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“It Bruk” – How to Get Past an Everyday Lack of Responsibility

How does a Jamaican executive create a culture of accountability in his/her company? While it’s clear that this trait is deeply correlated with success, why is it so hard to inculcate?

I remember returning home once to a surprising silence: the raucous sound of the grass being cut had stopped. When queried, the gardener remarked: “De lawnmower…it bruk.”

This everyday local comment isn’t remarkable, but there are a number of hidden meanings it conveys which deserve a deeper look. What does this commonplace remark: “It bruk” really mean?

Meaning #1 – “I apologize for breaking the mower and will see that it gets fixed.”

Perhaps we can agree that this particular motivation is almost never present. It’s a manager’s dream: that when something goes wrong, someone always steps up to be fully accountable. Whether you are the chairperson of a conglomerate or a homeowner who employs a helper, the yearning for accountability is the same.

Yet, there are merely a few, rare individuals who willingly take responsibility. Consequently, they are extremely valuable to their organizations. In fact, success (and profits) can be traced to the presence of such high performers. Conversely, in the worst companies, these people cannot be found.

But if this interpretation happens to be uncommon, what’s the normal one?

Meaning #2 – “It broke itself when I was very, very far away.”

This is the popular answer. I suspect that its prevalence in the Caribbean indicates that it was perfected in slavery days: a survival technique to avoid Massa’s ire. When people say “It bruk” they intend to assign the blame to a location that’s as remote as possible. It’s a way to create some psychological distance from the threat of harsh punishment.

In that coercive context from our history, the tactic was understandable. If you ever have a chance to read slaveowners’ letters complaining about lazy workers, you may notice something familiar. The tone sounds surprisingly like a contemporary manager’s email messages on the same topic.

What are the consequences for an organization whose staff has adopted this meaning as a mantra?

Unwanted Results

In today’s workplace, we routinely accept “It Bruk” as a rational response. In fact, we shouldn’t. It’s insidious.

Those who make such utterances are doing more than avoiding blame: they are actually reassigning the twin tasks of resolving the issue now and preventing it from happening in the future.

In other words, they render themselves powerless. They demote themselves to that of a bystander, making commentary on things they pretend to be separate from. As such, the problem is likely to recur.

The typical Jamaican manager knows exactly how to respond. Like a red flag to a bull, “It bruk” makes them swing into action, to take charge of the situation. Many become bullies, dominating others with loud commands and barked orders until a solution is put in place.

Skilled managers know better. Instead of taking the bait, they may ask: “And what will you do about it?” and “How will you prevent it in future?”

How to Get Past an “It Bruk” Culture

I have seen companies undertake a transformation by giving each employee the ability to own the “It Bruk” tendencies in their lives. However, this path is slow and expensive, relying on individual interventions.

Alternately, a group approach can help employees realize the corrosive power of non-accountability. In the same way that cursing in a convent is unacceptable, they can learn to hear “It Bruk” statements as if it were a foreign language unsuitable for the workplace.

The truth is that no-one wants to be told an “It Bruk” by anyone: not by colleagues, family members or political leaders. However, most of us are weak, unable to catch ourselves in the midst of this language. We need help. This aid can come from a strong corporate culture which teaches people to recognize the many varieties of “It Bruk” thinking.

But it won’t happen by edict. This is the job of a learning experience which offers a safe space to explore fresh ideas. But that would just be the start. This unusual transformation has to be reinforced with regular discussions between managers and their direct reports.

After a period of practice, your staff may see “It Bruk” expressions as the impediment they really are. Now, your organization can create a new language of responsibility to replace the old. Your intervention could support this outcome from every direction, making it easy for employees to step up their game.

The truth is that a culture of accountability launches everyone to higher levels of accomplishment, not only in their families but in all areas of their lives, bar none. It could be a transformational gift that changes their daily experience and your company along with it.

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Stop Mailing In Your Participation

Have you ever been part of a project or organization in which a colleague is giving only a minimal effort? This behaviour, which some call “mailing it in”, may be killing your team’s success.

For several years in the 1990’s, I participated in a programme in which I was trained to teach 50-150 person seminars. The head trainer was the most effective instructor, consistently receiving the best scores, but new trainees like me had a tricky challenge trying to figure out exactly what made him outstanding.

