Posted on

How Your Organization Can Learn from Disruptions

If, like most leaders, you are struggling with the rude COVID-19 surprise, consider that this is just the beginning of a new normal. Some say there are other massive disruptions on the horizon. Perhaps one way to cope is to redefine what it means to be a learning organization.

Back in the early 1990’s I attended a training offered by Peter Senge’s company. He’s the author of The 5th Discipline – The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. The concept was a great one – organizations needed to focus on learning in order to adapt to changing times. 

However, that was before the advent of email or the internet. In today’s context, what we thought were “changing times” looks to be quaint.

For example, in the past few weeks, as a leader you have been forced to become competent in pandemic crisis management. Consequently, you can now define a number of brand new terms: social distancing, self-quarantine and “non-essential worker.”

Furthermore, your organization has picked up some fresh skills, albeit in bits-and-pieces: scheduling staff to minimize contact, limiting viral transmissions, enabling work from home and determining critical functions.

To fill these gaps, you have spoken with other executives, listened to the business news, used Google searches, and perhaps even hired subject matter experts. Unfortunately, for most companies, this has been a hit-or-miss affair. In other words, your organizational learning has taken place by “Buck-Up.”


Some CEO’s thrive on high-stress challenges such as this one. But most people don’t. Instead, they want a systematic way to develop the skills and knowledge needed to coast through any future disruption. How can your organization respond effectively to the next challenge?

1. Learn from the Covad-19 Learning Gaps

The best leaders noticed that their organization was caught in a situation where critical knowledge was missing. Even if it had a generic disaster recovery plan, the nature of this disruption defies ones anticipated by textbooks.

Instead, leaders realize that the company which can learn quickly, especially in a crisis, would be the one that has the advantage. Rather than being stalled, it would rapidly assess the threat. The gaps found would be converted into learning content to be disseminated within hours to those who need to use it: board, stockholders, executives, managers, workers, customers, suppliers, et al.

Unfortunately, too many companies rely on the fact that the CEO is a smart, capable person. While this is often true (especially in small organizations) it’s a mistake to equate individual learning with organizational learning. 

The latter is far more powerful and seeks to equip the entire company with capabilities which endure long past the tenure of any particular person.

2. Empower a New Learning and Development Specialist

It’s one thing to identify the need for this kind of rapid learning, but the question is: “Who should manage it?” Most companies have shed whatever training people they once had in prior budget cuts. Plus, the landscape has changed. Years ago, employees sat in three-day Microsoft Windows or Excel workhops. Today, the idea of sitting in a classroom to learn how to use an app is a joke.

The need for this kind of trainer has disappeared.

However, at the same time, the requirement for someone to take charge of organizational learning in challenging moments is evident. But this is not the same small skill-set trainers used to have. What kind of capabilities should this individual possess?

3. The New Learning Skills

Today, this person would be a kind of crisis-manager, but not one that addresses the issue directly. Instead, they would be concerned with uncovering the learning that’s required to solve the problem in the mid-term, so that it never recurs. As such, they’d require a blend of technical and change management skills, plus the ability to respond within days, if not hours. 

In addition, this person should also be a quality diagnostician, able to discern the true learning gaps inherent in novel challenges. In a flash, they can analyze new technologies, alliances, distribution networks, supply chains, government regulations and other kinds of unique threats and opportunities. Due to the importance of their work, they would behave more like entrepreneurs than bureaucrats. 

Finally,  they would also need to think of innovative ways to get people to learn. A CTO-friend of mine developed a practice of assigning brand new technologies to members of his team.

Their job? To research the area and deliver a training program to his colleagues after a month or two of intense study. It was a low-tech solution to a very high-tech problem. This is a simple example. But it reflects the out-of-the-box thinking a learning expert would have to do to prepare your organization for its next rude surprise.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20200322/francis-wade-learning-disruptions

Posted on

Why Strategic Planning is a Team Sport

As an executive, you must make an annual decision about your organization’s strategic plan. Should the exercise be done as a team, hire outsiders to perform a study,  or simply fall back on the CEO’s thinking? While there are pros and cons to each approach, one generally yields the best fruit.

Once your company successfully grows to a certain point, it must consider the long-term impact of its actions, and make a choice. Does it continue to allow the founder to drive the decisions on each major course of action? After all, he/she is the most knowledgeable person, and the only one who has the full-time job of thinking strategically.

However, even though CEOs are generally smart people, there comes a stage when their brilliance, and this tactic, only gets them into trouble. They find themselves alone in implementing their strategies. No-one else takes the time to understand or invest themselves emotionally. Instead, they sit back and wait for the Boss Man/Lady to do all the big-picture thinking…as usual.

In a small company with a “Snow White” organizational structure (i.e. a single strong extrovert surrounded by introverts) this approach can work. However, an enterprise that must grow by hiring talented people will eventually run into trouble. High performers either refuse to join, or leave after a few months.

