The Factory Model of Management
YOUR MOST valuable tool for success is your ability to think with greater clarity than other people. The more mental tools that you have at your disposal to aid your thinking, the better decisions you can make, and the better results you can get.
The factory model of management is a mental tool that you can use to be more effective in your delegating efforts. You create this model by viewing each person, and each work unit made up of individuals, as a factory.
A factory has certain inputs (e.g., raw materials, resources, time, money, equipment). Inside the factory, production activities are performed. These activities produce specific outputs or what you might call results. The productivity of the factory is judged solely on the basis of the quality and quantity of its outputs, not its activities.
When you think of your unit, your department, your company, or your area of responsibility, think of it in terms of a factory. Ask yourself:
What results are expected of us?
What are we supposed to produce?
Why do we exist?
What have we been hired to accomplish?
The battle for higher levels of productivity has always revolved around the contest between activities and accomplishments, busy work and results. Many people work hard all day long, but they produce very little because they are not focused on productivity, performance, and results.
View the Individual as a Factory
When you look at the people in your organization, think of them also as individual factories. Their primary inputs are time, money, skills, and abilities. They engage in specific activities throughout the day. They are responsible for achieving or accomplishing certain outputs. They are on the payroll to get results.
An important part of delegation is for you to think through the results that you are trying to accomplish, and then to keep people’s attention focused on these results. One of the hallmarks of all successful managers, and all effective people, is an intense results-orientation. One of the hallmarks of ineffective people is that they focus on activities rather than on accomplishments.
Develop Managerial Leverage
There are certain things you can do that can multiply your output or the output of your department or area of responsibility. This is a form of “managerial leverage,” which enables you to get much more done than the average person. Your job is to use your time and resources in the most effective way possible to get the maximum leverage.
For example, bringing the entire production process of your business in-house where you can control it can significantly increase your productivity and lower your costs. On the other hand, outsourcing an entire part of the production process to experts who can do it faster, easier, and cheaper can give you tremendous leverage as well. By leverage, we mean that you increase the quality and quantity of outputs relative to inputs.
Delegation is an important tool for managerial leverage. Delegation lets you multiply your outputs. When you instruct or show other people what to do, so that they can then do the job by themselves, you can actually double your total output as opposed to doing it all by yourself.
Resolve to Multiply Rather Than Divide
Managerial leverage also works in reverse. Imagine that an average employee, working at an average speed, can produce ten units of work per day. As a manager, you can either multiply and increase that output amount or, with the wrong decisions, you can divide and decrease that level of productivity.
Suppose that this employee is wasting half of the workday, as most people are. With effective delegation, you may be able to increase the productivity of that person by 50 percent, up to fifteen units of work per day.
However, with ineffective, fuzzy, or vague delegation, you may reduce that number to five or eight units because the employee is unclear about what you want him to do. The employee is confused.
Delegate the Task Clearly
When people are unclear or unsure about what you want, they will tend to hold back rather than make a mistake. They will waste their time and spin their wheels. They will spend less time producing and more time socializing and engaging in other low-value or no-value activities.
As a manager, you must continually ask yourself, Am I a multiplication sign in my work environment and with my people, or am I a division sign? In other words, are people more productive as a result of your influence, or are they less productive? Is everyone who reports to you absolutely clear about 1) what it is that you need them to do, 2) when you need it, and 3) the level of quality you expect?
Clarity Is Essential
Training Magazine once did a survey of human resources professionals around the country to find out the most powerful techniques for motivating employees. They discovered that the most powerful of all motivators was described as “knowing what’s expected.”
When employees were asked to describe the best bosses they had ever worked for, they repeatedly said: “I always knew what the boss expected of me.”
When people know exactly what you expect them to do, and when, and to what standard of quality, and with what budget, they then have an opportunity to perform at a high level. They have an opportunity to get the kind of results that make them feel wonderful about themselves and enhance their own career possibilities at the same time.
The Biggest Demotivator
This same survey also found that the number-one source of stress, unhappiness, and aggravation for people in the workplace today is “not knowing what’s expected” of them. This “not knowing” is primarily the result of poor delegation on the part of the boss.
Not knowing what’s expected is the major reason people perform poorly at work, feel demotivated, and become irritable, angry, or even sick. As the manager, one of the things that only you can do is to make crystal clear to your employees what is expected of them, and in what order of priority.