One of his traits was an uncanny skill: he could lead each event as if it were his last, giving attendees a fresh experience each time. As a high performer who took each seminar to a different level, he found new ways to make things compelling even when they were, on the surface, mundane.

While I couldn’t replicate his ability, it was fascinating to observe someone who never once “mailed it in.” The phrase refers to the human tendency to do the minimum possible to get by, thereby providing only a weak substitute. According to Wiktionary, the term means “to fulfill a responsibility with a minimum, rather than appropriate, level of effort”, aka “phoning it in”.

In my column a month ago about governance and leadership, I mentioned that many organization’s board members are mailing it in. I wrote: “In some of our (client’s) strategic planning retreats, they either decline to attend, fail to show up, arrive late, leave early, or spend the entire caucus distracted by email.” Or Zoom. Or a live football match on YouTube…a real episode.

But what’s the big deal? Why should you care? After all, mailing it in has been a part of Jamaican history ever since Columbus met and tried to enslave the Tainos. Their response was probably typical of all oppressed people: to pretend to be doing as much as possible while actually doing the minimum.

Here are a few reasons to highlight this tendency that may help address it in your organization.

1. An Insidious Form of Corruption

We Jamaicans often treat corruption as if it’s a novel coronavirus – a once in a lifetime event that arrives out of the blue all of a sudden, shocking us all. Consider that, in your company, corruption starts with something tiny: when someone mails it in.

In other words, whenever staff members offer up “a minimum, rather than appropriate, level of effort” they are doing more than being lazy. In fact, they are undermining the very mission of the enterprise.

Strangely enough, they could be well-intentioned. The truth is, we are imperfect, which means that sometimes we miss the mark entirely. Some departments or boards do so for years at a time, eventually doing great damage to the very cause they are trying to uphold.

However, the important part that’s missing is a tool of accountability: consistent and transparent feedback, especially in those moments when you are mailing it in. In other words, when you don’t have someone who is willing to let you know when you are merely putting in a half-effort, you are likely to slide into a micro-corruption which masses into a mission-killing culture.

To illustrate: for every Usain Bolt there is another person with equal talent. The only difference is often a lack of accountability: continuous, corrective conversations between the performer and his/her coach. Without such direct help at unexpected times, it’s hard to achieve much.

In firms with such dysfunctional cultures, pointing fingers is a wasted effort. The sad fact is, whenever a group of individuals don’t practice holding each other to a high standard on a regular basis, mailing it in becomes the inescapable, mediocre norm.

2. Lack of Role Models

Unfortunately, when this corruption leaks in at the highest level it’s a different kettle of fish. Why? We Jamaicans tend to pay a lot of attention to hierarchies.

For example, a board that fails in its basic duties (i.e. to have AGM’s, regular meetings, challenging conversations, high performing members) sends a signal to the company: it tolerates corruption.

Over time, anyone who attempts to raise the bar in any part of the organization can be thwarted. They will learn or be told that they are being unfair, or unreasonable. And if they look for support at a higher level, they find the same corruption.

At that point, staff members quit. Either they start a job-hunt or worse: they remain in the job and lapse into mailing it in. They join the club.

Sometimes, a knowledge of these two costs is enough to spur a transformation. Use them to show your organization the places where it’s killing its own success by collectively mailing it in.

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Why is Email the Hardest Thing You Must Do Each Day?

What makes email the number one hated activity in corporate life? It may have little to do with the nuisance it has become, and everything to do with incomplete decisions we need to make daily.

Studies have shown that email consumes some 20% of each employee’s day. At the same time, 33% would rather clean a toilet than go through all their email. Why the aversion to a technology that’s supposed to help? Why do so many wish it would just go away?

It all comes down to friction.

Email delivers frictionless communication at scale. Today, there’s no need to use a typewriter, secretary, printer, phone or conference room to send a simple message to upwards of millions of people. As such, electronic messaging will never go away, even if it’s being slightly reshaped by apps like WhatsApp and Slack.

Its permanence and ubiquity mean that we must forever tolerate universal irritants like spam and irrelevant CC’s, but these aren’t the main reasons for all the hate. Instead, the problem we face is that of decision overwhelm.