An alternate tactic is to invite in an outsider. A consulting firm willingly does all the interviews, data gathering, analysis and report writing. The result is a beautifully packaged set of strategy recommendations.

However, they have actually done their client a disservice.

By undertaking the intellectual labour themselves, they also undermine the emotional commitment. In other words, by the end of the project, they believe in their ideas more than anyone else, especially those who must implement them. Even those who originally had the ideas are sidelined as they become branded by Consulting Firm X.

But there is a third tactic. You could treat the development of the strategic plan as a team exercise, like a sport: an effort in which each person must play their part. However, there are several pitfalls to this approach that need to be avoided.

1. Impartial Facilitation
The best event to forge final decisions is a strategic planning retreat. Unfortunately, most are little more than one of two extremes: a place to air opinions of all kinds without making any commitments, or a presentation of pre-agreed decisions in which people are “encouraged“ to buy-in. Neither produces satisfying results.

Instead, the most effective retreats allow consensus to build from the bottom-up. In most cases, this is best facilitated by an outsider who allows contentious issues to be brought up in a civil way that helps your team make final, binding decisions.

These new points of agreement are the entire purpose of the activity – to craft ultimate, difficult choices that close the door on other alternatives.

2. Immediate Capture
The second pitfall is to think that a hearty discussion is sufficient. In a tiny company, this approach may work as it’s easy to share information.

However, in a larger organization, these agreements must be translated into projects or initiatives which lead to wide-spread behavior changes. To ensure that this happens, your team should document the new strategy immediately after it makes decisions.

In other words, the written substance of each strategy cannot wait to be captured until the next day. If the team waits even a few hours to translate their decisions into words, you may learn the hard way that strategic conversations have a ridiculously short shelf-life. As soon as they are explored and completed, their essence begins to fade once a new conversation commences. 

The only option is for you to capture these conclusions immediately, before everyone scatters to go home.
Unfortunately, this approach is rarely taken because people believe that a fancy Strategy Report is the true final product. It’s not: the decisions your team made are far more important.

3. Instant Ownership
The last pitfall you could make is to leave the retreat without proper ownership being assigned. Overall responsibility isn’t enough: key activities may still languish due to a lack of personal accountability. 

The solution is simple: assign sponsors to each of your new initiatives, even if they don’t possess subject matter expertise. Their sole job is to shepherd the project until a manager is assigned. In fact, they may only relinquish their sponsorship years after the planning event, but when they play their role well, it keeps the retreat’s momentum going.

Every sport has its peculiar conventions and practices. Avoid these pitfalls and you increase the odds that your team will win.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20200308/francis-wade-why-strategic-planning-team-sport

Posted on

Can Your Leaders Lead Without Personal Integrity?

“All I have is my word.” Back in the day, this was a common saying among working professionals. For them, keeping one’s word was the only honorable, accepted thing to do. But times have changed: Is there a place for that sentiment in today’s Jamaica?

In 2020, many people have a contingent relationship to the promises they make. In other words, they will keep their commitments if the stars align in just the right way.

When they do, it’s because their feelings and circumstances are in the perfect place, and the gain far exceeds the cost. To summarize: the result is not really up to them, but a fortuitous confluence of external events. It provides them with a psychological back-door: a way to escape any future obligation.

Some people specialize in this kind of behaviour, even while seated at a boardroom table. But it’s human: we hate being trapped by promises we made in the past. Some refuse to make them altogether, explaining that compliance is up to God, not them.

While such behaviour is convenient to those giving their word, it wreaks havoc in the world around them. Here are two ways.

1. Reputational Risk

If you have ever been ghosted (i.e. stood up) by someone with a flimsy excuse, you probably made a decision. Perhaps you resolved never to trust him/her again.

However, if you are a habitual “flake”, you may be upset to hear what we won’t tell you: “If you can’t be trusted to satisfy simple obligations, then you certainly won’t be considered for others which are more substantial.” Also, while we may consent to meet with you again, we’ll be calling ahead to “confirm” (aka micromanage) the appointment.

But don’t relax. Whereas this trick may work for small matters, it fails for important commitments. Instead, we’ll just call someone else.

Unfortunately, you may never understand why you are no longer on our list of invitees, or why we don’t return your calls and email messages. Your inability to generate the willpower to keep your promises has resulted in lasting damage.

2. Organizational Weakness

Hire enough chronic promise-breakers into the same organization and you have the perfect recipe for bankruptcy.

Case in Point: A founder, known for honouring his word, dies and leaves the company to an unreliable sibling. The inheritor never understands the invisible glue of integrity that enabled the company to thrive. Consequently, promises are broken on a whim so customers, employees and other stakeholders start a steady exodus to better alternatives. It’s a lack of integrity writ large: a violation of the brand promise, employee compact, or shareholder trust. These are all unwritten expectations no company can break for long.

