Road Blocks
When we hit a road block on an actual road we automatically think to what is causing it and what route we should have taken to avoid it. It is too late to change our decision to take this route on this occassion but we make a mental note to take another route the next time we are headed for this destination or at least make some enquiries as to whether we face delays if we want to take the same route on the next ooccassion we travel this way.
Then why do we accept personal or procedural road blocks in the workplace? Why don’t we recognise these road blocks and change the direction we want to tae or have others take? Why don’t we make enquiries, find a root cause and fix the problem? Is it just human nature?
Below you will find what I feel are avoidable road blocks in the work palce and give you some suggestions to get the traffic flowing freely.
And so, in no particular order, here they are, read on.
Bam, Bam, Bamm, Bamm
Socrates, the classic Greek philosopher, shuffled off this mortal coil two and half thousand years ago. Socrates noted that we should “be aware the barreness of a busy life” and he was spot on 2,500 years ago and he is spot on now. In my honest opinion, busyness will not only send you to an early grave, joining Socrates, but you will get to the early grave not having achieved all that you should have. For mine, busyness is a another way of saying “I am unproductive”.
Busyness is not good for business.
And from there we move from Socrates to the Flintstones or the Rubbles at least.
Bamm Bamm the adopted son of Barney and Betty Rubble, an infant with extraordinary strength and a penchant for causing destruction wherever he went. So why does Bamm Bamm get a mention in an efficiency guide?
BAM and BAMM, , are acronyms I use to describe people and/or the areas they manage who are forever telling all and sundry around them that they are busy. In most cases, busy is a state on mind used by people who think it will impress their boss saying that they are working so hard, used by managers to indicate they are working their people hard or people who couldn’t run a bath let alone a production facility.
And then comes today.
So many people wear their busyness as a badge of honour. To me it’s not and I will say it again, it’s not. Busyness is best replaced with the word unproductive.
The next time you tell someone that you are busy, say to yourself “I am unproductive” and try to recognise and realise that that is what organised people, who will likely be your managers and leaders think about this busyness business. I answer people who tell me they are busy with “that’s unfortunate” and leave them to decide my meaning. However, if a member of any group that I work with or lead tells me that they are busy, it raises an immediate red flag and I take immediate steps to rectify the situation.
Bamm Bamm was destructive and so is busyness.
One job to do, do it.
I started my worklife as a Public Servant with the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet (Pay and Conditions Division) in 1979 but more of that later. It wasn’t much later after requesting a move to a Geelong office that I started with the Dept. of Social Security. The 1980’s, Malcom Fraser is Prime Minster, Malcolm he of the famous Razor Gang that implemented tough budget cuts across the Public Sector, double digit inflation and double digit unemployment. What a time to join the mob that handed out the dole.
But that’s when and where I learnt to finish one job before starting another. After a few general entry level clerical duties I was promoted to a job with the onerous task of assessing the fortnightly forms that every person receiving benefits had to bring in every 14 days for them to be able to receive their “dole” cheque..
There was an unwritten procedure that was if a person lodged their form (SU19B if memory serves me) by 11.00am that their cheque would be received in the mail 2 days later. And believe me, many tmes there was hell to pay, literally, if they didn’t.
So as the assessor’s, Malcom (A to K) and myself (L to Z) had to work as productively as we could to get the forms assessed, signed off and sent to the typing pool for the data entry operators to input the data.
We weren’t woke ahead of our time, making sure the less fortunate received their cash on time but a matter helping out ourselves and other staff, most importantly the Counter Staff that would be confronted by angry DB’s two days later. Those who didn’t get paid took the longest to deal with meaning those who had to lodge their forms that day, were not be able to put their forms in and then their cheque would be late and compounding the situation.
I had played a lot of sport but this was the first time and an eye opening time when the need for team work was applied in the work place. If it was close to 11.00am and the queues were still long, those with previous public contact experience left their desks and joined the front line. The most junior staff stood by the doorway between the office and the public access to whisk received forms off to Mal and I. The data entry officers cam to our desks to collect processed forms rather than wait for delivery. Everyone pitched in for the sake of the team.
Work hard, concentrate on one task at a time and then start and finish the next task. None of this multi-tasking tosh.
The dole queue in Fraser’s 1980’s Geelong. Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
And those Acronyms?
and in no particular order
Busy and Mediocre
Busy and Misused
Busy and Multi-tasking Madness
Busy and Micro Managing
Busy and Modern Media
Busy and Mediocre
There are many people who will never pass mediocrity in their lives but it is not their fault and many, many people are happy with mediocrity and have no desire to advance themselves. Good luck to them and they will be happy with their lives. They will happily be the underling in every transaction they go through in life.
However, there are others who wallow in mediocrity while purporting to know better. We all know some of these people, the people who live by the credo that near enough is close enough. They will always be busy because they cannot learn to be more organised, they cannot learn to be completion orientated and will always come up with the excuse that that is the best they can do. I may sound harsh but no matter, even if these mediocre people read information here or elsewhere and wanted to learn, they would not have made it this far through the previous musings and not be reading this. The mediocre business will forever be trying to finish the last 10% of their jobs and always chasing the last 15% of their payments.
