motivation Tag

20 Aug How Leadership Skills Drive Productivity

If you lead a team of 1, 10, 100, or 1000 there are skills you need to drive your productivity. These aren’t productivity skills per se’, they are leadership skills. Looking at leadership from a productivity perspective will help you boost your effectiveness and the effectiveness of your team. Where are your opportunities for growth?

Collaboration

Collaboration is the coming together of individuals, with positive intention, to work toward a best solution. These solutions develop from the sharing of knowledge, perspective, and experience in a psychologically safe space.

Communication

Communication is a process in which information is exchanged. It provides a forum for understanding and agreement and it builds connections. Good communication is key to creating productive teams. 

Decision Making

A good decision is one in which the chosen course of action meets the objective with the least amount of risk and the greatest benefits. Leaders are expected to make decisions frequently and, often, quickly. Finding the balance between quickly and too quickly can be a challenge.  

Delegation, Follow Up and Accountability

No matter how well you may do things, there is only one of you. You can accept the limitations of not delegating, or you can learn to delegate. 

Delegation is the assignment of responsibility to another person for the purpose of carrying out a specific action. Delegating involves thought and planning, and, by nature, is proactive. Not delegating is reactive, allowing a situation to dictate actions.  

Effective Meeting Best Practices

People don’t hate meetings; they just hate meetings that waste their time. When meetings are good, they advance all that is good in an operation. When they are bad, they waste resources. 

Yes, meetings take time. They take you away from the work you’ve prioritized. However, when people come together collectively, share information constructively, and stay focused on the task at hand, meetings can result in solid decision-making with the ability to quickly move into action.

Productive meetings take planning before, during, and after. Additionally, having meeting agreements sets the stage for on–going meeting success.

Conflict

Conflict is a natural occurrence. An individual’s past experiences inform thought and result in different people holding different perspectives. When important decisions are on the table and there are differing opinions, conflict can arise. How leaders navigate conflict affects the team’s productivity.

Toxic Personalities

A safe work environment drives productivity. Yet toxic personalities are often revered in the workplace. 

While in the short term this may seem sustainable, perhaps even beneficial, the long-term cost to the team may be irreparable. Not only does tolerating the “bad apple” suggest that accepting mediocrity or rule-bending is acceptable, it can also undermine the productivity of the rest of the team.

All these leadership skills and concepts impact a team’s ability to get into flow, do innovative work and drive success. Without these skills leading a productive and effective team is next to impossible. 

This is the chapter highlights  from Chapter 15 (the last chapter!) of my new book Productivity for How You’re Wired available on Amazon. Many templates are included via the time tools link discussed in the book.

29 Jul Why Leadership Impacts Productivity

In my last blog post I shared with you the concept that team productivity is impacted by the leadership effectiveness of the person leading the team.  Here’s why:

If doing one’s most effective work occurs when a person is in the flow state, then a team’s most effective work occurs when the team is in flow. We call that team flow. 

What does team flow look like? How does it feel? What could be possible?

• The team has clearly defined priorities resulting in time, money, and energy being spent intentionally and proactively. Team members are not frustrated by constantly fixing problems.
• Team members are clear about both the team’s goals and their own personal goals. They know what constitutes high-value work and do not waste time on things that don’t support desired outcomes.
• Healthy relationships are based on open, honest communication. People feel safe to be their most authentic, best selves. Team members do not get sidetracked with drama, ego, and narcissistic behavior.

Productivity–focused leaders understand their role in creating a team that is in flow. 

To create a successful sustainable business, leaders must embrace the humanity of working with people. 

Motivation 

It’s not about the MONEY! Money does not inspire best performance. Money is an extrinsic motivator — an external force — and extrinsic motivators such as fear and reward have very short lifespans. They are quick fixes and easily forgotten once an acute situation passes. 

The motivation that matters, the one that drives productivity and results, is called intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from inside oneself and it is this motivation that has staying power. Intrinsic motivation is what affects a team member’s productivity. It is the driver when someone chooses to go above and beyond in their work.

What the employees identified as the things that motivated them to work harder, go above and beyond, were appreciation and acknowledgement, sense of belonging and problem–solving support.

Successful Teams

How do you create such a culture? What makes a successful team?

