Doing Less, Then Obsessing

My former colleague, Morten Hansen, has written a terrific new book titled, "Great at Work: How top Performers Work Less and Achieve More."   Hansen built a dataset of roughly 5,000 individuals from all levels of organizations, from the C-suite to the factory floor.  He examined their performance, as well as their habits, routines, and work practices.   In the book, Hansen describes seven principles that characterize the approach of top performers.

His first principle, and perhaps most interesting one, is "doing less, then obsessing." Hansen published an essay in the Wall Street Journal recently, in which he describes this principle. He writes, 

The common practice we found among the highest-ranked performers in our study wasn’t at all what we expected. It wasn’t a better ability to organize or delegate. Instead, top performers mastered selectivity. Whenever they could, they carefully selected which priorities, tasks, meetings, customers, ideas or steps to undertake and which to let go. They then applied intense, targeted effort on those few priorities in order to excel. We found that just a few key work practices related to such selectivity accounted for two-thirds of the variation in performance among our subjects. Talent, effort and luck undoubtedly mattered as well, but not nearly as much... In our data, people who focused on a narrow scope of work, and said no to maintain that strategy, outperformed others who didn’t. They placed an impressive 25 percentage points higher in the performance ranking—the difference between being a middling and an excellent performer.

Of course, setting priorities, and saying no to those things that are not priorities, can be extraordinarily difficult for many of us. We don't just work extra long hours to please our boss. We also take on too many tasks at times out of our desire to be collegial and to be viewed as a team player in the organization. We don't want to let our peers down. Sometimes we take on more work now, in hopes that our peers will reciprocrate when we ask for their help. The inability to focus can be costly though. It can diminish our productivity, increase our stress, and reduce the quality of the output that we create.

How Do We Deal (Dysfunctionally) with a Heavy Workload?

Diwas S. KC, Maryam Kouchaki, Bradley R. Staats, and Francesca Gino have written an HBS Working Paper titled "Task Selection and Workload: A Focus on Completing Easy Tasks Hurts Long-Term Performance." These scholars found that individuals choose to work on easier tasks when they experience heavy workloads. Why? People enjoy a positive feeling when they are able to complete a series of tasks in fairly short order. Thus, individuals choose to satisfy themselves by choosing to work on easier tasks when they have a ton of work to do. In the short run, that's a very productive strategy. They cross quite a few items off of their to-do list. However, the researchers find that this task selection strategy may have negative long term performance consequences. 

The study took place in the emergency department of a hospital. They studied over 90,000 patient visits to the emergency room over a two-year period. They found that doctors choose to work on easier patient cases when the ER is very busy. Naturally, they see more patients as a result of this bias toward selecting easier cases. In other words, short term productivity increases. However, the doctors may not capitalize on as many powerful learning opportunities if they always choose the easier cases. The doctors may not be as effective at tackling complicated cases if they work with those patients much less frequently. Indeed, the scholars found a negative long term effect on productivity if doctors exhibit this bias toward selecting easier cases when the workloads are high. 

What's the implication for all of us? Be careful before you simply choose the short-term satisfaction of crossing many easy items off of your to-do list. Think carefully about the long term benefits of tackling tougher tasks. It's a balancing act, of course. You probably should go after some of the low-hanging fruit. You just have to be careful that you don't spend an inordinate amount of your time there, and thus miss key opportunities for learning and improvement that come with more challenging work.

Should You Sit Next to a High Performer at Work?

New research by Michael Housman and Dylan Minor examines the impact of sitting next to a high performer at work.  They discover important "spillover" effects.  In fact, these spillover effects can occur in both a positive and negative direction.  Here's an excerpt from Kellogg Insight about their research:

Researchers looked at the 25-foot radius around high-performers at a large technology firm and found that these workers boosted performance in coworkers by 15 percent. That “positive spillover” translated into an estimated $1 million in additional annual profits, according to new research from Dylan Minor, an assistant professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School.

Of course, the flipside is that bad eggs impact their neighbors, too. Negative spillover from so-called toxic workers is even more pronounced—sometimes having twice the magnitude of impact on profits as positive spillover. Yet, while this toxic spillover happens very quickly, it also dissipates almost immediately once that worker is either fired or relegated to the far physical reaches of the company.

Time is Money: Does Thinking This Way Elevate Stress Levels?