If you just read the above, you are not mediocre.
Busy and Multi-tasking Madness
In my mind, there is no such animal as BUSY. Tell me the truth, you are being unproductive. Tell me the truth, you are poor at time management. You are an avid Multi-Tasker
I urge you to go to youtube.com and search for the Gemba Academy Mass production envelope stuffing video. Then watch it closely.
Watch the video as I don’t expect that most people will have the necessary items around the home to try it yourself. Have the volume up, don’t want you missing anything. The video should enlighten you. I am a huge fan of Single Piece Flow.
I would like you to try an experiment you can try at home.
Go and grab 3 felt tip pens, three different colors and make sure they all have lids/tops
Set the stop watch on your ‘phone and then
Write your full name in one color and replace the lid
Write your full name in the second color and replace the lid
Write your full name in the third color and replace the lid.
Repeat the above four times until you have written your full name twelve times
Stop. How long did that take. I’ll give you the answer, too long!
But you were busy.
Now, use one pen and write your full name 12 times. not stopping and starting repeatedly by uncapping and capping pens and how long did that take? Time to have a cup of tea while waiting for the first person to finish their task(s).
Busy and Misused
Using a hammer to put in a screw, misused. Using compressed air to put out a fire, misused. Using your rent to put on a bet, misused. From the sublime to the startlingly stupid we see examples of misuse everyday. While I have some time (a little) for those who choose to remain mediocre, those who misuse normally know better, are to tight to buy the rights tools or are outright criminals. They take short cuts, short cuts that to lead to poverty, jail or both. Anybody who always wants to take a short cut, takes the easy way out (supposedly) or takes away the livelihood of others should be avoided like a hungry shark. The busy and misused punter, who is he/she. They are someone you do not want in your Punters Club. They will eventually take advantage of you. Steer clear.
Busy and Micro Managing
IMHO, micro managing is a malevant method of managing as it saps the confidence, motivation and purpose from those who thought they had been entrusted with responsibility. For mine, the two important parts of managing are providing a light to lead the way and providing a crutch, guidance and support. You want those who have been entrusted to you to reach their potential while working in a encouraging, healthy environment. Unfortunately, micro managers have the opposite effect.
You know what? They will end up with a great percentage of their staff being from an earlier group mentioned, Bad and Mediocre. People who are happy to get through each and have a sly grin on their face when the ‘phone pings at the end of the month. Fantastic, they’ve paid me again.
Do your managers get bogged down picking the fleas off the elephants when they should be getting the elephant moving? Do they have to make every decision? I had a manager who decided what type of coffee I should drink at work! Do they have difficult delegating and when they do delegate still want to make every decision?
The only thing good managers, future leaders and budding stars have in common with micro managers is that under this type of arrangement, neither party will soon have in confidence in you. You will feel down, disconsolate and lacking confidence and they will think to themselves “See, I was right”.
Try to get them out of your organisation. Très vite.
and the final BAMM
Busy and Modern Media
SMS, MMS, Skype (still?), Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Zalo, Instagram, X, TicToc, Telegram and there has got to more. Individually they are probably a good thing for communications but when you have a worker trying to work 2 or more of them at the same time, chaos ensures.
I am still old school when it comes to the recording of important information. If it is important information and needs to be available to numerous people, record it properly.
If you want your superiors to make an important decision they need to know the good, the bad and ugly as well as your recommendation to make an informed decision.
Not having information available to you when you need it and that information needs to be relevant can’t be accurate over social media where nuance cannot be seen, heard or read and where tone of voice is vital to understanding what a person is trying to communcate.
Ah, we are too busy to talk to each other these days. No, we are too busy fixing mistakes via miscommunication over social media platofrms.
Tips
Everyday, delivered direct to my mail box, I get a short lesson, reminder or flash of wisdom from Seth Godin. I especially love his posts when they agree with something I find disturbing, in this case my ol’ mate multi tasking. He wrote,
“The Weird Math of Halfway
6 times 1/2 doesn’t equal 3. It equals zero.
We’re tempted to do a little less than we need to. Perhaps we’re busy, with too many options. Perhaps it’s resistance, pushing us to hold a little bit back.
Whatever the reason, when we show up just a little, we get zero credit.
The smallest viable audience plus focus and care is additive. Less than 1 is still zero”.
TBH, I am not even sure he is even writing about multi tasking but that is how I read it. If you are doing 6 tasks at the same time and you have finsihed 50% of each task, you have achieved nothing, zero, SFA.
The second tip I would like to give you is to purchase and read the book, “Be Your Own Leadership Coach” written by Australian author Karen Stein.
Am I recommending it because the author agrees with me? Certainly, but also because we disagree on many points.
Whatever you are doing with and in your life, make your decisions after looking at both sides of the coin.
The book, too much to go through here but I highly recommend it. Good for yourself and good for your current charges should you want to encourage them on the leadership path or acting as their mentor.