Inspire Your Team to Double Productivity
“You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.”
–ALVIN TOFFLER
Communicating the big picture is a skill that’s often lost in management-development programs. After all, big-picture thinking is for execs, right?
No. Everyone needs to know how the pieces fit together, where they fit in, and why their work makes a difference. In this chapter, we’ll share some secrets to getting your team connected to the bigger mission.
• • •
When David was 16, he told his father he wanted to be a vegetarian.
“That’s great!” his father replied. He jumped up from the couch, went to his file cabinet, and pulled out old magazine articles and copies of nutrition guidelines.
His father was a vegetarian. The articles he gave David discussed how to balance amino acids and other nutrients. David studied those articles and got started. He was a strict practicing vegetarian.
For three days.
So, you can imagine David’s reaction when his 16-year-old daughter told him, “I want to be a vegetarian!”
She followed through on her desire, and for several years now, she has not eaten any meat.
What do you suppose was the difference between David’s short-lived experiment and his daughter’s lasting lifestyle change?
Let’s start with David. Why do you think he wanted to be a vegetarian?
You might think it was because he wanted to be like his father.
Nope.
The simple truth is that in his warped adolescent brain, he figured that being a vegetarian would somehow help him get a date.
Now contrast his shallow motivations with his daughter’s reasons. She wanted to live a more sustainable, less impactful lifestyle; didn’t want to inflict harm on other sentient creatures; and wanted a healthier diet.
The difference in their behavior came down to one thing: their reasons why.
Her “whys” were deep, compelling, and lasting. David’s were shallow, short-lived, and easily accomplished in other ways.
Now think about the work you ask of your people.
The activities you just thought about, that’s their “what”—the reports, the phone calls, the meetings, the manufacturing, the customer service, the planning, the calculations—all the stuff we do.
The “what” is certainly important, but the issue starts with a deeper question: “Why?”
In fact, this question is so vital, so full of life, energy, and potential that we can confidently say it is the most important question you can ever answer for your team.
This isn’t a question about great metaphysical or philosophical dilemmas. It’s about the most practical question every team member needs to be able to answer.
Simply put: Why are they doing what they’re doing? Managers who win well connect the “what” to the “why.”
If you’ve ever seen the classic 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke, in which Paul Newman’s character serves time in a prison chain gang, you’ll remember the ditch scene.
The jailers force Luke to repeatedly dig and refill the same ditch. The meaningless labor is designed to break his spirit. When you don’t connect the “what” to the “why,” you condemn your team to soulless drudgery.
Is your staff doing work disconnected from real meaning or purpose?
If so, there are two possible reasons: (1) they don’t understand the “why” behind the work, or (2) there is no legitimate “why.”
“Whats” without “whys” are a waste. They waste time. They waste energy. They waste your people.
Every task performed by every person should serve the mission of your team, work group, and organization. If it does not, it needs to be challenged, reexamined, and a better way found, or the task should simply be eliminated.
When you say, “I believe this matters and here’s why . . .,” you provide clarity, hope, and purpose, but you also create an opportunity for your belief to be challenged, which could be just what is needed to open meaningful dialogue.
Every single task performed by every person should serve the mission of your team, work group, and organization. If it does not, it needs to be challenged, reexamined, and a better way found, or the task should simply be eliminated.
Otherwise, you’ve sentenced your team to do work meant to break their spirit.
DOUBLE THEIR PRODUCTIVITY
Winning Well does not require you to be a cheerleader in business clothes, full of rah-rah with a fake smile. That’s not what inspiration looks like for anyone paying attention. Inspiration comes from connecting people to meaning, purpose, and their own ability to succeed.
In fact, in just five minutes per month, you can inspire your people and increase their productivity by simply asking them to think about various “whats” and asking, “Why do we do these things?”
Don’t treat this activity as a quiz. Treat it as a mutual exploration, a chance for all of you to discover together why something matters.
In just five minutes, you will discover a renewed sense of purpose; people will sit up taller, smile, and have pride in what they’re doing. Sometimes participants in this activity even get choked up as they rediscover the meaning in their work.
If you don’t like the answers you discover, that’s okay. If your “why” is all about you (e.g., “I’m doing this for more money, power, or prestige”), you are right to be concerned.
People aren’t stupid.
When it’s all about you, they’ll suspect you’re a User, and you can expect them to do only what they have to do. People work best when their work has meaning. Despite the selfish behavior that perpetuates in organizations, few human beings are truly motivated by making their boss a hero.
If you examine your big “why” and the answers are shallow, vapid, and uninspiring, take the next step. Where can you find meaning? Why is the work important? How does it contribute to a bigger picture? If it does not, can you take steps to eliminate those tasks?
Start with “why” and then be sure to see how your team’s work fits into the bigger picture.
DID YOU GET THE GUITAR?
