FEMI TAIWO: Secrets of Winning at Work (III) – Simplify
STRATEGY WITH FEMI TAIWO ON MONDAY
Michael is a first class chemical engineering graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, and a PhD holder in same discipline from the University of Arkansas, United States. He works in a multinational energy giant in the United States.
We began this year discussing the secrets of winning at work. So far, we have classified work in three different categories: grunt, value-added and personal initiatives. Successful workers spend more time creating and less time drudging through grunt work. Next, we learned about how to eliminate unnecessary work altogether. Successful workers eliminate unnecessary work by questioning its relevancy to profits and leveraging comparative advantage.
The next step after cutting out the fat of grunt work is to simplify what is left. I once asked a friend what he does at work. “I don’t know,” he joked. When he saw the quizzical look I wore, he labored at an explanation but by the end of the chat it was plain to both of us that he was only half-joking when he replied that he doesn’t know what he does when he shows up at work from 9 – 5 every day. I suspected he was not an outlier so I asked more people about their jobs. The result shocked me: many people don’t really know what they do.
Given enough time to reflect, they can give a breakdown of their work day but they cannot confidently say whether or not what they do is their job. To cite an example, I asked another friend to write down his typical day at work. This is what he shared with me.
| Time | Activity |
| 6:30am – 7:00am | Get into the building; start the computer; prepare coffee |
| 7:00am – 8:00am | Meetings |
| 8:00am – 9:30am | Read and reply to emails |
| 9:30am – 11:00am | Follow up on different tasks; Learn from experienced folks; Teach younger ones |
| 11:00am – 12:00pm | Lunch |
| 12:00pm – 1:00pm | Coffee; Catch up with various colleagues on various issues – both personal and professional |
| 1:00pm – 2:00pm | Read different industry/company related news and information; Comment as appropriate |
| 2:00pm – 3:30pm | Prepare reports; Make phone calls; (To be honest I don’t really know); More meetings? |
| 3:30pm – 4:00pm | Send emails; Go home |
As you can see, he could reasonably tell me how he spends his work day but he was less clear when it came to what he does. He could not connect what he does to what the company is about. The thread linking his activities to the company’s bottom line is invisible.
Corporations do a poor job of letting employees see how they affect the whole. That’s unfortunate. The key to a motivated and engaged workforce is to let people know that they matter, that their work counts. What people want more than a paycheck is a sense of meaning. Companies do a disservice to their associates anytime they fail to do the glorious task of converting corporate missions to individual mandates. Sorry, I digressed.
Eliminate unnecessary work and simplify what is left. Many people cannot articulate what they do. If you cannot clearly state that ‘I’m responsible for A, B and C’ and/or ‘I’m accountable for X, Y and Z’ then your work needs simplification. If your job duties are not well defined, seek clarification. It’s as simple as speaking up: “I know I’ve been in this role here for a while but I’m really not clear on what I’m accountable for. At the end of the day, what deliverables are you expecting from me?” Get the answer in writing. If a question ever comes up about performance, you can point to the documented conversation and say, “We agreed on X, Y and Z and I delivered it.” So the first step to simplification is clarification of expectation.
Once it is clear in your mind – and on paper – what is required of you, you can have a definite plan. You can put a structure around the way you work. Sometimes during simplification, you may see more work that needs to be eliminated (oh, so archiving those folders isn’t my business). Eliminate them. And continue to simplify.
The output of the simplification process is SMART goals. Clear expectations result in goal setting. The beauty of goals is that they simplify. A well-defined goal gives energy and direction. It gives a sense of purpose. It unclutters. Goals simplify decision making. Goals eliminate waste. They enable us to stop wasting effort on the irrelevant and start investing time on the important. Goals put the employer and the employee in a condition to win.
Summary: Most people can’t describe their work well. We need clarification of those duties so that we can simplify. When we have clarified our duties we are then able to set smart goals. Goals help us eliminate and simplify and this puts us in the position to win at work. The next step in gaining efficiency at completing grunt work is to standardize the simplified work – our next topic.
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Someone asked me what SMART goals is: It means S = Specific; M = Measurable; A = Achievable; R = Realistic and T = Time-bound. An example will be: I want to lose 5 pounds by December. It is specific (lose weight), measurable (5 pounds), achievable (people do it all the time), realistic (for most folks) and time-bound (by December).