Want It Done Right Journal 2Q 2010

Feature Article • Delegation Dr Daily Dose • Corner Crack-up • Want It Done Right Products & Services

Feature Article

Is It Time for An Organizational Tune-Up?

It looks like we might be nearing the end of this long tunnel of recession and thankfully, the light we’re seeing does not look like an oncoming train! With improved economic reports businesses are starting to think about hiring again. While it may be too soon to actually start doing so yet, it’s not too soon to do an organizational tune-up to ensure any new hires are a good positional and cultural fit. The more due diligence organizations put into preparatory steps for hiring the greater the pay-off in productivity and successful hires.

A mechanic’s first step in tuning up a car is to set up his best tools for the job. The same is true for an organizational tune-up; to pull out and dust off the best tools for the job —job descriptions. Too often job descriptions sit in drawers serving absolutely no purpose. Allowing these documents to gather dust is an unfortunate loss. Job descriptions can and should be living documents for managing people to results. When job descriptions are not utilized as living documents jobs tend to “morph” to fit the person in the position rather than the person in the position being managed to successfully fulfill the job.

Job descriptions should reflect the work or outputs of each position along with the qualifications necessary to achieve these results. It can be disastrous to change a job to fit a person. What happens to the work that person was supposed to do? If we imagine the organization is a car with all its parts working efficiently and effectively, what happens when one of the parts starts malfunctioning? Depending on the importance of the part, it might bring the car to a screeching halt or worse. Even if it’s a less critical part, it can still force surrounding parts to work harder to compensate for its ineffectiveness. This is what happens in our organizations every day. Too many managers do not focus on the work outputs of their direct reports or how long it takes them to accomplish these outputs. Yet, this is what constitutes effective management —getting results through people and developing people to continuously improve these results.

Let’s look at a true case example of a tune-up in one department of one organization. An assessment of each person’s job description and the time associated with producing the required outputs accounted for only 24 hours per week for each of eight positions. With these eight people being paid for 40 hours of work the organization was paying for 128 hours per week of wasted time. Over the course of one year, that amounted to 33,280 hours of wasted time. These employees were paid an average of $25.00 per hour skyrocketing the cost of this wasted time to $832,000 annually for the organization —in one department! The interesting thing to note in this case is that every employee in the department complained they were overloaded with work. The questions for the manager of this group were:

What were the employees so busy doing? People who aren’t managed properly (to their job descriptions) often end up doing non-value-added work, and;

How did they end up with eight positions to do the work of fewer than five? Adding positions in organizations can be like gaining weight, the pounds tend to creep up insidiously and before you know it, you’re “fat.”

Now let’s return to the car analogy. Starting the organizational tune-up equipped with the proper tools (a list of all positions and their job descriptions), management can assess whether or not the organization is running as efficiently as possible. Each manager should be able to identify the required work outputs and corresponding measures for each position as well as any necessary training, experience or other qualifications required to perform to expectations. As in our case example, evaluating the time required to produce the position outputs can also provide good insight into the appropriate number of positions needed for each department.

Once positions and job descriptions are prepped, the organization is ready to perform a systems check, which in this case is the hiring process. The best hiring process involves behavioral based interviews of prospective candidates. Behavioral based interviewing uses questions to dig into an employee’s past performance and the candidate’s responses as a reliable indicator of his or her future performance. Interview questions should be constructed directly from the job descriptions and should cover both the hard and soft skills necessary for new hires to be successful in their positions. Organizations that use behavioral based interviewing techniques increase their chances of hiring the right employee by 60% according to an Industrial and Organizational Psychology review. In fact, behavioral interviewing is viewed as the most effective interviewing technique available to evaluate suitable applicants.

The final step in this tune-up is to take the organization for a test run through the hiring process using the behavioral based questions developed from the updated job descriptions. This can be done by role-playing the behavioral interviewing process with managers and faux candidates. The results of this test run should be carefully reviewed. If anything involving the tools or the process needs tweaking, now is the time, before real candidates come through the door.