Arguably, the rise and fall of the quality of Digicel’s mobile service is such an example. When it entered the market in 2001, it delivered a striking, powerful salvation from C&W’s monopoly. But recently, the government reported a meeting with the company to complain, on behalf of consumers, about its poor service: a dramatic reversal for a favorite brand.

What can leaders of companies like Digicel do? They can undertake a return to workable standards on a personal, but public level. 

In an era in which the President of the United States freely reverses his stated commitments to people, precedent and principles alike, the world is short of those who lead by example. It appears that the practitioners of “situational integrity” are “winning.”

This has not gone unnoticed in Jamaican society, however. Organizations like the NIA and CAFFE are pushing to return our country to a simpler standard: a time when people did what they said they would, just because they said they would…especially when it’s hardest to do so.

But the key is not to merely be wary of making promises. The deeper challenge is to relate to one’s word as if it were as important as oneself: a reflection of character.

Unfortunately, when life is working as it should, the challenge seems to fade in importance.

For example, several local politicians have apologised for disparaging remarks made on the campaign trail about an opposition Member of Parliament. In essence they said: “Those comments are not a reflection of who I am.”

The irony is that Digicel and other organizational leaders could see their recent shortcomings as an opportunity to return themselves to who they really are. Jamaica yearns for this kind of leadership: the kind that willingly reveals itself when mistakes are made, at the moments when it’s inconvenient, uncomfortable and unprofitable.

These opportunities demonstrate how to live old-fashioned principles in modern-day life and empower everyone of us to do the same.

Posted on

Why The Most Ambitious People Time Block

Have you ever wondered why a few high-performers insist on scheduling (i.e. time blocking) their entire day? It’s not because they are indulging in an idle pastime. Instead, they are resorting to this little-known technique because they have no other choice.

CEO’s. Olympic athletes. Entrepreneurs. Teachers. Part-Time Students. Parents of twins, triplets or more. Employees with a side business.

These are some of the busiest people you may know. But being busy isn’t just a state of mind, or a feeling. Research shows they have a practice of creating a huge number of tasks. In other words, the backlog of demands they have set for themselves far exceeds 24 hours per day and 168 hours per week.

Furthermore, they face the same challenge we all do of living in Jamaica, with its hectic daily surprises that make it so hard to focus. Time blocking is the way they stay on top of their time commitments.

What you may not know is that they actually started using the technique relatively late in life, after progressing through other practices. Here are the steps you could follow if you are looking towards a future of increasing task volume.

1. Start Off Using a New Kind of Memory

Like most adolescents, you probably had a goal of having a great memory. After all, primary and secondary education is almost all about memorization, recalling facts and figures, using what’s called “retrospective memory”. However, there is another: “prospective memory”. This is the kind of memory used to perform actions in the future, such as your plans for the rest of the day. This type has a short shelf life, unlike retrospective memory. For example, your schedule for yesterday afternoon is of little value today.

Furthermore, prospective memory is used to help you reach your goals and intentions. However, the fact that you’re taught to use personal memory to track incomplete commitments is a problem. Why? Once you try to remember too many tasks, it fails.

Finally, the older you get, the worse this kind of memory performs; as you may have observed with your parents. It’s not a long-term solution to the problem of task recall, even though it’s the most popular.

2. Solving the Problem With Lists
If you came of age before 2005 you probably sought to solve the problem by using paper lists. Consequently, you developed the successful practice of carrying around a pad or notebook.

Of course, not everyone has learned the habit. “Don’t worry yuhself, mi wi remember” is a popular refrain that often leads to problems. (My casual observation is that more Jamaican men than women are likely to utter it, and less likely to have pen/paper handy.)

Unfortunately, there is a limit to the number of tasks a paper list can handle before the practice of continually writing a new one becomes a chore. Plus, it can be lost, stolen, wet or burned. Thankfully, new technology on our phones can help.

3. Migrating to Smartphones
If you came of age after 2010 you may think the idea of using paper instead of a digital task app to be backward.

Instead, you jumped straight to using your phone to manage your tasks. Now, your cloud-based app offers perpetual safety, plus the ability to stay on top of much more todos. But you are still subject to the law which states that whenever you try to manage your tasks with tools which lack the requisite capacity, you will experience difficulties. This law applies whether you are using prospective memory, paper or a digital task app.

So if you happen to be using an app and find yourself unable to keep up, there’s one more level to consider.

4. Adopting a Super Calendar
Academics in the 1990’s discovered that when you specify the time to complete a planned task, it dramatically increases the odds of completion. In other words, you are more effective when you time block a task in your calendar than if you merely add it to a list.

While it’s possible to use a paper planner, there are two powerful digital solutions: picking up a calendar on Google or Outlook, or switching to an AI-powered auto-scheduler. The former requires you to move tasks around one-by-one by hand, which can become painful. The latter uses an intelligent robot you can train to produce a new, optimal schedule on demand.

And if you don’t want to manage your own calendar, a third option is to hire someone (like an administrative assistant) to do the job of time blocking for you.

