Three New "R's" for Success

This past week I caught a portion of a radio interview with Arthur Alexander, an economist at Georgetown University, who stated that Japan will recover quickly from the recent devastating earthquake and tsunami. The reason, he said, is because Japan has three things that are built into advanced modern economies: Redundancy, Resilience, and Robustness.  As Susan and I rode down the highway, we reflected on how important these three R’s are for success in any organization.

Redundancy

We usually think of a redundancy as something that is superfluous or unnecessary. In fact, the first definition in Dictionary.com supports that concept: “superfluous repetition or overlapping.” Look farther down, however, and see another meaning: “the provision of additional or duplicate systems, equipment, etc., that function in case an operating part or system fails, as in a spacecraft.” Redundancy, in this light, is preparing for an emergency to ensure the seamless continuation of production even if essential parts or players are unexpectedly removed.

Many businesses do themselves a huge disfavor by trying to avoid redundancies in an effort to reduce operating costs and increase profit margins. Whenever a major merger takes place, for example, redundant jobs are eliminated in an effort to streamline personnel costs. In difficult economic times, tenured workers (who, admittedly, usually have higher salaries and benefits) are offered early retirement incentives without taking into consideration the brain trust of experience they represent and without making sure someone else knows everything they knew before they leave. When the only person who knows how to do the job is suddenly unavailable, momentum is lost or production in that area comes to a screeching halt until the person returns or someone new learns to do the job.

Redundancy in your business or organization is not just a matter of having two people who do the same job. It is more a matter of contingency preparation. Redundancy might include such things as mentoring and preparing young leaders for succession. It could also be something as simple as keeping good backups of your essential files and correspondence. Redundancy, as Dr. Alexander pointed out, can be a good thing.

Resilience

Again, Dictionary.com comes to our aid in defining resilience:

“1. the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.

2. ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy.”

The opposite of resilience is resistance or rigidity. When managers take an attitude of “ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die,” they usually lead people on  a destructive path of resistance or resignation. (These are two R’s you probably would want to avoid!)

Resilience is the ability to deal with unexpected change and adapt to the new reality.  You build resilience by introducing change in increments and developing an ethos of embracing change for the better. In resilient organizations, frontline workers actually will introduce needed change.

Robustness

Robustness is associated with good health. Dictionary.com, what do you say? “Strong and healthy; hardy; vigorous.”

A robust organization will not suffer from a prolonged depressed morale. Even robust organizations will have setbacks when crises hit. The difference is, a robust organization will have built the resilience needed to recover and bounce back quickly. A sick organization, on the other hand, will have built up more resistance and rigidity that ultimately leads to another “R”: Rigor mortis.

To have a healthy and hardy organization, you need healthy and hardy personnel. Robustness is not only related to physical well-being. It also assumes emotional, spiritual, and psychological health. To be robust, the organization needs to build an ethos of its members caring for each other. That means coworkers looking out for each other. It also means supervisors taking a genuine interest in the welfare of their personnel. People throughout a robust organization will demonstrate their confidence that they are regarded as more than just expendable resources.

Hint to the Leader

Regardless of your position, you can help develop redundancy, resilience and robustness in the people who look to you for leadership. What can you do right now to start building the three R’s into your organization?

Hint to the Follower

The difference between building resistance or resilience starts with a personal decision. Decide right now to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Look for ways to make things better and find an appropriate way to share your thoughts with others.  

© Copyright Dr. Larry Gay, March 2011

"Lessons on Leadership and Followership"

http://mylead360.blogspot.com/

Don't Throw Training off the Train

When economic times get tough, one of the first things that goes out the window is the training budget. Such a knee-jerk reaction throws the organization into a downward spiral that is extremely difficult to reverse when the economy supposedly improves. Leaders often make the mistake of throwing training off the train, without realizing how important training really is. Training is not a benefit. It is not a luxury. Training is essential to any organization reaching its stated objectives, goals, mission and vision.  Throwing training off the train is like getting rid of the fuel makes the train run efficiently. 

Think about it. Your organization begins downsizing, laying people off, firing people who are not top performers, or enticing people to take early retirement. Then you put a hiring freeze on to curb personnel costs. The remaining employees are expected to pick up the slack and take on the responsibilities of the people who have left, but they are told there will be no budget for training to help them learn how to do their jobs better or improve productivity. The predicted results of all this?

·         Stress levels go up.

·         Productivity goes down.

·         Layoffs increase. 

·         Morale declines.

·         Some of the best performers start looking for other places of employment causing unwanted attrition.

·         The downward spiral goes on and on…

Looking for a Catchy Slogan? DON’T BOTHER!

As the organization begins to decline, some leaders mistakenly think the answer is in rallying the troops around catchy slogans, like: “Don’t work harder, work smarter.” Or “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” In response to that, the worker on the frontline is saying, “Yeah, right. The only problem is I now have twice the work with no more pay (or perhaps even a cut in pay) and there are still only so many hours in a day!”  As Deming pointed out in point number 10 of his 14 points, slogans do not address the causes of low quality and low productivity. They don’t motivate us to do better work. In fact, they can actually become the cause of serious relational problems in the workforce. Slogans have their place, but they cannot take the place of training. People need to be given tools that will help them increase productivity, relieve stress, and give them a sense of accomplishment, a feeling that what they are doing really makes a positive difference in the world. Slogans alone can never do that.

A few astute leaders know that training is not a luxury; it is a necessity—especially in difficult economic times. You might not be able to afford the cost of a large conference center with high-priced motivational speakers of great renown who come in to speak to large numbers of employees all gathered together in the same place, but that does not mean you cannot afford to continue to train your people. In this age of technology, it is possible to do more training than ever before at lower costs than ever before.

Webinars

Webinars, for example, allow people to sit in on a training session saving travel costs for the presenters and the participants. You can do a full two-day seminar with scheduled breaks for a minimal cost. Webinars can be presented one-on-one, to small groups or up to hundreds or thousands. And the sessions can be recorded for later viewing by other participants or reviewing.

Skype

Skype is a great way to give or receive coaching one-on-one or in a very small group by conference call.  And it’s free! If the coach is already someone employed by the same company, then you have no extra cost at all.

Tweet to Train

Or what about training on the fly? You can send out snippets of training in small, bite-sized nuggets throughout the day or week via Twitter, Facebook, or old-fashioned email.

Remember the Library

Hey, here’s a novel idea. Remember libraries? They still have books, videos, and a number of resources available for loan. Why not encourage your people to use their public library or libraries at local schools and universities. Some universities and graduate schools will mail books on loan to alumni.

Mentor/Coach

Assigning mentors or coaches can be another great way to carry out training. Assign every new personnel or new member of your organization to someone who will guide them in learning the ropes.

It really does not require you to think that far outside the box to discover ways to increase training at a time when “logic” might indicate cutting the training budget. Don’t throw training off the train. Instead, go against the flow and train more to increase productivity.

Hint to the Leader

·         Be sure someone has the responsibility to coordinate all training, making sure your people are on track to get the right tools to do the right things that will help your organization to reach the right objectives.

·         Think of three ways you can increase training opportunities for your team and others under your leadership.

·         Set some personal goals for self-improvement that will demonstrate a learning attitude to others who will follow.

·         Volunteer to mentor/coach new people joining your organization.

Hint to the Follower

·         Start a discussion group with coworkers to share best practices or ideas for improving productivity.

·         Think of three inexpensive or free training opportunities that you could suggest to your leader.

·         Volunteer to be a mentor/coach.

© Copyright 2010, Dr. Larry N. Gay  http://mylead360.blogspot.com/,   Mylead360@gmail.com