another. I don’t know about you but I couldn’t trust or follow someone like that.

Today I would like to start a campaign for authentic leadership. Leadership demonstrated by action, not by title, position or words. I hope you’ll join me.

Letter to the Boss, from John Everyman

My search for interesting and useful stories about employee engagement take me to many places. I search all over, and sometimes the very best stuff is a lot closer than you think. Thanks to the wonder of the internet I’ve made lots of friends I’ve yet to meet, though I know a good deal of them better than I know some of my relatives!

One of those highly enjoyable meet ups that has come my way is with a guy named Craig. We share at least two common interest, guitars and engagement. Here is a link to a great story written by Craig as a letter, from the worker to the boss. In itself it’s a lovely tale about connectedness. Behind it is some really powerful stuff, like talent wars, career shifters, and people who need people. It’s also about retaining good people, and the payoff.

Craig concludes by saying, “If you manage to land good talent, you’d better work hard to hold on to it. What factors impact overall job satisfaction, and therefore retention? Forget the bottom level basic survival needs of the Maslow model. The work force is craving much more than just pay and benefits. I’m not a researcher, and I don’t care to list yet again the mountains of studies and data to validate this, but the studies are out there. Fact:

Companies with higher levels of engagement also experience greater profit, productivity and retention rates.

The bad news: you cannot buy engagement. The good news: engagement costs nothing.”