All three are techniques used by most ambitious, accomplished people.

Unfortunately, given psychological and technological limits, these are your only choices. Until something better is invented, time blocking tasks directly in your calendar is the best choice for dealing with a high volume of time demands with sharp deadlines.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20200209/francis-wade-why-most-ambitious-people-time-block

Posted on

How WhatsApp May Become a Big Disruptor

There are moments when a new innovation rides in on the tracks of existing habits and technologies, changing everything in an instant. How does your firm prepare itself for such changes?

Millennials are amused to hear stories of an age when a fax machine was thought to be a major breakthrough. It’s hard for them to grasp the fact that before its popularization, the only way to connect remotely with other people was via hand-delivered paper.

When email supplanted both fax machines and snail mail a few years later, it seemed to be the ultimate answer. After all, just about any digital object could be sent via this new channel. However, the predictions were ultimately incorrect, at least in the case of Jamaica. Today, for personal communication, WhatsApp has completely displaced both channels.

Yet, the number of companies who use it officially is small. Few local organizations even bother to collect contact information of any kind from their prospects and customers.

In fact, there’s an even smaller cohort of first adopters who are waiting for the day when they can use WhatsApp to contact large numbers of people. When the innovation arrives it’s likely to cause a stir in Jamaica for the following reasons.

1. Local vs. U.S. Behavior As you may agree, we often take our cues from American consumers. They are seen as leaders in the adoption of technologies which eventually become commonplace in local companies.

However, their use of messaging apps differs remarkably from ours. In 2018, only 12.1% of mobile users in the U.S. connected with WhatsApp versus Facebook Messenger, which reached 56.8%.

If you live in Jamaica there’s no need to explain – WhatsApp is by far the dominant method for individual mobile communication. In a few short years, the majority have picked up the habit of daily usage.

However, due to restrictions put in place by Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp, even the early corporate adopters have been forced to stay with text messages and email channels. That is, they are stuck using methods most people are abandoning. Consequently, their messages are seen as an intrusion.

To see where they must go next, we need to look for examples outside North America.

2. Following the Chinese

Instead, we must pay attention to WeChat. Most Jamaicans have never heard of this Chinese-owned app, even though 700 million people use it every day for at least an hour. When it started, it was widely seen as a knock-off of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

However, while both have limited their expansion into added features, WeChat took the opposite approach and added them at breakneck speed. Consequently, once users enter the app’s space they don’t have to leave because it offers them the following features, among many: – company mini-sites for customer interactions – payments – e-wallets for individual money transfers – social networking cash rewards for following a brand – gamification – group followership – attracting influencers.

I’m no expert in these services, but the overall result is clear: people’s everyday behaviors are tied into the app in a profound way. Will that happen here?


3. Case Study: Jamaica

WeChat probably won’t gain traction here, but it appears that WhatsApp is waking up to the potential of its network.

So should our local business community. Essentially, each of us is walking around with an invisible train line – a digital link to our most important acquaintances. It’s sitting in our pockets, already being used to connect with the most important people in our lives every single day.

So far, WhatsApp has prevented brands from putting their digital locomotives on these tracks, but that’s changing. The firm recently announced the release of a limited Business App for small companies. But there’s much more coming, they promised, with the release of their API (Application Program Interface.)

Soon, far more functionality will be made available including automation and mass messaging. In other words, the app is becoming more like WeChat. Will this become a more dramatic disruptor than fax machines or email? If you follow my reasoning, you may agree that it may be a rare case of a powerful service following already existing daily habits. As such, the learning curve could be practically non-existent.

If this piggy-backing occurs, it could instantly change the way local companies do everyday functions like customer service, advertisement and bill payment. It would be a disruption that gains its power from existing, but seemingly innocuous habits.

Whether this transformation happens or not local companies need to pay attention. Seemingly small, boutique technologies can have huge effects that overturn industries. Consider this a clear warning: CEO’s must invest time and effort to appreciate the ultimate impact of digital disruptions that they may not initially even notice.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20200126/francis-wade-whatsapp-may-yet-become-big-disrupter

Posted on

Why Rising Executives Sometimes Never Find a Real Mission

Why is it that some fast-rising corporate professionals get stalled on their path to the top position? Or, why do they fail to fulfill their potential when they assume the top role? The answer: sometimes, they neglect to revoke unproductive ways of being that operate behind the scenes. 

There’s an invisible transition that should occur during an executive’s ascent to their ultimate destination:  the big corner office. They work hard – that’s not in question. However, by mistake, they rely on two weak “skills” for too long.

Weak Skill #1. Being Liked
Most of us want to be managed by people we like. Those who are seeking to be promoted quickly learn that being a nice person who gets along with others is a key skill. 

Unfortunately, managing effectively is not the same as running in an election. In the better companies, measurable results are more important than popularity. However, when metrics are hard to come by, likeable people wind up being promoted. It’s only human. In the absence of concrete data “how he/she makes me feel” becomes decisive.

