I had 3 seniors from a team I used to manage, take me aside in order to complain about the training manual / induction process as they had what they expressed as a serious issue with the training process. The line they objected to was
We expect all staff to work at least 2x harder than a normal person. We achieve this not just by thinking, changing and improving but by working hard as well.
Now I know what you are thinking, that it is a pretty excessive claim to make for a new hire, and that the staff were saying that we shouldn’t setting the expectation so high / making staff work so hard?
That is what I had thought.
The actual reason totally blew me away, and is one of my proudest moments as a manager. We had sustained a 2x growth multiple for the customers served , for the first 5 years of startup. My team had only grown by 10 % per year, so we had a pretty tight team.
Their issue was (incredibly) that if I told a person from another company that we expected them to work 2x harder than their old company, then that person was getting setup to fail, and would face massive pressure from the team around them, because when we compared our staffing levels from a customer to staff ratio, we should have had between 20-40 staff, but we only had 5.
My team were telling me, that if the new guy didn’t work 8x more than a normal person, they would be bullied for being lazy.
Over the years the teams I have managed have absorbed massive growth (the least was 189% growth in one year), and it has been a constant battle to obtain more staffing, so we had to adapt.
The following info is taken from a Quora question I responded to, which outlines just a few of the methods we used:
At some stage I intend to finish a book called “Mode Of Operation” or “Modus Operandi”, do let me know on social media if you would love to see it – the encouragement will get me to get it finished!
Answer Wiki (summary from everyone)
- Use ninja keyboard shortcuts
- Get enough rest and sleep, even when you are behind
- Use a Kanban board
- Say NO
- Procrastinate, but not until the last minute
- Delegate
- Don’t be a perfectionist. Expect the “first draft” of any project to be shitty.
- Increase your typing speed
- Use the 80/20 Principle. Analyze the work before you start.
- Set a deadline
- Don’t multi-task
- Use a time management system, such as GTD
- Exercise, even when you think you don’t have the time
- Believe that you can do it
- “Eat that frog”: Do the most difficult or the task you hate the most first.
- Do not sit in the same place for long stretches of time.
Crappy first draft (via Merlin Mann)
The first time you try something, aim to do something / anything poorly and then edit and iterate those that need it.
By aiming for a poor start, you get it out on the screen as a brain dump and are then far less likely to put it off, and also the subsequent edits are really simple.
Typing speed
It is very easy to double your typing speed within a few weeks and of a bit of practice. Oddly, if you spend 50% of your day doing reports and emails, (average exec spends 42% doing emails and reports) then you just freed up 10 hours of your week. Go home early. Or think of something else clever to save the next half.
It is the best and simplest hack ever.
Mavis Beacon is now free, http://www.mavisbeacon.com/
http://download.cnet.com/Mavis-Beacon-Teaches-Typing-17-Deluxe/3000-2051_4-10441764.html
Typing of the Dead
– a zombie shoot-em-up that fires your shotgun by correctly typing words)
Double monitors
This one was awesome – I shared out a second monitor on the team “as a test to see how they like it” but didn’t tell them that I was also comparing their productivity while they had the monitor.
The average uplift was around 20% with the top performer increasing by around 50%.
It seems that especially for provisioning tasks, or comparison / editing type tasks, or where you have regular interruptions, the 2 screens allow a grouping between the different tasks, which improves “Task Orientation” as well as an ability to segment the 2 parts of the tasks you are working on.
Oddly enough though around 10-20% of the team had absolutely no impact, and when I kept an eye on their screen from a few desks back, while they were working, it was as they processed the work, they did it in a very sequential / ordered / methodical process way.
Their personalities were more steady, thorough, and slightly better at attention to detail. They also did not like interruptions as much.
When that group had 2 screens they physically used only 1 screen per task.
Pareto and Parkinsons
Knowledge work is infinite.
You can write and rewrite a quote or a presentation or some code or design a website a thousand times, and it can still not be perfect.
Aim for excellent and tighten up your cycle time.
From the Four Hour Work Week and 80/20 Principle.
Pareto discovered that 80% of his peas were produced by 20% of his plants.
People have since applied his rule to completely different fields (20% of customers generate 80% of income, etc.).
The main way this is used in time management is that there are 20% of your actions that are important. Do that.
Parkinsons law is that work expands or contracts to fit the time assigned to it.
Set a deadline and sprint to finish it. Then reward by a quick break or an emotional celebration – for example, pump your fist or do a victory dance – stupid, but it works.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE www.emailga.me, and it saves me hours every day.
Mutitasking is multicrap.
I used to pride myself on my ability to multitask. Until I read the studies and applied the practice of batching tasks firewalling interruptions and sprinting during my golden hours (for example, first thing in the morning).
Get a great capture and time management system
For example, GTD, 7Habits, etc.
Exercise, food input, sleep and emotions
All play a much bigger impact to your output as you don’t know how much more you could do or how much clever your ideas would have been if you were firing on all cylinders.
I tested I would do more in 6 hours with a 2 hour run first than 8-10 hours of work.
Music
I have seen between 50-100% gains for team members who put on noise cancelling headphones (removing cognitive distractions), and adding music that they like.
We tested playing music live in the office, which increased the performance of those who liked that music, however those who did not like it, seemed to stay static / get worse.
Dancing
This one is stupid, but in my home office, I have added a quick dance party through the day, it is silly but I have seen email production up around 10-20% uplift – probably due to exercise / endorphins shaking up my state before the next task.
Automate or eliminate
not just the largest parts of your working day or the longest cycle tasks, but also the tasks that drain you emotionally the most – for example, there are often a few tasks (taking the rubbish out or filing a specific report) where the thought of having to do it, takes much more energy thinking about not doing it / putting it off / feeling guilty than just admitting that you are crap at that task, or hate to do it. Amazing how the rest of your work flows once those tasks are moved to someone else or you have decided you are not going to do it.
Learn macros, learn AutoHotkey, Phrase Express or even something like VBScript using sendkeys (very basic, but it can work).
Tamper Monkey
TamperMonkey allows you to write Javascript programs which can change the appearance of a screen / add a button that isnt really there, but which can add text / fill out a form etc.
I used this well selling for a massive international company, and we were paid per sale. I removed half of the input boxes / menu items so that it all fitted on 1 screen and was easier to read / see.
I added buttons that wrote out “Called at x time, did not leave voicemail, attempt #3” etc and filled out all the screens with the data it needed.
I added a VoIP click to call to the browser, so that saved seconds on each dial, and added to each phone record the extension number eg
+64 360 123,,,41234# so when I clicked the button it dialled it, the comma pauses for a half second, then dials the extension directly thus saving the whole reception conversation. (Of course I had that the first time in order to get the person’s extension.
Call mobile phones
When calling a customer back / sales lead / accounts collection, it typically takes 3.2 calls to reach the person / they answer the call.
When calling to CIO / CEO level, it is closer to 8-9 calls in order to speak to a senior manager or an account manager who is out selling on the road.
I found many accounts collection groups that had 5-15 call attempts to try to talk to the customer, and if you calculate out the cost of calling the person on mobile vs. the staff cost of not getting a hold of someone, it is clear that calling the mobile is a smart thing to do. Text can be even quicker / easier.
Get a Virtual Assistant
I am biased as I run a company that provides this as a service, but a good Virtual Assistant to delegate tasks to for US$15 an hour while you can rip through the stuff you love to do / are critical for, is a revolutionary feeling to be able to fire off the work and know it is going to be done while you sleep.
(But be clear, be selective at hiring, and set expectations.)