Stanford Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer and Berkeley Professor Dana Carney have conducted some interesting new research on stress.  They examined the impact of thinking about the value of your time.   When we think of "time as money," we become significantly more stressed.  That's bad for us as individuals and bad for the organizations in which we work.  Stanford Insights summarizes the findings:  

Pfeffer’s most recent research, coauthored with Dana R. Carney from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrates the physiological consequences of the economic evaluation of time. Their study concludes that people who are keenly aware of the economic value of their time — people who think of time as money — generally are more psychologically stressed and exhibit higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol that do people for whom the economic value of time is less salient.

Why do stress levels matter?   Clearly, stress is not good for worker's health.  In turn, an individual's  health condition affects his or her productivity.   We don't want employees to experience burnout, both for their sake and for the benefit of the firm as a whole.  

Don't Eat Lunch at Your Desk: A Small Tip For Enhancing Creativity

Robin Camarote has a good article at Inc.com about a small change in our daily routine that can help boost our creativity and problem-solving effectiveness.   She argues against eating at your desk, and she notes that research supports her recommendation.  Here's an excerpt:  

Whether you run out and grab something from a restaurant or bring leftovers from home, about 40 percent of us eat lunch at our desks. Most of us do this because we believe we'll get more done. And if you're like me and often work from home, it might seem utterly ridiculous to sit down at the table to eat when there is no one to talk to and the computer and phone are just a couple feet away. I believe I'll get through more items on my to-do list if I multi-task.

But working through lunch only feels more productive. In fact, "...research shows that there are tremendous performance advantages to stepping away from your computer, and even more pluses if you can get outside. Taking a break from cognitively taxing work improves creative thinking," says Kimberly Elsbach, professor of management at the Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Davis, "and everybody's job has a creative component, such as problem-solving, managing teams or finding creative solutions." Not to mention taking a break from that steady stream of emails helps reduce stress and, in turn, helps keep you be healthier.

How Do You Enhance Instrinsic Motivation?

Jane Porter has written an article this week for Fast Company on the topic of intrinsic motivation.  Porter writes:

It's easy to hustle through our daily tasks, head down, focused on what's next on the long list of to-dos. But taking a step back to evaluate what really motivates and drives us is critical, not just for our well-being, but also, as research has shown, for our productivity.  Social psychologists call this type of drive "intrinsic motivation," or the desire and urge inside ourselves that propels us to do the work we do and do it well. While we're often motivated by external factors like pay, approval, or recognition, research has shown that intrinsic motivation is fundamental not just for our long-term happiness, but also for the quality of our work.

How can organizations enhance the intrinsic motivation of their employees?   I would urge managers to consider the lessons imparted by social psychologist J. Richard Hackman in his work on job design many years ago.  Hackman argues that five elements of job design have a strong impact on the intrinsic motivation of workers:  skill variety, whole task, task significance, autonomy, and clear and immediate feedback.   By skill variety, Hackman means that employees should not be performing the same monotonous task all day. They should able to use a range of their capabilities.   Whole task means that we cannot get carried away with the division of labor.  We should enable workers to be part of completing more than one minor step in a more complex task.  Third, workers need to understand the importance of their work.  What does it mean for the organization?  Sometimes we refer to this as establishing a line of sight.  Can workers see how what they are doing has impact throughout the firm, all the way to the customer?  Fourth, workers will be more intrinsically motivated if they have some autonomy in terms of how they do their work. Finally, employees need clear, constructive, and immediate feedback.  They need to know where they stand.   If you design the work in this way, you are likely to have workers who are more intrinsically motivated, and therefore, more engaged, satisfied, and productive. 

Does Variety Make Us Happier at Work?

Knowledge@Wharton reports on some interesting research by Wharton Professor Cassie Mogilner and Duke Professor Jordan Etkin.  They studied the effect that variety in your work affects your happiness.  In other words, do people prefer to work on many different things vs. focusing on one task?  Mogilner summarized their findings as follows:

It depends on the time frame. In [our research], we looked at the effect of variety of our activities on overall happiness. We found that over a day or a week or a month, variety — perhaps consistent with people’s perceptions — leads to greater happiness. However, over shorter periods of time than a day, such as an hour, 15 minutes [or a] half-hour, when variety actually does get experienced as multitasking, it actually becomes fairly stressful, and instead of variety increasing my happiness, it makes me less happy.

Does Working From Home Improve Productivity?