Of course, this can end in disaster. A top executive ends up making decisions that keep his/her likability intact, but are in fact poorly made. By sacrificing results for this lower-level achievement, they put their organization at risk.

Weak Skill #2. Looking Good

The other invisible monster that drives the behavior of would-be executives is that of looking good. It starts in small ways, with the accumulation of tangible goods (house, car, etc.) and the refinement of one’s physical appearance.

Unfortunately, looking good rarely stops there. Eventually, one’s work, team, relationships and other items are added as further objects to defend by the individual’s ego. 

The reason this monster grows so fast is that the real driver behind this skill is a fear of looking bad, or rejection. Executives who are wedded to looking good actively try to control anything or anyone who might be associated with their reputation. They go to great lengths to protect their image, even throwing others under the bus. For example, some managers, driven by this fear, will publicly blow up at an innocent mistake made by a subordinate.

On the flip side, these powerful drivers of individual accomplishment help get individuals noticed by those above them in organizational hierarchies. A few will, in fact, boast they are the true secrets of their “success.”

However, enlightened companies know better. In fact, they quietly track a future executive’s development up the ranks, noticing if or when they made the transition away from these two weak skills. If progress seems slow, they intervene and offer training or coaching, hoping to produce a transformation. Their intent is to develop the following two positive traits.

Strong Trait #1 – Mission and Vision

These smart companies wish to promote employees who care about a wide community of stakeholders. They want to see them grapple to fulfill the combined needs of fellow staff members, stockholders, residents of surrounding neighborhoods, customers, suppliers, regulators, and more. Balancing the requirements of all these groups isn’t easy and future CEO’s should begin to struggle with the dilemma long before being promoted. By the time they are elevated, it’s too late.


Strong Trait #2 – Self-Reflection

Few managers realize that the higher they rise in the company, the less quality feedback they will receive. They may get a greater volume of complaints, but the number of people who understand the help they require to be a top executive and are willing to speak up dwindles sharply. As such, they must develop an ability to coach themselves.

This trait is not a matter of second-guessing. Instead, it has to do with a capacity to accept oneself as a work-in-progress. For example, I have met immature executives who would deny that they ever indulge in being liked and looking good. As they read and comprehend these two weak skills, their mind instantly searches for examples which demonstrate where they have transcended both behaviors.

Unfortunately, this rush to exonerate oneself is actual evidence of the ego in action.

The best executives do the opposite, willingly sharing examples of their struggles to overcome being liked and looking good. They realize that the price of leadership is constant vigilance. These two unwanted ways of being are always there, just waiting to cause trouble in new, hard-to-detect forms.

As a result, they engage in self-coaching and self-reflection with a frequency and honesty that can shock others. But it’s not an idle pastime. They willingly sacrifice their ego’s machinations, using this approach as their main method of staying true to their mission: the accomplishment of a lofty vision which serves all related stakeholders.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20200112/francis-wade-mission-failure

Posted on

Why People Who Use Time Blocking are Never “Free”

“Do you have some free time?”

If you have ever asked this question of someone who is a driven, high-achiever you may have received a quizzical look. Their blank look isn’t a sign of overthinking.

They just happen to be one of a group of individuals who simply don’t understand the question. They think about their time usage so differently that the question doesn’t make sense.

Strangely, it probably all started in the past, when they accepted the notion that there will never, ever be enough time to do everything. In other words, they embraced the fact that there will always be a negative gap between the following:

– the total sum of all the tasks they would like to complete (measured in hours) 

and

– the total number of hours they have available each week.

Of course, like everyone else, they only have 168 hours per week. This number represents a hard limit to the tasks they can complete, measured in hours. At the same time, when they add up all their commitments, the total amounts to far more hours.

Their quizzical response says: “I have way more commitments than I have time. I don’t understand what you mean by free time.”

Unfortunately, most people view this condition as a bad problem to be solved. They respond to the imbalance by trying to cut down the volume of their commitments. They believe that they should have “free time” in their calendar and in their lives.

However, high achievers who use Time Blocking don’t think this way. If you happen to be one, you may know there are two parts of your brain at work which operate very differently which take away the need for free time.

One region is responsible for creating tasks. It responds to a 24–7 array of triggers by adding new tasks, even in your sleep. It wants to be free to create fresh commitments whenever the need or desire arises.

But there’s another corner of your brain which is assigned the job of making sense of the tasks the first part created. It understands that there are real constraints and must choose between tasks using different criteria to answer the continual question: “What should I work on in the next instant, later this week, six months from now, and by the end of the year?”

It realizes that a decision to work on a task is (by definition) a choice to set aside hundreds of others which are unfinished. Furthermore, to prevent the chosen task from becoming swamped by the weight of all the others during its execution, you need to manage them all effectively (bar none). If you don’t, you’ll be consumed by the nagging distraction of the Zeigarnik Effect. In essence, your subconscious mind pings you when it believes you cannot be trusted to govern all your incomplete commitments.