Karin had promised to take pictures of her son’s last marching band performance during his senior year of high school. She raced into the parking lot, grabbed the camera, threw her high heels in the back seat, and raced down the grassy hill.
To her relief, the band was just lining up on the far side of the track surrounding the football field. The sun was beginning to set, which she knew would make for perfect lighting.
She set up the tripod, adjusted the telephoto lens, and got some great shots: the mellophones doing their sideways stunt, some up-close head shots, she even made sure she got some great ones of his friends.
She immediately went home to upload them to Photoshop for fine-tuning before he got home. As soon as he walked in the door, she proudly played him the slide show.
“Mom, did you get the guitar?”
“Huh? Ben, you play mellophone.”
“Mom, the band moves into a fantastic formation. It looks like a guitar right in time with the music. Did you get a picture of that?”
“Oh boy, no, I didn’t.” Without thinking about how it would make a great management story later, she had completely missed the big picture.
It happens on teams too.
Lisa was the project manager for a large-scale six sigma project. The phone rang; it was one of her managers, Tim. “Lisa, you know that project you asked me to look into? Well, all the milestones are on track. IT, HR, Operations, everyone has met their deliverables, but the results are still in the toilet.”
The project looked good on paper, but results weren’t moving.
The big picture was messy.
He finished with, “We have to stop thinking about this as a project. We need to step back and figure out what needs to be done.”
Tim was right.
WHY WE MISS THE BIG PICTURE
Sometimes we get too close and put our heads down doing tasks. There is danger in looking at a project in isolation. We miss the big picture because we:
• Follow a template
• Focus on tasks over root cause
• Don’t ask the obvious questions
• Followed directions blindly
• Are afraid to say it’s not working
• Don’t talk to one another
• Don’t have the right plan
• Don’t have the right metrics built into the plan
• Are overly focused on doing
• Are working too fast
WHY MANAGERS FORGET TO CONNECT THE DOTS
If you undercommunicate the big picture, it could be for one of the following reasons:
You Don’t Fully Understand It
Let’s face it: Sometimes the big picture is murky. It could be that change is happening so fast it’s hard to keep up. Or there’s a lot of secret activity behind closed doors, and what’s hitting the front line really doesn’t make sense.
If what you’ve been asked to have your people do feels stupid, it’s important to ask the right questions to ensure that it makes sense to you. If you’re frustrated and confused, your team will see it. Get the clarity you need first. When that is politically difficult or your boss interprets clarifying questions as resistance or becomes defensive, try putting your question in terms that help him or her. For example:
“I understand you need us to do ‘x’ and we’ll get that done. I also want to make sure my people and I fully comprehend the reason ‘x’ is important. Can you help me understand how this plays into the big picture so we’re able to do everything you need?”
If it still doesn’t make sense, respectfully articulate your concerns. You may have a perspective that has yet to be considered. For more on working with difficult bosses, see Chapter 22.
You Rely on Someone Else to Do It
You know your team has heard the message at least four times. Go for six. Even if they’ve heard the webcast, participated in the town hall, read the company newsletter, and had a visit from the senior team, they need to hear it from you.
People often need someone they trust to translate the big picture. They need time to ask questions and to voice their concerns. Just because they smiled happily when your boss’s boss shared the news does not mean they understand and are ready to go.
You’re Too Busy
When you’re drowning, it hardly seems like a good time to step back and contemplate the big picture. But you may be surprised how much time you can save by making such a little investment.
THREE WAYS TO COMMUNICATE THE BIG PICTURE WITH EASE
Try these three steps to improve your ability to connect people to the bigger picture:
1. Magnify the Meaning—Talk to your team about the impact their work has on the greater good: the customer, the world, and others they serve. Engage in dialogue and ask them to identify what makes them most proud about the work they do.
2. Clarify Priorities—It’s vital that the work you ask people to perform doesn’t feel like a random list of unrelated tasks. Bundle the work into meaningful chunks that link back to the bigger picture. If you can’t combine the tasks into meaningful clusters, you may have too many priorities. Figure out what matters most and nail those. Know what you will drop if you run out of time; if you have to fail at something, be sure you’re the one who chooses what that will be.
3. Simplify the Message—If you can’t explain your team’s mission in one sentence, you don’t fully understand it. If you’re really struggling, ask a few strong team members to give it a shot. Everyone on your team should be able to describe your team’s mission in a similar way.
All the other work you do as a manager is undermined if your team doesn’t have a strong unifying sense of where they’re headed. Ask your team today: Can they articulate their mission in one sentence?
YOUR WINNING WELL ACTION PLAN
1. Articulate your work group’s mission in one sentence.
2. Ask each employee to articulate why he has been asked to do the work a certain way. If he struggles, use that as a window to open the “why” conversation.
3. In a team meeting, ask your team to identify any tasks they are performing that they feel don’t add value or aren’t aligned with the mission. Then take time to discuss the alignment or eliminate the tasks.