To explain, let’s set aside messages from the non-essential newsletters, updates and birthday reminders you receive. By contrast, critical emails are ones you can’t delete with impunity: they require you to pause and think before answering.

The problem is that such messages come into our Inboxes at all times of the day, even while we are sleeping. We can’t control when people send them, so they arrive mixed in with the stuff that’s not essential. This makes it hard to focus.

However, you do have control over the following three actions. Mastering each of them can be transformational to the quality of your decision-making.

Action Mode #1 – Arbitrary Skimming and Scanning – Stop

While there are a few companies which require employees to scan their Inboxes every few minutes (thereby ruining their productivity) a clear best practice has emerged. In summary, it states one should never randomly “check” email i.e. skim. Instead, it should be a consciously scheduled activity.

What about emergencies? Savvy organizations train their staff to use other methods such as phone calls or texts for urgent communications.

The fact is, the habit of scanning email leaves you at the mercy of other people’s agendas. You end up playing electronic ping-pong, being your least effective.

The solution is to learn how to use the following two action modes for managing your incoming email.

Action Mode #2 – Light Triage – Start

Instead of skimming, you should create a handful of opportunities each day to organize incoming messages. In these triage sessions, you are rapidly dispatching messages to parts of your system (other than your Inbox) so that they can be dealt with later.

In this mode, you only offer short replies, if any at all. This isn’t the time for making decisions about the content of email messages. It’s the time for deciding which ones require actual thought and later consideration, then putting them in position, ready for the hard thinking they call for.

Action Mode #3 – Heavy Lifting – Start

These are longer periods of time devoted to making difficult decisions related to specific email messages. They need to be pre-scheduled and heavily guarded against distractions or external intrusions so that you can make quality commitments and deliver clear communications.

In essence, you are batching the hardest work you’ll do each day into a single time-slot reserved for your very best performance.

Unfortunately, most of us jump between these three Action Modes randomly when we open our Inboxes, frittering away precious time, attention and energy.

The result? You fail to realize that the kind of intensity needed for Action #2 (quick, short decisions) is different from that of Action #3 (deep thinking and major commitments.) As such, you rarely put yourself in the right mindset to do your hardest, best work. Instead, you try to squeeze email between other commitments.

Ultimately, you create problems for yourself and others. At the volumes of email typical of a manager, you never catch up, so others form a poor impression of your ability to stay on top of what (they think) is a simple chore.

The answer is to use your calendar to block separate times for Mode #2 and Mode #3 email. It’s the only way to manage the volume of decisions your job requires.

In this context, you must be continuously improving your email management as a means for making effective decisions. Do so and you’ll continue to be a competent professional who uses his/her core tools effectively.

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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

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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.

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Productivity: Are You Cutting Meetings to the Bone?


Is it possible to simultaneously cut the total time people spend in meetings while improving their quality? Not only is it possible, but there is a natural link between the two results that your company could exploit to increase its overall productivity.

How many hours do  folks in your organization spend in meetings each year? Usually, this number is a mystery, yet the majority of attendees would agree that it’s too high.

You may know from bitter experience the painful minutes lost in a poorly run meeting. 
Perhaps it took twice as long as it should have. Maybe you would have bolted out the door if there were no social downside for doing so. Here in Jamaica, if the big man/woman doesn’t leave the room, no-one does, regardless of the time being wasted.

Bombarded by thoughts of the things we could be doing instead, we have all had such moments. However, the fact that we care means little. The larger cultural forces at play keep us in check, perpetuating a measurable travesty which costs the best employees’ precious time. After all, meetings tend to attract the most important people. In most organizations this cost is not only hidden from view, but it’s rarely tackled in a forthright way. Complaints may occasionally lead to weak improvement efforts, like putting up posters with tips in conference rooms. But few companies do anything more. 

Often the worst culprits are top managers themselves who don’t encourage dissent, thereby making the problem harder to solve.

But if your company decided to do something one day, what process should it follow so that it can get to a place where no-one can recall a badly run meeting?

1. Measure the impact

It’s not hard to make a decent estimate of the total cost of meetings: all that’s needed is careful tracking. Some companies ask their administrative assistants to account for these statistics which are fed into a central database. Sunk costs like those related to the room are ignored: only the total time spent in the meeting by participants is counted.