Stanford researchers Nicholas Bloom, James Liang, John Roberts, and Zhichun Jenny Ying have conducted an interesting new study regarding the benefits and costs of working from home.  The scholars conducted an experiment at Ctrip, a Chinese travel agency.  They randomly assigned call center employees to either work from home or work in the office for a nine month period.  What did they find?  Those employees who worked from home experienced a 13% performance increase.  A portion of that increase came from working more minutes per shift (i.e. they took fewer breaks and fewer sick days).  The other portion derived from taking more calls per minute.   The attrition rate for home workers dropped significantly in this study.  These workers also appeared more satisfied with their jobs.   Did quality suffer though?  It did not.  The home workers appeared to be more productive, while not sacrificing the quality of their work. 

Does this mean that home workers always will be more productive?  Not necessarily.   We have to be careful about generalizing these findings.   This study pertained to call center workers.  We may find that other types of work do not experience the same increases in productivity.  For instance, perhaps some forms of work require much more intense coordination among members of a team.  In those instances, home working may bring more challenges and may not lead to productivity increases.  It would be terrific to see a new study examining a different type of work. 

Attracting and Retaining Better Workers: Higher Wages Alone Won't Do the Trick

We have heard a great deal of commentary about the low wages paid to front-line employees in some industries, particularly the retail and restaurant sectors.   While politicians debate the merits of raising the minimum wage, some people point to the companies paying higher wages as a model.  They argue that these companies attract and retain more productive workers because they pay higher-than-usual wages.   For instance, people point to firms such as Costco, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods as examples.   I think that we have to be very careful about these arguments though.  These firms attract and retain highly productive, engaged employees for reasons well beyond the wages that they pay.  Yes, they pay their employees more than some of their rivals.  However, these firms also have built an entire organizational system that supports an engaged, productive, and collaborative workforce.  They have developed a culture that attracts talented people.  They have embraced certain values and principles.  They have articulated a sense of purpose that people find compelling.  They have developed managers and supervisors who know how to engage employees.   I could go on.  The point is simple: they have built an entire system that attracts and retains these workers, and helps them produce great value for the firm.   Paying someone a few bucks more without doing these other things won't have any significant effect on engagement, customer satisfaction, employee retention, or profits. 

Employee Turnover: The Consequences of Simultaneous Entry and Exit of Many Employees

Harvard Business School Professor Robert S. Huckman and his colleagues -  Hummy Song and Jason R. Barro - have published a new working paper about employee turnover.   They focused on what they call "cohort turnover" - i.e., the "planned simultaneous exit of a large number of experienced employees and a similarly sized entry of new workers."   In what companies and industries does this type of mass simultaneous exit occur?  Huckman and his co-authors focused on the turnover of residents in teaching hospitals.  That simultaneous entry and exit occurs in July each year at major teaching hospitals.  Experienced residents depart, and new graduates of medical school arrive. 

The scholars summarized their findings as follows:

"This annual cohort turnover results in increased resource utilization (i.e., longer length of hospital stay) for both minor and major teaching hospitals and decreased quality (i.e., higher mortality rates) for major teaching hospitals. Particularly in major teaching hospitals, we find evidence of a gradual trend of decreasing performance that begins several months before the actual cohort turnover and may result from a transition of responsibilities at major teaching hospitals in anticipation of the cohort turnover."

Do their findings apply in other industries?  The scholars suggest that this type of cohort turnover occurs in political administrations and military units.  I agree that the findings have interesting implications for those two settings.  It's particularly frightening to think about the impact in political administrations, as newly elected officials often try to enact major changes in their "first hundred days."  In other words, they are perhaps most active in establishing new policies during the precise period when resource utilization and output quality may be the lowest!  

Other industries experience this challenge, perhaps to a lesser degree.  For instance, the auditing, consulting, and investment banking businesses all hire large number of college and business school graduates each year.  At the same time, many young employees leave these firms to head off to earn an MBA.  Thus, summer turnover can be quite high in these industries.  I'm sure readers of the blog can find other industries who face this problem as well. 

Encourage Your Workers to Reflect on Their Work: Their Performance Will Improve!

