Nonsense At Work by James McIntosh

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Nonsense At Work

Control your span:

One of the reasons the typical organization hierarchy looks like a pyramid is because of a concept called the span of control.

The span of control is the number of subordinates who report directly to you.  The greater the number who report to you, the wider your span of control.

According to traditional dogma, the higher up the organization you are, the fewer the number of people who should directly report to you.  In other words, a senior executive should have a narrow span of control, whereas a junior supervisor should have a wide span of control.

This makes no sense.  Here’s why.  It implies that low level supervisors are far better managers, capable of supervising more people than senior executives can manage.  Or it implies that the higher up you go, the less competent people become and the less mature they are, thus requiring more direct supervision.

Now tell me, which one applies in your organization?

I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

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Nonsense At Work

Leaders should fail early

How do you react to failure? Do you view it as the end of something or as the beginning of a new phase?

Do you accept failure as something that has shrunk you in some way, possibly because it has diminished your credibility and stature?  Or do you welcome failure because it expands you with new knowledge and experience?

If you answered yes to the second question in each case, then consider yourself a leader - or at least leadership material.

Warren Bennis, a long-standing authority on leadership, believes that the worst problem a leader can face is early success.  Why?  Because then there is no opportunity to learn from adversity and problems.  To become a good leader, you must first develop as an individual.  And that takes a couple of failures.

It’s best to fail often and fail early.  But even if you did not, don’t despair.  You’re never too old to fail... or to lead.

I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

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Nonsense At Work: Do something or get fired

This summer I read David McCullough’s book on the building of the Panama Canal. The book, called ‘The Path Between the Seas’, is as much about the engineering miracle as it is about the triumph of leadership and management.

The book has more than 600 pages, but one page still stands out in my memory. On this page John Stevens, the Chief Engineer for a number of years and for all practical purposes the CEO, makes the following point:

“You won’t get fired if you do something, you will if you don’t do anything. Do something if it is wrong, for you can correct that, but there is no way to correct nothing.”

Exactly. That’s the way to create miracles. Do something, fix it quickly if it turns out wrong and then learn from it.

Almost one hundred years later, many managers seem to promote the opposite view. No wonder business miracles are in short supply.

I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

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Nonsense At Work

Business is not a sport:

I dislike it when sports teams are held up as models for business teams to copy.  It is ridiculous for business teams to try to be like sports teams and it can be dangerous.  Here’s why.

Sports teams are trained for only one sport.  Team members know exactly which sport they’re playing, how to play it and which rules apply.  How simple.

Sports teams wear uniforms so that you can easily spot the competition.  They also introduce themselves as your competition before each game.  How polite.

Competing teams agree to respect the umpire.  Sports umpires tend to be very visible, very loud and very strict.  How reassuring.

Best of all, sports teams face only one competitor at a time, at a date and place agreed on well in advance.  How convenient.

In business you do not have these luxuries, which is why I think sports teams should study how business teams do it.

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Nonsense At Work

Encourage your pet pessimist:

Do you have a pet pessimist at work?  Good.  Every organization should have at least one.

Pessimists matter.  They enhance your decision making and protect your success by balancing overconfident optimists.

As always there is a price to pay.  Pessimists take more effort to manage and they exhaust everybody on your team with their negativity.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Here’s what I suggest.

Take your pet pessimist aside.  Tell him, or her, that you’ve noticed how, sometimes, the quality of decisions improve when he puts on his unhappy face.  Now ask for his help.  Say that what you really need is a fully-functioning devil’s advocate, not just an unhappy face.

What you want is someone who knows the art of releasing hot air without pricking the balloon.  This is a skill, not a dysfunction.  Pessimists thrive on dysfunction, so don’t feed the dysfunction by talking about it.  Instead, encourage and reward the skill.  Good luck.