As you may expect, this cost varies by level of attendee. A meeting of executives is the most expensive because it includes the highest-paid employees.

Expect big numbers. Studies show that some 35% of a middle manager’s time, and 50% of executive time, is spent in meetings. In the US, some 25 million sessions take place each day, of which 67% are considered failures.

2. Analyze meeting issues

Collect information on the faults which proliferate in meetings. Do they start late? Is the purpose unclear? Is the agenda a secret? Is there no end time set? Should they never have been called to begin with?

These common mistakes are the reasons why productivity is low in these gatherings. Poll staff to uncover other causes at play which are peculiar to your culture.

3. Create targets

Take a conservative estimate of the improvements which can be made if behaviors were to change. Don’t pick the maximum savings. Instead, use a more realistic mid-point as a goal for everyone to head towards.

4. Pilot changes

Go through the company and test the changes you want to introduce in small settings. Share the results to show which improvements your culture can withstand, and at what pace.

5. Implement

Once you have an improvement plan, implement it using the best change management techniques. You will have to work around the un-productives: those who benefit from bad meetings. Don’t underestimate their willingness to hide their lack of productivity.

6. Measure the Gains

At the end, determine how much has been saved in hard numbers, and also gauge the overall experience of your staff. Use both metrics to declare whether or not the targeted improvements have been made.

Look for discrepancies. Staff may point out where a cancelled standing meeting is causing problems, for example. But don’t overreact. You are seeking to reach a place where the number of employees who are asking for more meeting time is equal to those asking for less.

Keep in mind that the hidden cultural forces which drive bad meetings are considerable. They exist at every level, starting with the highest i.e. the board. A company that commits to achieving the same results with fewer meeting hours makes a public commitment to work-life balance. Why?

The sad truth is that there are employees who are coming in early and staying late because they have too many meetings. Act in everyone’s interest by cutting this form of corporate waste to the bone.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20191020/francis-wade-cutting-meetings-bone

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Why You Need to Sweeten Up Your Emails

As a manager, have you ever been shocked at someone’s adverse reaction to a seemingly innocuous email message? Perhaps you also wondered “What is wrong with him?”, then questioned your own judgement. The answer is that neither sender nor receiver is at fault. People’s response to email messages is unique, making this communication skill a must-have for leaders of all organizations.

Daniel Goldman, brain expert, confirms something you may already know: email  can be dangerous. While it’s a necessary element of corporate life, problems often  arise when no harm is intended.

Why? Compared to visual and auditory channels, text communication is bereft of all the emotional cues we, as humans, are conditioned to distinguish. Consequently, miscues occur.

For example, someone asks you a question and you respond with a one-word answer. Their conclusion? “You are probably angry.” Or, you get busy and take a bit longer than usual to reply. “You must be unhappy,” they assume.

Perhaps you yearn for the day when recipients of your messages will simply read your words without adding unintended meaning, but that’s not likely to happen soon.  In fact, Goleman reports, “people interpret your positively intended email as neutral, and your neutrally intended email as negative.” Their survival instincts thwart your best intentions.

You may complain that this isn’t fair.

However, you are better off adapting to this reality, while correcting for the fact that we live in a nation with a violent past. Even today, disrespect sometimes triggers death.

It’s no wonder then, that your email style may need a makeover, especially when communicating with those below you in the chain of command. Here are some recommendations.

1. Never send emotionally fraught communication via email.
While some managers have fired employees via email messages, avoid this temptation. Instead, reserve your text communications for good news and sharing information. Don’t try to coach, give feedback, correct, counsel or apologize for anything critical.

If you must have a paper trail, write it out before the conversation and send it afterwards, as clarification. But never let it be the first point of contact if the message is likely to be a sensitive one.

The reason is simple. Imagine if your note is read an hour after the recipient receives news of someone’s passing. Obviously, if you were speaking to her in person, you would sense that the timing is bad and change gears. However, it’s easy to violate this accepted norm via text.

But what should you do to prevent a face-to-face conversation on a difficult matter from escalating into a shouting-match? Instead of looking for shortcuts, practice the challenging discussion with a colleague who can provide feedback in real time. This technique, often used by life coaches, should become a part of your regular training.