Google spent two years delving into just this question. In a study dubbed “Project Aristotle,” Google studied 180 of their teams. Their hope was to find a pattern of team member characteristics that could be plugged into a “dream-team” algorithm. 

However, that didn’t happen. There was no tangible list of demographic consistencies in their most successful teams. “It was only when they began looking at group norms that the researchers found consistencies.”

At Google, successful teams were collaborative and engaged. Google’s Project Aristotle lead researcher Julia Rozovsky identified two characteristics of these teams: 

1. There was equality in conversation turn-taking; everyone on the team talked roughly the same amount of time. If one person on the team, or even a small group took over, collective intelligence declined. 
2. Team members exhibited a higher-than-average social sensitivity, intuiting how others felt based on tone of voice, expression, and non-verbal cues. 

Additional key characteristics of successful teams were identified:

1. Psychological Safety — a work culture that supports risk taking, respect, and openness.
2. Dependability — the ability to count on colleagues for work to be done on time and to proper standards.
3. Structure and Clarity — a mutual understanding of goals, expectations, responsibilities, and how work is to be executed.
4. Meaning — work that is personally significant. 
5. Impact — work that makes a positive difference.

From a productivity perspective, it’s not surprising that dependability, structure, and clarity would be included. And from an intrinsic motivational perspective, meaning and impact make total sense. However, the concept of psychological safety is the most interesting.  

In her study Rozovsky stated “Psychological safety was far and away the most important of the five dynamics we found – it’s the underpinning of the other four.”  

Many leaders today still think of fear as a great motivator. It makes sense people will work hard to avoid unpleasant consequences; however, this doesn’t encourage intrinsic motivation and it doesn’t result in sustainable productivity. 

Fear diverts resources from the brain. Fear affects working memory, reasoning, processing, and creativity. Psychological safety mitigates fear.

Work life is often fraught with conflict. The effective productive leaders works to create conditions that mitigate conflict and fear and instead support the characteristics that allow for maximum intrinsic motivation. 

This is an excerpt from Chapter 14 of my new book Productivity for How You’re Wired available on Amazon. Many templates are included via the time tools link discussed in the book.

08 Jul The Correlation Between Leadership and Productivity

Leadership is a behavior, not a title. 

It doesn’t matter what someone’s title is, how much they are paid, or how much authority they have. If they don’t influence change, drive progress, or inspire others, they are not a true leader. 

A true leader creates an environment in which those they lead are inspired and motivated to give their all towards the achievement of a desired outcome.

• A leader creates a culture in which their team members are self-motivated to do great work.
• A leader ensures their followers’ efforts matter and positively influence outcomes.
• Some of the most effective leaders do not have titles or authority. They achieve success through the actions they inspire. 

Real leaders work for the greater good. Some managers, owners, or figureheads don’t. Just because someone is in charge doesn’t automatically mean they are going to make decisions that best serve the entity they have influence over, nor does it mean they’re a leader.

• Real leaders continually monitor their behavior. They are aware of how their actions affect their team. 
• Real leaders lead team members who work hard and are empowered to support the team’s success. 
• Real leaders deliberately work to create a culture in which individual efforts result in a win for the system as a whole.

Successful productive leaders know the importance of understanding, considering, and integrating all aspects of their operation. It’s not just big picture, it’s whole picture. They consider the effects of their decisions and anticipate how change affects outcomes throughout the entire system.

Being the kind of leader team members are inspired to work hard for produces great long-term results. It is perhaps the most important quality for boosting overall team productivity.

It takes commitment to be a productive leader. 

• Productive leaders create a culture based in safety, trust, and relationships.
• Productive leaders have systems in place so people know what is expected and can effectively do the work that matters most. 
• Productive leaders communicate, share, and are transparent so people feel secure and confident in the normal progression of work.

Focusing on productivity alone isn’t enough. Focusing on culture alone is not enough. Focusing on profits and growth is never enough. Each part, on its own, gets you only so far, like a bike without tires, or tires without a frame. Successful productive leaders ensure all parts support the whole.

It’s time to think about the productivity of your team differently. 

This is an excerpt from Chapter 14 of my new book Productivity for How You’re Wired available on Amazon. Many templates are included via the time tools link discussed in the book.