One reason you time block is to ward off the Zeigarnik Effect. However, early success with the technique leads to adding in more tasks. Eventually, you end up with more than 168 hours of tasks to put in your calendar, putting you in a negative balance.

The average person takes a different approach to avoid the Zeigarnik Effect. They simply don’t create as many tasks (or commitments) and therefore have a nice, positive gap between commitments and time. They aren’t trying to accomplish as much, and therefore rarely run out of time.

Once you add so many tasks that you lack time to complete then and must resort to time blocking, it’s hard to go back. Instead, you must go forward and use different practices and new tools.

What People Who Time Block Really Do

Veterans in the use of the technique report that they see their time in big resource chunks, such as sets of 168 hours. They treat every hour as if it were precious. They make a conscious decision to spend each one to accomplish a particular goal.

For example, they may begin by setting aside time to sleep. While most people view this as a respite that requires little attention, those who have a negative gap tend to think hard about the role of the activity. They may consider it to be time to replenish themselves, which is too important to be left to chance.

They also realize that they need space in the day to recover their focus and energy: time blocking their calendar for mind wandering, a nap or to shake off the after-effects of a hard meeting.

In addition, they know that tightly scheduled days rarely go according to plan. Their calendar includes time slots which are placeholders for unplanned interruptions. This may even cover “requests for free time from other people.”

So before the week has started, someone who time blocks has already thought about these eventualities and accommodated them. Those who are more experienced put together a time blocking template for their weekly use, such as the one below. It serves as their starting point.

Notice that the template has times for meals, exercise and daily planning. If it were mine, it would also include time to take a coffee nap each day!

To the non time blocker, this may look like the beginning of insanity. However, to the person who is keen to allocate time efficiently, it’s a tool to accomplish their goals.

In effect, they are making a statement to themselves and to the world: I am taking care of myself first, before anything else intrudes. It’s a bit like putting on your mask in an airplane emergency before that of another.

By the time each week’s appointments and tasks are added in, the calendar becomes full. There is no “free time.” In fact the time blocking apps are built with the end-point in mind, especially those with auto-scheduling features.

But what if you decide not to enter each task in your weekly schedule in such a time blocking app? Isn’t the effect the same?

Apart from the burden of maintaining a mental calendar with numerous moving parts, consider what takes place when you are under pressure. Imagine that, in the middle of a meeting, your boss asks “Do you have the free time to work on this new activity next week?”

All eyes are on you as you search your mental schedule. With a few seconds to respond and the weight of expectations on your shoulders, you are far more likely to make a mistake: a blind sacrifice of your “free” time.

The sad truth is that if your manager likes your work, there are more requests like this coming your way. She’ll continue to ask if you keep on saying “Yes”. While there are some supervisors who sense that you are over-promising, most will simply hold you to account and not care too much about the personal costs of your mistake.

By contrast, pulling out a fully time blocked calendar allows you to offer a fact-based answer.

The obvious conclusion is that being conscious and explicit about your schedule beats being unconscious and implicit. It leads to clearer decision-making, especially if you consider yourself to be a high-performer who pushes hard for results.

The challenge here is to think in totals: all of your commitments versus all of your limited time.  This includes those tasks which aren’t work related, and those which are required for self-care.

Your calendar is the best tool to connect the two. Just give yourself the freedom to use it in a way others may not understand.

Their version of “free time” isn’t a reality in your world in which every single new commitment doesn’t take up time that is sitting there waiting around to be assigned. Instead, it means making a difficult trade-off that has practical consequences.

Why People Who Use Time Blocking are Never “Free”

Posted on

The Hole in the Fence Theory of Productivity

There are many reasons being given for our lack of economic growth and corporate profitability. I suggest a different one, aptly named by columnist and friend Dennis Chung: “The Hole in the Fence Theory.”

We Jamaicans love a business rebel; the person who finds a hole in the fence to a concert then sneaks in as many friends as possible before discovery. With good reason. Short-term opportunism helped our ancestors oppose and survive the profit-makers who took us as slaves for the first workplaces.

Fast forward to today and, after centuries of practice, we still celebrate the rebel…until he gets in our way. A taxi driver forms a new lane. An employee steals goods and time. A high-ranking official orders an expensive cake for his boss’s birthday.

We are quick to brand such highly visible instances as “Corruption!”…with a capital C. However, most of the daily holes in our fences are “small.”

Case in point: Many companies require employees to sign in upon arrival. I worked for a firm in which (amazingly and impossibly), 90% of the employees “arrived” at precisely 8:30 am. One day, a new employee entered a truthful time of 8:31 am. He was roundly chastized by subsequent arrivals, one of whom “corrected” his entry in the log.

Obviously, he just didn’t understand the “runnings”: his unspoken role in keeping a “small” hole in the fence open.