2. Never communicate in haste.
The worst moment to hit “Send” is when you are upset. A better alternative is to save the message in your drafts until you have calmed down and can reconsider your options. After a night’s sleep or a day’s work, things may look dramatically different and you want to be in your best, right mind when you make your final decision.

However, if you have difficulty knowing when you are upset (or in denial about ever being off-kilter) then try improving your Emotional Intelligence (EQ.) Doing so will benefit every aspect of your life.

3. Learn modern writing skills.
You may hate emojis. Ending a sentence with an “LOL” might be something you think you should never do. Perhaps in your world, “GIF” means nothing.

Even if you believe that these elements of modern communication “are not my style”, consider adding new skills. These seemingly silly add-ons are now part of the language most are using because they impart important, emotional context to dry textual content.

Here in Jamaica, for example, WhatsApp has long surpassed email as the most effective form of daily communication. One reason is due to its flexibility. A short message can be sent in multiple ways, via a range of media, enhanced by a variety of optional elements. The result is a faster, more precise method of sending brief messages that reduces the risk of misunderstanding.

But these fancy add-ons are not the point. Instead, the idea is to use every tool at your disposal to convey the emotional intent of your communication. Remember, Goleman tells us that recipients are likely to downgrade your message from  positive to neutral and from neutral to negative. To be an effective leader, you must compensate for this tendency.

If you willfully refuse to sweeten up your messages, be warned: it’s only a matter of time before they bear bitter fruit. Don’t blame the recipient. Instead, improve your skills.


http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20190922/francis-wade-emails-can-be-dangerous-lets-sweeten-them

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How to lead when technology makes people less productive

Do all technology improvements have a positive impact on productivity and the bottom line? No, but in some cases, the reason is not because of unintended consequences. Leaders in your organization must learn to consciously constrain technology in cases where the overall benefits are outweighed by the costs.

The best executives I have met care deeply about the role of worker productivity as a driver of bottom-line results. Like most, they embrace the promise of new technology. However, they also look for the hidden cost of innovations.

Case in point: sending someone a written message used to be an activity reserved for the office. Typing pools were required to transmit even the shortest letter.

Fast forward to today’s world in which technology allows us to send text messages at night when we should be sleeping, while driving when we should be focused on the road, and during conversations when we should be listening. As a consequence of the latter, our meetings take longer than they should.

Furthermore, each employee has the power to drag down the productivity of their colleagues by simply using the cc: function. We have all been there. Two people engaged in a disagreement cc: other employees to gain support. By copying them on messages, they entangle hundreds of innocent bystanders.

These are all cases in which technology-based improvements in personal efficiency can lead to overall disastrous results. They all have a negative impact on the bottom-line, even though they are supposed to have the opposite effect.

What should leaders do to prevent technology from running amok? Should they become Luddites, ridding themselves of email? Here are three practical suggestions for your organization.

1. Track Waste

In most organizations, bad expenditures are difficult to hide for long. However, the time lost in low-quality social interactions involving email and meetings is an open secret that’s never confronted. Why? Only the rare company tracks group or individual time usage so the cost is invisible.

As a result, people who convene meetings or send bad emails never receive clear feedback. At best, they may overhear some vague murmurings or hear a passing mention in a performance review session. But the chances of a true change in behavior are slim.

The way to tackle this issue is to create a mindset: the path to success requires a sustained effort to eradicate waste, especially when it’s caused by new technology. Employees who are able to see waste clearly are more likely to try to eliminate it. As they look back to the past, they recall times when they suffered from the effects of poor-quality meetings and email messages.

2. Implement Training

The best way to create this new mindset isn‘t to exhort staff through speeches, slogans or posters. While these may help, there are more effective methods.

While all have been trapped by at least one poor meeting or email, that’s not enough. The right training can help bring them into a shared experience. Here’s how.

Design an online game that gives employees opportunities to solve issues related to technology excess. The goal is to help them appreciate why these issues are so challenging and require everyone to tackle them at once. As they play, they’ll be free to  explore different decisions without incurring real-life repercussions.

Such a shared experience can be used as a starting point to generate solutions.

