Meet Bob. Bob is a 41 year old low-level manager at XYZ Corp. Bob is a decent guy. He is dependable at work. He always gets a decent performance review and earns decent pay increases. He doesn t shine, but hardly anyone at XYZ Corp does.
According to most studies you d find that the Bobs of the business world actually do about 2 to maybe 4 hours of actual work per day. The sad news is that many employees in today s world are Bobs. What s worse, the caliber of work produced by most employees is decent but never shines.
It gets worse though. You see the way that the hours of work produced by an employee are counted for these studies is purely based on how many hours they are actually sitting by their desk with their hands writing or typing on a keyboard or engaged in the physical activity of work. The true questions are: Are these employees really there when they are working? And if they aren t there are they really working?
Let s use Bob to demonstrate what I mean.
Bob is sitting at his desk. He slowly plods through his work on the database open in front of him. He is doing his work. But Bob isn t there.
You see, Bob has been fighting with his 16 year old daughter. She is getting out of control in Bob s opinion. She is dating guys she shouldn t, staying out late and coming home intoxicated more often than not. It is an unnerving experience for Bob and his wife.
Yes, we feel sorry for Bob s plight, but he is a professional and he should be able to focus when he is at work, right? Well, yes and no.
Yes, Bob may be able to focus enough on his work to go through the motions, but he is not fully engaged in his work. This is because when an emotional issue is not resolved, the mind will still be processing it in the background. This is akin to the slowdown your computer experiences when one program is processing data while you re also trying to do something in another program. Work, in the end, may pay the bills, but it doesn t break out hearts. And heart issues will always win out for our attention.
So what does this mean to XYZ Corp.? A whole bunch actually.
First, Bob isn t focusing as well as he could. This leads to more errors in his work, which means wasted time later on in the clean up process. Wasted time equals wasted money.
Second, since Bob is down emotionally he is working slower than he could. This leads to less production from Bob. Less production equals less income.
Third, Bob is afraid of what will happen with his daughter. When the human mind is in either fear or boredom mode it stops learning and adapting. So, the learning and adaptation that lead to progress in the job are none existent.
Learning and adaptation are essential to the streamlining of work processes, the expansion of capability for a job and the general adjustment necessary to work around temporary issues in the workplace (such as a computer malfunction or an air conditioning problem). Without this portion of his mind working, Bob is basically a robot. Brain-numb employees equal lost potential and capacity which equals more lost income.
Fourth, Bob can t release. Corporate culture teaches us to keep our personal lives personal. We are made to feel guilty for thinking about our personal life at work, and we are also supposed to not look for emotional support in the workplace. So Bob is becoming an emotional powder keg that can t pop. Plus he now feels GUILTY for being in this state at work - a double whammy. And Bob is now under massive stress, which is only adding to the problem.
So what? Why should you care about Bob?
Simple, YOU ARE BOB! We all are Bob!
Bob is a human being. All human beings have concerns, needs and issues. It doesn t take a promiscuous daughter to turn you into Bob. It can be a fight with a spouse, money woes, feeling useless, a flat tire, getting old, losing your hair, the heating bill Anything that can have an emotional impact on you and can draw your attention can turn you into Bob. Just by living we are all Bob.
So, even though Bob may show up today for 8 hours, he only engages in the activity of work for four hours, but he is only really doing two hours of work, at a speed and accuracy level that equates to only about 48 minutes of work. And as for Bob being creative or taking control and advancing the company s interests forget it.
Now, Bob is an extreme case. Nonetheless, even the best employees are really only producing 2 to 4 hours of work on a good day. Throw in a few Bobs and your averaging about 1.5 to 2.5 hours of work per employee. Not so hot, huh?
At this point, unless you re having a Bob moment right now, you should be asking how can I change this?
Well, the answer is good news and bad news.
The good news is that you can change this pattern. You can create a culture where employees are focused, engaged even happy in their work, which increases productivity and profitability. You can create an environment that fosters continual learning and adaptation which leads to increased profitability. You can create an environment that encourages the sharing of personal issues, thereby allowing employees to release stress, get useful feedback and return to their work reinvigorated. Additionally, the reduction of stress has the added benefit of reducing employee illness and healthcare related expenses.
Now for the bad news which isn t really bad news. Your company has to commit to a paradigm shift. Your company has to detach itself from an old-fashioned, outdated and ultimately destructive way of doing business.
Simply, the status quo of business operation and conduct is based on concepts created in the 19th century. They may have been polished up and rearranged during the 20th century, but the premise is still the same: Boss says employee does, because boss knows best. Don t speak unless spoken to. If you have an idea, give it to your supervisor, so it can be lost or usurped. Don t enjoy yourself this is work! (I m sure you can come up with a lot more ditties if you try)
The fact is that we are in the 21st century and there is no going back. Today people live and die on the Internet. People are more in touch with themselves. People know there are more options out there for them. People have many more distractions. People have more concerns. People have a lot of stuff on their plates in truth they can t even see their plates anymore through all the stuff. But people also have far more potential than they used to, and in the end everyone wants to feel like they matter.
Simply, the human life is homogenous. People cannot simply switch parts of themselves on and off at will. But there are many systems and methods that can change the way people look at and relate to aspects of their lives. As a human improves his/her feelings about one area of their life, their feelings about the other areas will start to follow suit. Like the Japanese proverb says, A rising tide lifts all boats.
So, seek out programs that inspire your employees. Look for trainers and training methods that empower your employees in a personal way. Allow them to grow and then they will seek out programs to help them improve their skills, abilities, talents and contributions to the workplace. As long as you stick to only investing in training for skills that benefit the company, your employees will know that you don t care about them as people. Your company is only investing the bare minimum in them, and in response they only give the bare minimum back to the company.
However, when a company invests in someone s life and well-being the person is then endeared to the company. They create a strong bond with and commitment to the company. They begin to flourish. As they flourish they become more valuable to and profitable for the company. They harness not only their abilities as a team-member but they will also tap into their leadership and entrepreneurial potential. And as any small to mid-size business owner knows, an employee with leadership abilities and an entrepreneurial mind is worth their weight in gold.
This change in paradigm is a small step toward Business Optimization. Yet it is a fundamental and empowering change which by itself can produce massive improvements in the work environment, employee satisfaction, business operation and capacity, and business profitability.
And here is another amazing thing about the human brain, now that you know all this, you can t un-know it. You will no longer be able to look at your decent company with its decent profits and decent staff and decent (but slow) growth and think that there is no other way to do it.
Now that you know that there is a way to change the paradigm, empower your staff, massively increase productivity, explode creativity and start adding zeros to the end of your bottom line you will not be able to get it out of your head. You can try if you like, but this will be stuck in your head until you do something about it kind of like the way Bob s mind is stuck on the issue with his daughter
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