How can we transform our cultural tendency to exploit such short-term advantage-taking?

1. Treat Integrity as if it’s Mission Critical

I remember making fun of the cadets as a Wolmer’s student. Not only would they march in the sun in boots and long pants, but their preparations for the annual inspection involved copious use of Brasso and melted shoe polish: hilarious extremes.

However, as an adult, I now appreciate the JDF’s high standards. Belatedly, the connection between shiny shoes and life-saving mission readiness is apparent.

Truth: I only learned the lesson after volunteering in an organization that made a big deal of strong standards. For example, the layot of tables for public events was seen to be as important as the integrity of the payment process. The argument was simple: when small things go wrong, expect big ones to follow.

How can this level of integrity be operationalized?

2. Set up Tests for Small Slackness

Van Halen, the popular Rock band, had a requirement that concert promoters provide a bowl of M&M’s in their dressing room…with the brown candies removed. Upon arrival at a new location, the band’s manager would examine the bowl, and if the instruction were ignored, would stop everything. He then initiated a painful, line-by-line review of the contract to ensure that every provision, especially those which were safety critical, had been followed.

In other words, like a military operation, these musicians knew how to set up flags for early, small and seemingly insignificant signs of slackness. Imagine if your employees cared to do the same?

3. Educate and Unleash People

Unfortunately, slackness tests are probably not happening soon. As a citizenry, we are culturally blind to the cause-and-effect relationships which drive success. While a few can rise to a big occasion such as a Miss World pageant, a 100 meter final or a mega-concert overseas, most of us don’t see the hidden connections between personal slackness and operational failure.

We need to learn that mega-national successes (such as Singapore’s) aren’t wrought by individuals. Instead, they only accrue to groups of people who practice reporting holes in fences to those who can fix them. In other words, they find a way to repair integrity breaches because of its unique role: serving every citizen.

Conversely, mega failures aren’t caused by only taxi drivers and criminals. When we collectively abandon high standards both organizations and our country suffer. In this context, more stringent enforcement of laws will fail – there will never be enough policemen or legal statutes to produce a transformation.

Instead, this is inside-out work. There’s an inner restraint our citizens need to learn in which we sacrifice our immediate, personal appetite for gain for the greater good. We should help save the life of the driver of an overturned truck, rather than joining the mob grasping at his goods.

The happy news is that “we likkle but we tallawah,” like a powerful locomotive train. However, without reliable tracks we’ll continue to scare off investors and tourists, alike.

Their reaction is a sign: if we don’t get serious about our slackness, we’ll remain world famous…except it will be for our weak production, lack of innovation and poor GDP performance.

Posted on

On Ways to Persuade Others to Act

How do you get groups of people to take non-sales related actions? Is it a matter of using a catchy graphic or video to tell them what to do? Or interrupting them while they are doing something else? Or applying pressure with multiple reminders?

Sales and marketing professionals aren’t confused: persuasive messaging is required to sell products and services. However, if you aren’t a salesperson and you need to persuade a group of individuals to take a certain action, what skills should you employ?

Perhaps you even hate to use the word “sales” in reference to what you are trying to accomplish. But the task remains daunting: you must still say or write stuff that causes people to act. Whether they are employees, peers, board members, customers, the public or another stakeholder, where do you start?

In my column of November 17, 2019, I offered a solution. Begin by analyzing the “Unmet Needs” of individuals in the target group you are trying to influence. When their needs aren’t being met, people’s typical response is to co-opt a low-quality substitute into playing a “better-than-nothing” role. 

However, knowing these needs is just the beginning. The fact is, we live in a world of distracting messages and influences. Whether cash payments are involved or not, you must compete against these distractions for your subject’s time. Even your free offerings need to displace Facebook, Netflix and the news in order to be effective, going up against the millions those entities spend to get attention.

If you are willing to win the battle, I suggest a four-step framework from Michel Fortin, the experienced copywriter. For example, let’s assume that you are trying to arrange a Neighborhood Watch meeting for your community.

Step 1 – Enumerate the Features
These are elements that make your event attractive. They are factual: visible to the naked eye, incontrovertible and distinct. Make a list of these features such as: “The meeting is scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 4pm” or “The nice policeman who drops in occasionally will be there.”

Step 2 – Detail the Advantages
Each of the features you listed can do something that makes your product special. In other words, it provides an advantage. To craft them quickly, simply add “so that” to the end of each feature, and then complete the sentence. For example, “We have scheduled the meeting for Sunday afternoon so that everyone can attend.”

Step 3 – Compile the Motives of Your Prospects
These are the deep psychological drivers, motivations inherent in your targets’ minds. As such, they lie dormant even before the prospect is aware of your solution. You may find these within the Unmet Needs, and they should help you understand why they will take action.

For example, your targets may have a “Hassle-Free” motive for the meeting. Therefore, avoiding the busier days of the week should help.

Continue mapping motives to advantages until the list has been exhausted.