3. Impose Friction

Sometimes, it’s possible to claw back some of the dangerous freedom that technology affords. Take the reality of 24-7 email messaging. Most firms have no policy against it, which means that staff have to continually check their smartphones, just in case something new has been sent. This forces them to develop bad habits which affects sick days, holidays and vacations.

To fix the problem, some local organizations implement written rules along with sanctions for those who break them. (Some are actually forced to do so by financial regulators.)

Other companies (like Volkswagen and BMW) turn off their email servers on nights and weekends. This blocks staff from working for the company on their own time, when they should be resting.

Leaders who create such policies on their own accord have developed the ability to look ahead and predict the adverse impact a new technology will have. For example, if your organization were to give smartphones to the drivers of its delivery fleet, you should probably expect that texting and driving would ensue… along with its catastrophic consequences.

Multiply this simple case several hundred times across your enterprise and you may see: it pays to anticipate the moments when free technology destroys productivity. As an executive, you must balance the gains against the risks and do what no-one else can do: implement limits in order to preserve your bottom-line results.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20190908/francis-wade-how-lead-when-technology-makes-people-less-productive

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Why Electronic Messaging is a New But Critical Competence

Why aren’t people replying to your emails? At first blush, you may believe it’s personal, but it’s not. You simply may not be using an approach that suits the preferences of your intended recipient.

Contrast your experience with the one I had taking my first Uber a few months ago in Washington, DC. On the ride, I immediately understood why traditional taxi service was dying. It can’t compete. Uber delivers custom messages via numerous channels (mobile and PC) that are a near-perfect fit for the individual customer. He/she can tailor the information the company delivers with the click of a button, making them feel unique.

It reminded me of the 1990’s when email was first popularized. Back then, you sent a message and expected a timely response. It’s receipt was a rare and special event.

However, the strength of email became its downfall. Because it’s free and quick, people receive too many messages. They fall behind. And those who send them without seeing an answer complain bitterly.

Try this approach: become as precise as Uber. Consider that the days of massive “email blasts” are over. Now, you need to be exact to pierce your customer’s Inboxes. Here are three strategies for you to try.

1. Pick the right channel
A few short years ago, WhatsApp was hardly used in Jamaica. Today, it’s become a replacement for email for many people who find the channel to be more versatile.

Also, while their Inboxes are filled with thousands of messages, they respond to WhatsApp within minutes. Others prefer to use Facebook Messenger, Instagram or Twitter.

As for voicemail? Many don’t even bother to activate their accounts.

The point is, in 2019 each person has their preferred mode of communication. If you choose the one they habitually use, you’re more likely to receive a timely response. And no, you can’t send the same message to every channel , hoping that one will work. That’s just a creepy practice.

2. Pick the ideal time
Once you have chosen the right channels you need to be be careful about your timing. The hours before noon on Monday morning are often the worst, according to research. Why? As someone enters the office and struggles to adjust to the loss of their weekend, they must face all the incomplete communication from the prior week. Plus, anything delivered on Saturday or Sunday also sits waiting.
If they were away for a few days, it’s even worse. Upon their return, they are only in the mood for brutal culling and your message could get cut without ever being read.

Instead, use a version of the Golden Rule. Send messages as you would wish they were sent to you – on your preferred schedule. Do so skillfully and you’ll improve the odds dramatically that it won’t be lost.

Thankfully, scientists have given us some further clues. In a recent summary of 14 studies on the topic, Coschedule.com reported that Tuesday is the best weekday, followed by Thursday and Wednesday.

The optimal times of day? Just before lunch or before bed.

Unfortunately, these are US studies where work norms are somewhat different. You’ll have to do your own experiments to determine top results.

3. Use automated software
A surprising number of local organizations don’t collect any kind of contact information. As a consumer, this puzzles me. After all, once I have become a customer, I am quite likely to repeat the purchase, if only I were reminded via electronic messaging.

My sense is that the practice is uncommon because decision-makers at the top of the organization are simply backward. They don’t understand the power of internet marketing and can’t imagine the impact of a custom, online campaign. Consequently, they hire people who, like them, prefer old-fashioned interruption-marketing i.e. advertisements in print, television, radio and billboard. The poor decisions they make aren’t questioned.