I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

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Nonsense At Work

Please sleep at work:

Oh, the lazy, hazy days of summer.  The perfect time to sleep at work.  You’ve never done that?  In the good old days when I had a regular job I napped at work.  I was a bachelor then, but that’s not why I needed sleep.  I knew napping improved my productivity.

Today many researchers and even a few companies agree.  Taking a nap increases your performance.  Good for you and good for your employer.

But note this: You don’t really have to spend money on frills like nap-rooms with sleep-pods to get the productivity benefits.  The only change that is needed is a change in attitude, your attitude, to sleeping on the job.

Your people will always sleep on the job.  It is up to you whether they waste their creativity on napping surreptitiously for their own benefit.  Or whether they focus their creativity for your benefit because you support napping at work.

Now be quiet, I’m napping here.

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Nonsense at Work

Single-minded multi-tasking:

Have you heard the one about the Jack of all trades who became the master of none?  You have?  Then why are you still so keen on multi-tasking?

Multi-tasking does not work.  Mmmaybe it does. What I mean is that multi-tasking does not work very well.

No, that’s still not right.  Hang on, let me stop watching the news for a minute and focus on what I’m saying.   Here goes.  Multi-tasking works well enough if the outcomes of the different tasks that you are doing at once don’t matter much to you.

However, if the different outcomes do matter, then maybe you should give each task the single minded focus it deserves.

Single-minded focus can deliver two unexpected bonuses.  Not only are you likely to get each task done quicker, you tend to produce better quality outcomes as well.

However, if outcomes don’t matter to you, then by all means, talk and drive at the same time.  Drat, now I’ve missed the news.

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Nonsense at Work

The lack of power corrupts:

Power corrupts.  Or so we believe.  And yet, it is feeling powerless which truly corrupts.  Why?  Because people who feel powerless tend become dysfunctional.

Most organizations operate according to the notion that some people are paid to think and others are paid to do as they are told.  This approach empowers managers to demand that workers shut up and listen.  And it empowers workers to stop thinking on the job and to do nothing unless instructed.

Don’t assume that it is up to the people in power to break this spell.

Yes, society does expect responsible adults to help children improve their behavior.  But workers are not children, they are not really powerless and they are equally responsible.

Workers are responsible adults away from work and are therefore quite capable of being responsible adults at work.  As responsible adults they can choose not to be drawn into dysfunctional behavior triggered by power-corrupted managers.

Now that’s powerful!

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Nonsense At Work

Risk of knowing more than the boss

Do you realize that knowing more than the boss could cost you that new job?

A friend, let’s call him Pete, recently told me that he knew exactly when the decision was made not to offer him the new job.  Pete was having dinner as part of the interview process with the boss and another executive.  The other executive was aware that Pete had once worked in the wine industry and so he asked Pete to select the wine.  The problem was that the boss deemed himself to be the resident wine expert.

Pete was left with a simple choice.  Order a good wine according to his expertise or an inferior wine to stroke the boss’s ego.  Be dishonest to get the job or be true unto himself.

Years later the other executive acknowledge the reason why Pete did not get the job.

I drink a toast to you not being scared of hiring someone who knows more than you do.

I’m JamesMcIntosh@nonsenseatwork.com

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Nonsense At Work

Expressing gratitude breeds optimists

Children don’t seem to say ‘thank you’ any more in public.  This worries me.  Not because I worry about ‘values’, but because I worry about ‘expectations’.

Let me explain.  There are two meanings to the word ‘expectations’.  It can mean ‘looking forward to’ and it can mean ‘it is my due’.

Saying ‘thank you’ is a simple way of expressing gratitude.  If you are often grateful, then you will develop the habit of looking forward to the next good thing to come to you so that you can express your thanks again.

But every time you don’t say ‘thank you’, you break the link between receiving and acknowledging.  Soon you will have the habit of believing that receiving is your due.  And then, when you don’t receive as expected, you feel resentment.

The one habit breeds optimists and the other breeds pessimists.  I wonder, what habit have you developed?  More importantly, what habit are you passing on to your children?

I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com