How to Increase Organization Productivity by Propagating Discipline

Each day presents a substantial challenge for professionals who are trying to manage their workloads, and that goes beyond the office. At home, they face personal obligations like kids and significant others who want more of their time, or the need to eat and sleep. Some would even like to brush up on their profession a little more. But as anyone knows these goals can sometimes be a challenge to reach.

The corporate mandate is to do more with less. Physically and mentally, professionals are becoming disheveled. Employees are burning out from consistently working 12+ hour days and weekends. Executives have taken some strides to remedy this, such as:
Developing best practices (i.e., processes, standards, etc.)
Getting the best technology money can buy
Hiring experienced employees

Management has also gone so far as to invest in a variety of team-building exercises in an attempt to promote teamwork and motivate the staff, hoping they would see an increase in productivity.

When all is said and done, the staff is still not performing at the level required in order to provide a satisfactory level of productivity. So what's it going to take? The traditional ways of dealing with staff, i.e., communicating regularly, offering incentives, challenging people, delegating responsibility, etc. help, but only a bit. To build a competitive organization you need to follow these three steps:

Assess the Organization

Senior management should have a consultant facilitate an organization assessment focusing on people and process. This assessment will provide pertinent data such as:

Organizational issues and challenges
Analysis (profiles) of key individuals in the organization
A gauge of the staff's overall quality of life
Insight into the culture and political climate
A determination of the effectiveness of key processes
A list of the obstacles and challenges

The interviews for the assessment should be kept to 45 minutes and should only focus on people and process related issues.

Facilitate a Strategic Workshop

The best way to develop a strategy to address the issues outlined in the assessment is to facilitate an offsite planning and roadmap development workshop. This workshop shouldn't be one of those typical offsite management-planning sessions. The program should be designed to bring key contributors--staff and management from all areas of the organization--into one room to brainstorm the issues, prioritize the issues, and develop a strategy and roadmap that will resolve many of the issues. The roadmap should be an action plan with associated milestones and clearly noted responsibilities with due dates for everyone.

The workshop should be comprised of three days of off-site, structured, facilitated exercises and focus on people and process issues. Key members of your organization participate on different days. The workshop should be divided into three Day sessions:
Day 1: Key management
Day 2: Key staff representatives
Day 3: Joint planning session

The management and staff session (Day 1 and Day 2) objectives should be to:

Communicate the process and the objectives of the workshop.
Identify detailed business issues, initiatives, and drivers.
Identify people and process issues.
Identify details of the current organization, its history, and evolution.
Discuss and brainstorm issues and potential solution strategies.
Organize, categorize, and prioritize the brainstormed issues.
Design an action plan to resolve the issues.

The joint planning session includes representatives from both management and staff, who work together to integrate the plans developed during the previous sessions into a single, cohesive plan, which is presented to the executive sponsoring the workshop. Key workshdeliverablesles should include:

Preliminary migration approach
Identified opportunities for improvement and recommended solutions
An action plan developed by the workshop participants
Across-the-board buy-in of the action plan

Non people-related issues are typically easier to resolve. People-related issues require much more effort, therefore I introduce the Discipline Mentoring Program.

Institute a Discipline Mentoring Program

Staff can't always rely on management for support and motivation. So they need to be mentored to be able to motivate themselves. Focus on the people by implementing a program, which empowers employees and management to become more productive in their careers, which will spill over into their personal lives as well. Help your staff acquire discipline. Discipline is the defining element in your life. With it you can achieve almost anything; without it, you will struggle to exist.

Phase I: Evaluation - This phase includes an in-depth interview with each employee who will be involved in the discipline mentoring program to gain knowledge of every aspect of his or her career and personal life. Here you would:

Determine sensitive areas [for example, the individual may have difficulty with time management or thinking strategically]
Determine from customers, co-workers, peers, and direct reports which areas they feel needs improvement
Ascertain what the employee wants to get out of the program. What are their goals for their career and personal life?
Shadow the employee in meetings, giving presentations, interacting with direct reports, management, etc.
Analyze current priorities (career and personal)
Analyze daily and weekend routine (personal and career)
Establish base-line metrics

The consultant and the employee will compile and summarize data. The consultant will have a heart-to-heart discussion with the professional, conveying the message that this is the last opportunity to resolve the issues, that if he or she fails, the consultant fails. They should together determine which areas are feasible to address and which ones are not.

Phase II: ActiPlanDevelop
Develop an action plan
Identify themes. Structure data into themes and subsequently categories, with each category being a problem statement
Develop an action plan to address the problem
An action plan would include jointly developing tasks with milestones/dates for each problem

Phase III: Discipline Mentoring

It's time to officially begin coaching. Determine an appropriate schedule based on current job responsibilities. Monitor their progress (or lack thereof) with one-on-one meetings, unlimited e-mail, and weekly phone calls.

Phase IV: Post Discipline Mentoring Program - Closure discussion with sponsor and employee:

To recap process
To review action plan and accomplishments
Check to see if there are any new issues that need resolution. Did individual meet expectations
To discuss next steps (if applicable)