Step 4 – Craft Benefits
The final and most important step is to develop benefit statements you can use in your verbal, written or visual messages. These are practical outcomes which occur when features, advantages and motives are combined to produce a meaningful result. I use the phrase “which means” as a prompt.

For example, “The meeting is on Sunday so that everyone can attend, which means that we can finally come together to plan detailed strategies to protect each and every unit from the thieves living across the gully.”

In benefit statements, I often describe what will happen if the action I want fails to be realised. In the example above, I’m trying to imply that those neighbors who miss the meeting are putting their homes at risk.

When these statements are stacked together, the end-product can be quite persuasive. It should be. After all, it began with your prospect’s Unmet Needs.

However, many individuals don’t want to exert the time and effort to do such rigorous thinking. “De people dem fi know dem need fi come a di meeting” is used as a reason to avoid the hard pre-work needed to craft convincing statements. In the minds of those who are already persuaded, all that’s necessary is a nice, simple flyer.

Unfortunately, most flyers include little more than a list of features; hardly enough to produce the desired result. In a world of relentless demands on our time punctuated by rude surprises, that approach won’t do.  Don’t arrogantly assume your targets should know better and complain when they refuse to comply. Instead, plant the seeds of your success from the start by doing the in-depth work required to convert unmet needs into action. 

Posted on

How to Reward Your Employees Effectively

Could you make a mistake and offer the wrong gift to employees during the holiday season? What if it’s based on outdated assumptions that do more harm than good? Here are some findings from recent research to ensure your organization makes the most of the occasion.

The season for giving gifts to staff is fast approaching and, right now, someone in your company is making an important decision. What gifts should workers receive? It may seem like a small-time concern, but take a closer look: it’s tied up with management’s idea about what motivates employees.

In some years, managers get this wrong, thereby amusing or even insulting staff with their choice of gifts. In others they get it perfectly right, and it resonates in a way that lifts morale and engagement. What can you learn about employee motivation that results, at the very least, in doing no harm?

The big finding is that there’s a huge paradox at play:  the story employees tell their managers about gifts just isn’t true. To wit, when surveyed, most staff members say they prefer cash rewards. With regards to money, most respond with a knee-jerk, cultural reaction – of course they “want more of it”, as soon as possible. 

However, when employee performance is measured after the fact, cash turns out to be less effective in changing behavior than verbal praise or other visible rewards.

Why is that?

I believe that, when surveyed, employees are literally reporting what they should want, rather than what actually produces higher performance. This is especially true for complex or creative work which can’t be quantified easily. 

In fact, monetary awards undermine intrinsic motivation in these situations in a phenomenon called “crowding out.” It implies that staff becomes distracted by the money, focusing away from the job at hand. This ruins quality and productivity.

Part of the reason this happens is that raw cash, when rewarded, offers only a temporary spark. In no time, it devolves into a commodity to be traded for ordinary goods and services such as JPS, NWC, rent and phone bills.

However, this isn’t true for other kinds of gifts which have more staying power. Here are some examples and the reasons why they perform better than one-time cash rewards.

1. Luxury Items

These are identified as goods and services which the recipient wouldn’t purchase for him/herself. Apparently, the fact that the gift is a luxury allows an additional level of indulgence. After all, once a reward has been given, it cannot be returned. Instead, it must be consumed and enjoyed which prolongs its effective life, even after completion.

In addition, the luxury gift grants permission to the recipient to partake in an “impractical” expenditure which takes them outside habitual behavior. This heightens the experience, usually increasing a sense of gratitude.

However, one-size-doesn’t-fit-all. Each person has their own ideas about what’s special. Choosing the right gift means knowing something about their personality and making a proper match.

2. Hedonic

Another element which augments the effect of a reward is an intention for it to generate positive emotions. In particular, in the workplace it could evoke feelings of being “included, appreciated, invested in and feeling valued.” This is so important that some researchers have attributed 80% of voluntary attrition to a lack of recognition by employers, echoing similar studies performed here in Jamaica.

In this context, sometimes the most meaningful rewards have no real tangible component whatsoever. Instead, they hit other emotional chords which are more powerful. For example, the words spoken when the gift is given should be accurate and specific, focusing on the unique contribution. This increases the impact.

3. Social

Finally, it’s also best if the reward is public, so that others can honor the individual. 

Furthermore, try to choose something that’s not perishable, such as a physical object; rather than a dinner for two.

Such visible rewards keep doing their job long after the event is over and can continue to be a talking point. Its line of sight reminds people of the reason the gift was given and continues to honor the recipient.

Too many companies treat their employees as if they are simpletons who just want more money or food (e.g. Christmas cake and Easter bun). It’s a not-too-subtle form of classism which needs to be traded in.

But don’t stop at changing the gift you give. Examine the underlying theory managers harbor about the motivations of their staff. Challenging this old thinking may avoid a problem this holiday season.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20191201/francis-wade-how-reward-your-employees-effectively