Earning the Trust of Employees

My comments on: Why good employees (should not) leave (good companies)? – The employer perspective

One of the very challenging tasks as a manager is to get people to trust bringing up difficult topics. Often people are punished for doing so. Most people learn to keep quiet about management problems. Even when managers say they want to hear there are many instances when they then punish those who speak up.

I agree with you that for organizations to flourish management must know what needs to be improved. But few executives or managers put in the effort to earn people's trust. But building that trust is what organizations that want to flourish need to do.

Related: Ignoring Unpleasant Truths is Often Encouraged - How to Create a Continual Improvement Culture - Practical Ways to Respect People - The Problem is Likely Not the Person Pointing Out The Problem - Build an Environment Where Intrinsic Motivation Flourishes

Using Money to Motivate Creates More Problems Than Benefits

Comments on: Employee Motivation and Lean Implementation – Part 2: Money

Well said. Nearly all "motivation" efforts such as bonuses create far more problems than benefits. Paying people fairly is important, if they don't have enough to live they will be distracted and seeking new options.

And if they are substantially underpaid compared to the market (even if they have enough to live comfortably) they will be prone to seek new alternatives and be disgruntled because they feel they are being treated unfairly.

The best "motivation" managers can provide is to eliminate the de-motivation created by poor practices in the management system.

Sadly these are often common and managers can keep themselves very busy just doing this. If not, they are likely very lucky and probably have no motivation problems to worry about.

Related: Why Extrinsic Motivation Fails - The Defect Black Market - Dangers of Extrinsic Motivation - Extrinsic Incentives Kill Creativity - A "Demotivated" Workforce is a Symptom of the Culture of the Organization - The Potential Benefits, Risks and Folly of Stretch Goals

A "Demotivated" Workforce is a Symptom of the Culture of the Organization

Comment on: Are You "Perfectly Designed" for Morale Issues? (Yes) – and Employee Surveys Won't Fix It. (Demotivators: Part 1) [original post was removed so I removed the link].

Creating a system that gives people pride in their work will cause many motivation issues disappear. A significant part of that is eliminating the de-motivation that exists in the management system:

Motivate or Eliminate De-Motivation

Build an Environment Where Intrinsic Motivation Flourishes


A "demotivated" workforce is a symptom of the culture of the organization. That is how the issue needs to be looked at to improve results. Blaming people and attempting to motivate without fixing the causes of demotivation is not effective.

Related: How to Deal with Motivation Problems - Motivation, Rewards, Performance Appraisals and Your Career - Dangers of Extrinsic Motivation - Stop Demotivating Employees - How to Motivate Front Line Workers

The Use and Misuse of Technical Jargon

Comments on: You want muda? Let’s talk about muda!

Essentially the terms are precise technical jargon. As with nearly all technical jargon it is very useful for experts and confusing (and, to many, off-putting) to people that are not experts.

You are exactly right, overwhelming people with jargon when trying to introduce new ideas is not usually helpful. Using a couple pieces of jargon can be helpful as it reinforces the idea that this is new stuff and can make people tie the new ideas to new terms.

When some people are learning it is easier to think of muda than "waste." They have an understanding of "waste" and it may well not include what is meant to be included in a lean context. They can rearrange in their head that in the context of lean "waste" is different - we do this all the time.

For some people using muda to think differently is helpful, for others it is not and often creates resistance.

English has many words we understand differently depending on the context (for example, "lean"). It works remarkably well but especially when people are learning it is easy to miss special "lean" meaning when using common words. Technical jargon is helpful with experts being able to quickly communicate unambiguous (well less ambiguous) specific meaning which is why jargon usually exists - to allow for communication to be more effective.

Certainly at times jargon is also used by experts to baffle or impress non-experts rather than to help communication. Reducing this use of jargon would be a good thing.

Related: Learning, Systems and Improvement - Open Source Management Terms - Getting Known Good Ideas Adopted

How to Deal with Motivation Problems.

Comment on, The Great Addiction to Motivation

By saying that we lack the motivation, it gives us another excuse to procrastinate.

...

Have any tips for getting your motivation back? I’d love to hear them.

I think we misidentify the issue when we claim it is motivation (as you allude to). As to why we don't take action, I believe it is more about habit than motivation. As to what to do, make habits of what you care about.

Our organizations often demotivate us. We don't need pep talks and reward/carrots to get over the de-motivation. We need the practices that de-motivate us (Dilbert does a good job highlighting many of these) to cease. In this sense what is needed to motivate us is to remove those things that are de-motiving us. Leaving those in place and relying on pep talk and such gimmicks is a losing strategy.

Words about how employees should be all motivated about work while the organization beats out the intrinsic motivation people have at ever turn only drives de-motivation to higher levels. Instead, build an organization where intrinsic motivation flourishes.