Fortunately, automated messaging on both email and social networks is relatively inexpensive. They also allow you to collect data easily, often putting the onus on customers to join via your landing pages.

Furthermore, once they join your network, you’re able to track their behavior and learn a great deal about their individual preferences. Once you analyze this information, you can understand how to speak to their needs in increasingly surgical ways.

The fact is, if your company isn’t using these tools and knowledge you are setting yourself up for disruption: the moment when a competitor figures out that your business is stale. Don’t be like the taxi companies who may never catch up to Uber. Adjust your digital communication to fit your customer’s needs.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20190728/francis-wade-electronic-messaging-new-critical-competence





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How to Fix Execution Problems

Most adults who live and work in Jamaica are used to watching everyday transactions like hawks. Every invoice, payment or message must be tracked carefully due to the mistakes companies make in even simple matters.

A $300 bill becomes one for $3000. An email with a straightforward request gets lost. A phone rings without an answer. Most Jamaican organizations have an issue dealing with their own recurring errors.

Compare this to the environment surrounding our world-class athletes. In post-race interviews, they often contrast their planned versus actual execution. They continually examine their performance to remove faults in ways our companies don’t.

But there’s a bigger problem afoot. In the public sphere, while we laud the construction of grand highways, we fail to fix ordinary potholes. Ribbons are cut to launch projects to widen roads, but within days the site looks like a war-zone, as if project management were never invented.

The challenge is that we focus on the initial vision and the  excitement around it, but when it wears off, a series of recurring mistakes become par for the course.

Is your company facing a similar test? Do you put a lot of effort into launching new initiatives but fail to solve repeated mistakes?

If you are in doubt as to the answer, ask employees. They are the ones who complain about these maddening execution problems. But what drives them nuts is not the issue itself, but the manager who chases symptoms rather than causes.

The plain truth is that complex issues require people to cross functional or hierarchical boundaries. This means they must put themselves at risk, but it’s far easier to fire-fight and complain than to be brave.

This managerial cowardice allows execution problems to continue.

If this phenomenon sounds familiar, how can you transform the situation?

1. Re-Define Execution

The problem with a common term like execution is everyone thinks they know what it means and therefore uses it loosely. After a while, it loses whatever meaning it ever had.

Research shows that sometimes issues recur when companies don’t have a rich enough language to describe them. In other words, they can’t even talk about the challenge in a fruitful way.

To bring an over-used concept to life, you’ll need to redefine it afresh so it meets the unique needs of your environment.

For example, let’s imagine you coin a phrase: “flawless execution.” It could equate to “completing a function or process such that there are no mistakes which create further problems.”

With that in mind, “flawless execution” can be adapted as a new universal standard that everyone is taught to use. It should become part of the performance management system as well.

2. Own Execution

Many companies are happy to employee workers who simply take orders without taking any additional initiative. In other words, the manager’s job is to think and direct, while those underneath them should merely follow.

In modern organizations, this common approach leads to disaster.

While passive employees may be able to solve simple problems, challenges which require some thinking and coordination with others demand more. In other words, staff must have the power to take the initiative without the manager being involved.

Managers who try to micro-manage end up becoming overwhelmed. So do those who try to do all the thinking.

The solution is for  managers to transform all the ways in which they undermine  employee initiative. The best leaders are vigilant: they actively seek feedback on their approach to managing others to discover where they are preventing staff from problem-solving. They get themselves out of the way, and ask employees to let them know when they become controlling or otherwise offensive.

But is this enough?

3. Teaching Problem-Solving Skills

Unfortunately, even motivated employees find that solving tricky process problems isn’t easy. Not only are excellent communication skills required, but a capacity for critical thinking and data analysis are a must.

Most employees are weak in these areas and lack training. A smart leader will develop these competences in a systematic fashion, knowing that as they do so, they help staff solve recurring execution problems on their own.

In other words, it’s the only way to implement a new ideal like “flawless execution”.

Given the fact that our athletes and coaches use these techniques every day to achieve world class standards, it makes sense for our organizations to try to do the same. Even though it’s more difficult to do so in groups of people, the rewards are more far-reaching.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20190630/francis-wade-fixing-problem-task-execution