Just as a car needs routine maintenance, so do organizations. Without tune-ups waste and erosion can stall efficiency, performance and sometimes operations altogether. Now is the best time for an organizational tune-up —before the race begins. Once the tune-up is complete job descriptions should be kept in tip-top shape with managers actively using them for ongoing employee feedback on results. Using job descriptions this way will ensure the organization continues to get great gas mileage long after the initial tune-up is complete.

Corner Crack-up

Last year a man replaced all the windows in his house with the expensive triple-pane, energy efficient, kind. This week he got a call from the contractor complaining that his work had been completed a whole year ago and he had yet to be paid. Boy oh boy, did they go around! So the man proceeded to tell the contactor what his fast-talking salesman told him last year —that in one year the windows would pay for themselves. There was silence on the other end of the line so the man just hung up and never heard back. Guess he won that argument!

Delegation Doctor’s Daily Dose

In the 1Q10 Want It Done Right Journal the Delegation Doctor’s Daily Dose article was about starting the New Year and the new decade with a new approach to life —fulfilling our life dreams by managing our time rather than allowing it to manage us. Throughout the rest of this year I’d like to continue this theme of managing our time and our lives. To quickly review, here are the five points from the first article in this series:

State your dreams – on paper! Post them where you will be sure to see them multiple times per day.

Identify the steps to start moving toward your dreams. Work out the steps it will take to get from where you are now to where you will be when you achieve your goal.

Outline what progress would look like and the timeline within which to achieve that progress. It may help to only identify a timeframe for the first step; then once that’s accomplished outline the next timeframe.

Commit time each week to focus on realizing your dream rather than allowing the little things to swallow up your time. To keep your time from getting devoured by nonessential little things, breaking your dreams down into smaller and simpler steps as described above ensures you spend your time on essential little things.

Keep moving forward, even if you take a step back. If backsliding occurs, don’t lose heart. Instead, adjust down the time to work on your goals each week to what you can accomplish. The key is keeping your dreams in focus so you don’t lose sight of what’s important.

With this review in mind, let’s hone in on some great next steps to get back into the driver’s seats of our lives. Over the course of this year we’ll not only look at major time wasters and what to do about them but also how to capture opportunities to increase our enjoyment of life. Here are five thoughts to build onto your first quarter accomplishments:

Reduce TV time. Document how much TV you watch for one week. Then cut that amount in half. Television can swallow up huge amounts of our time with nothing to show for it. Pick a few shows you like and use these as a fun break or entertainment time. This will ensure your TV time is value-added so you’ll truly enjoy it more rather than allowing it to become an ongoing vegetative state.

Make a list of new things to try. When was the last time you did something for the first time? This is a great motto to keep life interesting. Each year think of something to try that you’ve never done before. Expand your horizons and live a little. It will save the later regrets of “I always wanted to try that,” but you just never got around to it. One day it will be too late.

Learn when to say “No”. Much of our time is sucked up by people asking us to do things for them or to participate in activities that we really don’t want to do but we find it too hard to say “No.” So we begrudgingly comply, then become resentful and detest the time we’re spending. There are many gracious ways to say, “No.” Learning how and when to use this word will keep you focused on your priorities and give you more time to fulfill your dreams.

Learn when to say “Yes”. When something unplanned comes up, isn’t your first inclination to say “No?” It’s funny how hard it is to say this word in situations like #8 above and yet so easy to say it when we’re invited to step outside our boxes. It almost seems our uses of these words should be reversed! Taking people up on last minute fun invitations or trying something new can inject a dose of healthy spontaneity and adventure that our often rigid schedules don’t allow.

Carve out personal time. Only you can take care of you. Only you know what to do to lift your spirits and re-energize yourself. Make a list of the special things you enjoy that center you in the midst of life’s crazy demands. Choose something from that list to do for yourself at least once per month and especially when you’ve hit the doldrums. Make a date with yourself —and keep it. Small ways to take care of yourself can reap huge returns in energy and enthusiasm.

Adding these five steps to the first five will keep you moving in the right direction toward not only better managing your time and your life but also toward living your dreams. Good luck this quarter and check in again next quarter to learn more on how to continue your journey. Happy trails!

If you have read the book or attended a presentation or training and would like to comment,

please share your delegation story.