How Managers can Boost Productivity

How Managers can Boost Productivity

🔥NEW In my view, managers can boost productivity by...
- Hiring the right employees.
- Making the best work (project) assignments.
- Rewarding performance in the right way.
- Promoting career development.

I think most of these are far from complete but here are some thoughts...

• HIRE THE RIGHT EMPLOYEES
  Meaningless on the surface, because at hiring, there is no way to completely assess someone's rightness. Every attempt to do this fails about 1/2 the time, and is only wildly successful a small part of the remaining 50%. Why? Because at the moment of hiring, there is too much you do not know.
  Once a team is in place, it has to learn to be a team, it has to identify strengths of each of the team members, and it is completely possible that the right hire, is not right on this team. There is a way to create a high performance team, but it is equally art and science, and it relies on the team members to apply themselves to both the art and the science. Getting along is not enough, participating is not enough, it has to become the how we work together for success mentality that will drive a team to success, each has to want the entire team to be successful. They have to come to realize that personal success comes from team success. An organization that promotes someone from a team that is unsuccessful, is asking for trouble, it does not matter how skilled or knowledgeable the individual is, without team success, that person will always be an anchor.
• MAKE THE BEST WORK (PROJECT) ASSIGNMENTS
  Again, do you create the project for the individual, or is the project serving the organization? Identifying your team contributors is important. But having the correct attitudes and interactions is more critical, because we can teach skills, develop skills, cross train skills, as long as our team strives for team success, and project success, and understands that those things are dependent on the entire team striving in the same direction for the same goal.
• REWARD PERFORMANCE IN THE RIGHT WAY
  Project success is the best reward for a performing team. It should be followed by incentives to work well together, and grow the individuals skills, it should be rewarded by recognizing contributors and helping them understand how their development as contributors, is something they have learned and earned, and then, when the individual performance is tied to the team performance and the team performance is tied to the project performance, then is when we recognize individuals with the right reward. Money, maybe, position, possibly, recognition, yes, definitely. Most people do not leave jobs because of the pay, they leave because they do not see anyway to stay, and grow.
• PROMOTE CAREER DEVELOPMENT
  Well, actually, being on a successful team is maybe the best career development path, helping them to grow in their knowledge, their skills, and their team consciousness, while giving them opportunities to lead, and to follow successfully. This is the best way to promote career development. If the leader of the project can recognize, mentor and develop the individual team members as a regular part of the team project day, this development will be demonstrated, and if it is demonstrated it will be recognized, and if it is recognized, it will be utilized, and if it is utilized, it will be a successful career development process.
  The best teams, are full of strong individuals, who recognize how much they know, and how much they need others to know too, so the project, the team, and the organization can succeed.