For more ideas see the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog posts on motivation.

The damage caused by "Management" by targets is much larger in dysfunctional organizations

The damage caused by "Management" by targets is much larger in dysfunctional organizations - they are also more likely to be given more importance by dysfunctional organizations, that is a bad combination. In a great organization with an strong understanding of systems, respect for people, no pay based on "performance," an understanding of data and variation... then damage managing by targets does is much smaller. But the number of those organizations is not huge.

Reaction to: Target Setting, Cause and Effect

Related: Setting Goals Can Easily Backfire - I achieved my goal by not my aim - Be Careful What You Measure - Targets Distorting the System

Always-On: Trivial Urgency

I think the problem is in expectations of responsiveness. People focus on the trivial "urgent" instead of the important, as Covey said.

One of the issues I have with the complaints of "always on" is looking at my father. He was always on for his whole life and had no downside. He loved what he did. He thought about it when he was taking a shower, or walking to work or having friends over for dinner or raking leaves in the yard. It never was a matter of being burdened by work. He was a professor and consultant. I think it is a mistake to see the problem as always being on. Expectations of responsiveness to thee trivial urgent though I can see as a problem.

I think there is a difference between being also on and energized by your work (that is pretty much how I am, and my father was - I am working for myself, I can work whenever I want) and feeling burdened by being expected to be always on.

The problem is I keep reading about how thinking about work all the time is horrible for people. Well in my experience that isn't true (granted it is a small set of people). But it points to, I think, an issue that the "problem" is imprecisely defined and therefore inaccurate. I do think there is an issue expecting people to be available for trivially urgent matters.

Related: Carve Out Time to Think - Circle of Influence

The Potential Benefits, Risks and Folly of Stretch Goals

Some excepts from, The Folly of "Stretch Goals", visit the link to see the full discussion:

Jon Miller: Stretch goals are fine, but gaming the system, sandbagging, achieving the stretch goals through heroic effort, etc. are bad because this is not sustainable. In terms of excessive risk taking, this is a question of the risk-reward calculus and the person’s degree of risk aversion. It doesn’t take a stretch goal to make Enron leaders cheat when their auditors are turning a blind eye. They stole because they could, not because a leader set stretch goals for them. If the governance around the goals are solid and the downside of risk are significant, people will pursue stretch goals in a way that is not destructive. ... 

Dan Markovitz: However, if you had the opportunity to make a HUGE bonus — millions or tens of millions of dollars — for achieving certain stretch sales targets in China, for example, you might be sorely tempted to act differently... 

Jon Miller: But my point was that cheating is not caused by stretch goals, it is caused by poor governance around the performance and rewards process... The more interesting question is why leaders continue to set up such systems. Are they stupid? Evil? Or do such systems produce results?

I think stretch goals are fine when people understand - they are giving scope to the effort. If I want breakthrough improvement quickly it may mean considering radical solutions. That can be helpful to shape people's vision. But there are risks. As Brian Joiner said there are 3 ways to improve figures ("results")

• distorting the system
• distorting the data
• improving the system (which tends to be more difficult though likely what is desired)

Improving the system is far more difficult than the first 2. Cheating can be encouraged by managers. Stretch goals can increase this encouragement. A culture that pushes the right values and discourages the wrong ones can discourage cheating. Understanding variation is very helpful (it both dramatical reduces silly reaction to variation - the fear of those silly reactions often cause people to cheat "distort the figures or system" ).

An understanding data is only a proxy for the real situation (the number is not real situation) is helpful as is understanding the arbitrary goal is essentially meaningless (it exists to give scope to efforts not to be met - 67.3% improvement when 75% improvement was the "goal" is not failure - an understanding of variation would assure this mistake was not made).

The problem is many organizations are ruled by spreadsheet managers that don't understand variation, are ruled by the tyranny of arbitrary targets (bonus and promotions)... In these situations goals do often become a big part of the reason for cheating. Stretch goals can help shape the effort. The risk (and much more common result, I think) is that they result in distortions of the system and data to achieve those results.

To answer Jon's question I think you can use goals and incentives to reach numerical targets. The risk, as Gipsie Ranny says is the organization may be ruined in the long term. But if the executives are fearful and have large enough incentives to achieve numerical targets they goals and targets can achieve the goal - but at a great cost, I believe. I believe they are more ignorant than evil (though some know the damage they are risking or causing).

A strong management system reduces much of the potential negative consequences of targets. A big problem is those organizations that most rely on targets are those that are least protected from the risks of using them.

Related: The Defect Black Market - Targets Distorting the System - The Problem with Targets

Country Boundaries are Becoming Less Important

Knowledge workers are the new capitalists by Peter F. Drucker

knowledge workers are highly mobile within their specialism. They think nothing of moving from one university, one company or one country to another, as long as they stay within the same field of knowledge.
...
Money is as important to knowledge workers as to anybody else, but they do not accept it as the ultimate yardstick, nor do they consider money as a substitute for professional performance and achievement. In sharp contrast to yesterday's workers, to whom a job was first of all a living, most knowledge workers see their job as a life.

