Chris Danielson makes a comment on my last post: Work is Personal... Trust Matters
I'm not so sure it's about trust. Why was there a need for the tracking systems in the first place? I'd bet it was a lack of personal accountability and active management of poor performers by management. It's much easier to say your taking 20 min breaks and not hitting the 300 stroke performance indicator than it is to have a conversation about attitude and behavior. It's eliminating the need for constructive improvement and personal accountability.I believe trust and relationships are built upon accountability. I also believe that a lack of management and leadership accountability for the performance of their employees signifies the beginning of the end for that organization.
Chris, you bring up two great points:
1.) It is easier to tell someone they're not hitting their numbers than it is to talk about attitude, behavior and personal accountability
2.) Management is indeed to blame... but perhaps not for the reason you specify... let me explain what I'm thinking...
Tying those two points together:
I don't think it is managements job to motivate people - I think it is everyone's responsibility to self-motivate. "Leaders" should be in the business of helping people to do this. As a friend of mine has said: Leadership isn't about inspiring others. Leadership is guiding others to self-inspire.
Most organizations do a lousy job of connecting the required actions of their employees to a meaningful outcome - Or, as Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations: "If man is not asked of his work to exert his understanding, or his invention when presented with challenges, then he generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become."
Think about my friend who works in the collections department, they've set financial targets for him to hit, $2 Million a month as one example. But what does that do for my friend? How is he improving the world by collecting $1 million or $5 million? So, what we end up with is people who spend all day calling people and trying to get them to send money. Not a job most people would want. There is no relationship that exists and the collections departement starts the discussion as an adversary, not a friend.
But how do you improve the situation? Well, for one thing, stop making the collections department an afterthought - a team equipped with brass knuckles and finacial targets.
Why not give the "collection" requirement to an account management team who are the same people who opened the account, and the same team that the customer would go to for service. This way, it is not 40 hours a week of begging for money - a job that can't be easy to connect with from the outset - have the team be a guide for the customer. Holding the customers hand through good times and bad. Coming to work becomes much easier because the employees aren't following the "parade" scooping poop.
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