Scholars Francesca Gino, Gary Pisano, Giada Di Stefano, and Bradley Staats have published an interesting new working paper titled "Learning by Thinking: How Reflection Aids Performance."  The paper describes a series of experimental studies conducted by these researchers.  In one study, they conducted a field experiment at Wipro, an outsourcing firm based in India.  The scholars worked with employees experiencing a multi-week training program.  They broke the employees into three groups.  First, they had a "reflection" group.  They asked these workers to spend the final 15 minutes of each day reflecting on what they had learned.  Second, they had a "sharing" group.  These employees spent 15 minutes reflecting, and then they shared their thoughts with a peer for approximately 5 minutes.  Finally, the control group did not engage in any closing activity at the end of each day's training. 

What were the results of this field experiment?   The employees in the reflection group performed 22.8% better than the control group on a test administered at the end of the training program.  The workers in the sharing group experienced a similar advantage over the control group employees. 

The results should not surprised you at all.   Some of you are probably wondering why we needed an experiment to prove the obvious!  However, think for a moment about the work that you and your colleagues do in your organization.  How busy is your typical day?   Have you set aside 15-20 minutes for reflection and sharing from time to time?  In many cases, we don't allocate time to this important activity.  Yes, we do it informally, perhaps during a drive home from work or while working out at the gym.   In many instances, though, we get so busy in the day-to-day work that we allow far too many days to pass while we are not reflecting and sharing appropriately. 

Avoid the Water Cooler Gripe Sessions!

Source:  WSJ from AFC Enterprises

Cheryl Bachelder, CEO of AFC Enterprises (they own Popeye's Chicken), sat down recently for an interview with Leslie Kwoh of the Wall Street Journal.  She offers some terrific advice to young professionals striving to achieve a successful career.  Here's an excerpt:

My career strategy was to work like a dog. If there was water-cooler stuff going on, I didn’t participate. When the company [RJR Nabisco] was being acquired, I said, ‘I’ll worry about that when it’s done.’ So I became a VP at 30; while everyone else was wondering what was going to happen next, I actually did work, produced results and developed people.  You can’t be a ‘Negative Nancy’ and create great things. I’ve watched mergers, acquisitions, breakups, sales, and all the lost productivity that comes with hallway conversation that does absolutely nothing for the company or your career. It’s just pointless.

Spot-on advice, if you ask me!  Executives should take a lesson from this interview as well. Major strategic events such as mergers and acquisitions, create a ton of water cooler conversation.   Firms experience a significant drop in productivity during these occasions.  It's no wonder that many integration efforts prove problematic.   Why does so much water cooler activity take place?  Often people gripe and complain because of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.  In the absence of information, they gossip, wonder, and worry. If there's an information vacuum, employees fill it! As a result, leaders need to share information proactively during these moments of uncertainty. They need to alleviate fear quickly, promote transparency, and get people focused on the key priorities ahead. If not, productivity will suffer.

Bouncing Back Productively from Vacation

I've just returned from a fantastic 11-day trip to France with my family, and therefore, I thought it would be very appropriate today to blog about strategies regarding the return to work after vacation.   Lydia Dishman has a terrific article on the subject at Fast Company's website.   Specifically, I thought she had several good tips related to email.   She cites several executives who recommend using the long airplane trip home or the evening before the first day back at work to chug through all those emails that accumulated while you were gone.   Second, Dishman describes a tip from Andrea Wasserman, an executive at Nordstrom.  Wasserman explains that one should take time after a vacation to "ask yourself some honest questions about your tasks and to-do list. 'What activities started to creep into your work day that aren’t a high return on impact or aligned to your strategic goals?'"  Finally, Wasserman also recommends trying to capture the key insights or ideas that came to mind as one relaxed on vacation.  Get those thoughts down on paper before they slip your mind! 

Is Telecommuting Effective or Not?

Christopher Shea of the Wall Street Journal reports on a new research study by E. Glenn Dutcher in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.  Dutcher examines the work of telecommuters through an experimental study.  He finds that their productivity depends on the type of work that they are doing.  If the work is rote and repetitive, then people tend to be more productive in the office than at home.  However, if they are performing creative tasks, then they appear to be more effective at home.   The evidence suggests that an informal work environment may be more conducive to creativity. 

I would add a bit more to this interpretation.  I think the lower productivity for rote work conducted at home may be accounted for by the fact that one has many other options for how to use your time at home.  If you have boring work to do at the office, you may be constrained in your ability to procrastinate while doing other more enjoyable activities.  On the other hand, when you are at home, there may be many more desirable activities that you can pursue instead of the repetitive work associated with your job.