I agree with Drucker. Singapore, Shanghi, Rio De Janeiro, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Berlin, Tokyo, Paris... and many more are going to be destinations for those that grow up in the USA. The numbers of people moving out of the USA in the next 30 years for jobs in the top 10% of the income bracke,t will be many multiples of what it was in teh last 30 in my opinion.

The USA has great advantages. China and Inida do too. But so do many other locations. The USA probably has more ability to absorb mistakes and I still feel it is the best situated, but the gap is much much smaller than it was 30 years ago.

Related: USA Losing Brain Drain Benefits - Long Term Economic Growth - Technology Centers of Excellent and Economic Growth - Keeping Out Technology Workers is not a Good Economic Strategy

Performance and character

Response to, Toxic Employees

But what if this employee is a rock star salesperson or contributor but has the bad attitude? Do you put up with the attitude issue for the great performance?

Does performance override character?

Or do we want performance and character?

What if this person when confronted, justifies their behavior with “it’s the truth and I’m the only one with the guts to speak out”?

What if this person is a top executive with political ties to the company President yet others below feel the pain?

What if this person is not an employee but a customer?

Is it following our "respect to people principle" by not addressing this person’s behavior?

We want performance and character. It is not respecting the person (and more importantly all the others that must suffer) to ignore their toxic behavior. 

I must admit I do have sympathy for the "I'm the only one with the guts to speak out" claim. But that doesn't excuse bad behavior, speak out, but do in a non-toxic manner. 

You have to confront and address toxic behavior. It isn't easy. People with power and also people with a history to getting results can get used to being able to do whatever they want. Some cultures that is normal. 

It isn't ok in a lean culture. Bottom line. If the CEO accepts it they are deciding they don't want to be lean. They might want to adopt some lean tool (which can benefit even non-lean organizations). But allowing toxic behavior directly contradicts respect for people. 

Related: People are Our Most Important Asset - Negativity - The Lazy Unreasonable Man

How to Motivate Front Line Workers

I see respect for people (that I think requires striving for joy in work) is critical. Dr. Deming stressed the importance of letting people take joy in work. A big part of this are many sensible respect for people notions. But also he stressed the importance of allowing people to take pride in what they do. Critical to this is providing meaningful work and organizing the work so that people can see and feel the contribution they make.

The overly simplistic example is that tightening one screw all day on an assembly line is very easy to think of yourself as a cog in a machine. Work needs to be designed to let people take pride in their contributions. An understanding of the whole system and work cells often helps. Sharing information so everyone can think of the big picture helps. Companies that truly focus on a vision can do this very well. But it is not a simple - plug this idea in exercise. To build such a culture takes an understanding of psychology and a true commitment to respect for people. Posts on my blogs about motivation.

Response to: How to Motivate Front Line Workers - Trust Your Staff to Make Decisions - Douglas McGregor's classic, The Human Side of Enterprise - Respect for People – Understanding Psychology

Why Do I Want To Do Better?

What Makes You Want to Do Better?

Many organizations are quick to assume that extrinsic rewards (oftentimes, money) are the only way to get people to take initiative (a form of “Theory X” thinking). Followers of Dr. Deming (and now fans of Daniel Pink and his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us) realize that people have incredible intrinsic motivation if you don’t squash it, as an organization and leaders.

The biggest thing is that I dislike wasting my time. I want to eliminate the things that waste my time. And that also means I want my time to be as beneficial as possible. Therefore I want to find ways to create more good consistently. It is great to improve the system because then I get to have my effort not just let me be more effective (which lets me create benefits in the future more effectively) but I get to have the benefit I spent my time on multiplied by lots of people being more effective.

The only amount I care about other people noticing is when it helps me do more. Sometimes, it is helpful to get some new idea adopted if those responsible realize that they are benefiting from past improvements (otherwise people often just don't want to change). The incentives others give me for doing better don't matter to me. The one that matters most is letting me broaden the scope at which I work (so I can multiply the benefits I see from my effort).

I also do care about being able to work from home several days a week - and avoid the commute and focus without the distractions at the office.

I strongly believe a manager should focus on eliminating demotivation.

If you create an environment where you are removing the de-motivators and letting people improve the processes you will find people become more satisfied and less frustrated at work.

Are you working harder? And the VIBCO employee responded: "It doesn't feel like I'm working harder. I'm not stressed out. I'm getting more done and there’s a sense of accomplishment."

Related: Stop Demotivating Me! - Stop De-motivating employees - Understanding Psychology: Slogans are Risky Tools