Having been in a managerial capacity as a functional manager
and having led several complex programs and projects as a project manager in
many industries, I have seen challenges from people on work life imbalance and from
organizations for maintaining business productivity by doing more with less. However,
in my experience, the percentage of the population that seek continuous growth
pursuing the professional certifications or attending the networking events or conferences
is slim.
Having taught more than 150
classes through various academic institutions for adult learners, I observe
learners missing classes because the academic institutional policy allows
missing 20% of classes or accepting a “C” in their courses as that guarantees employer
compensation. So, why should organizations invest in people that won’t
invest in themselves by integrating their professional and personal life by
managing time to acquire knowledge? By the same token, how could organizations allow mediocrity with a "C" and expect stellar performance? Aren't the organizations then enabling a behavior that allows individuals to be satisfied with the knowledge in their chosen fields that doesn't scale with the growth?
Remember that the growing organizations in the future will
no longer be characterized by 8 to 5 jobs but will require one to be digitally connected. So, waking up to reality to know the
demands of your profession is critical for career success. In this blog, I
present three simple and powerful principles that I have found useful. I would
like to call them “Extreme Productivity” unleashing people’s energy towards
what the organizations are going to be looking for in the future amid growing business challenges so that the value the individuals add becomes indispensable.
Principle #1: Look
for a role and not for a job
You interview for a job and so getting a job offer is just
the beginning. But, if you continuously do what you in your job, you continuously
get what you get. Will the same
compensation and career challenge keep you satisfied? Even if you say, “yes,” because
of personal challenges, comfort zone, or unwillingness to change, will that be
good for the organizational growth that provides for you? The organization is constantly changing to meet
the market conditions and so the conditions under which one got a job can no
longer be the same. When the economy shifts and the organization sees the need
for sustaining growth with competitive high performers, they look for those that
have already proven their multifaceted skills in the organization. It is not
time for them to skim the individuals resume for past experiences because
current performance paints an accurate picture. They look for those that
exceeded their job responsibility and went the extra mile. These members succeed
because they look around, prepare themselves early, and take on a role to make
themselves useful. This is not a role given by the organization but assumed by
the individuals,
Principle #2:
Business Impact is measured by results and not the efforts
Sometimes, the business may demand someone to put in more hours.
But, from a business perspective, long hours don’t always mean more
productivity. It may also mean that you are not doing your job efficiently or
expanding the work to fill the time. If ambiguities in task, missing analysis
in backlog grooming, lack of adherence to process control, or deficiency in the
required knowledge domains surface to the organization, then, one is not only
wasting their own productivity but also that of others. Depending on your role,
the earlier principle will be extended so that you are becoming efficient by analyzing
the market for latest trends and being ready, investing in a tool that the
businesses use, learning about the trends being used in your practice to make
you more success-friendly, or setting effective time management practices for
yourself to manage personal and professional balance.
Principle #3: Pack
value in your day for the team
Everyone must have heard the saying about seeing things from
others point of view. Those that really look at productivity will focus first
to ensure that other’s time is not wasted. For instance, should the people
copied on the email be copied, are those meetings necessary, will that person
receiving the task know what to do? When the other person is more
productive and you are not, you have just created a producer-consumer imbalance.
One can avoid this imbalance and other’s dependency on them by first planning the
day others will need those deliverables. This will add time to our schedule.
By putting a timebox around activities on what takes less than 10 min, 15 to 30
min, more than 60 min, etc., one can start addressing these tasks efficiently.
Readers are advised to an earlier post on Scrumban approach (Rajagopalan, 2014)
on personal productivity.
In the end, any professional must be productive to some
extent. Everyone believes that they are worth more in money and
career status. If this is true, then everyone should understand that their
value to the business should always exceed the economic value the business can
derive. When that happens, the business will always find new ways to benefit
from your talent. The only way to satisfy this equation is when one can be “extremely
productive.” In today’s digitally expanding, virtually global, and multicultural
distributed workforce, one’s value is constantly challenged every day that can
only be addressed by a continuous improvement mentality. Are we ready to take on
this challenge?
How well do you relate to these principles? Please share your thoughts.
References
Rajagopalan, S. (2014). Adapting Scrumban to Personal Productivity. Retrieved from http://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2014/10/adapting-scrumban-to-personal.html
