A recent National Geographic article explored sleep and some of the problems associated with lack of sleep.
Lack of sleep can be dangerous:
… Harvard’s Charles Czeisler. He notes that going without sleep for 24 hours or getting only five hours of sleep a night for a week is the equivalent of a blood alcohol level of 0.1 percent. Yet modern business ethic celebrates such feats. “We would never say, ‘This person is a great worker! He’s drunk all the time!’ ” Czeisler wrote in a 2006 Harvard Business Review article.
This finding matches up with what we’ve discussed about doctors. The problem gets hidden inside the data in the business world because the harsh measurements of death is absent; no one knows what would have happened to the Murphy account if the saleswoman had more rest. Plus, we don’t like to think about how lack of sleep impairs us.
The story I tell about lack of sleep is, of course, one from Ranger School. I think it was the last patrol in Florida phase, and I was the squad leader for a nighttime linear ambush. One of my team leaders was trying to tell me something, and he was literally falling asleep standing up, while he was talking to me. He’d drift off, stumble forward a step, catch himself, wake up, and keep talking. Amazingly I remember being wide awake at the time, and asking the RI about what you might do in just this situation. He basically said “you have to do whatever you can, because sleeping means dying.” Okay, he didn’t say the last couple words, but that lesson doesn’t have to be learned in today’s Army, not since Vietnam.
How might we put these ideas into practice? For one, if leaders delegated more fully to teams, then each team could function independently with the same task, conditions, and standards as the others (three sales teams covering the same region, for example). Let each team leader decide how to manage and lead her people. If the results are what matter, then let the results speak. Senior people shouldn’t get hung up on optics, particularly if the only reason is because it’s easier to count hours in the office than measure sales effectiveness or adjust for the quality of the leads.
So give your teams intentions-based guidance. Let the lowest-level leader decide how they’ll operate (in terms of schedule, responsiveness, mindset), and let the results speak for themselves once you gather enough data to smoke out the externalities that tough working conditions can create.
What is your number one fallback technique for taking care of your subordinates?
Tagged as:
employee,
leadership,
military,
productivity,
wisdom
A manager recently asked how he could go about reconciling his implementation of cultural changes that enhanced the teamwork of his department in the face of corporate-level directives that didn’t support, if not detract from, his plans. This manager did not understand why this company did not want to support his ideas and why employees, who seemed to like them as well, were reluctant to fully engage. I recognized these facts as presenting a great example of where the line is between leadership and management:
1. If the culture change doesn’t lead to better metrics, what’s the point for the business? The metric might be reduced employee turnover, but “engagement,” “excitement,” and “commitment” should all lead to some kind of improvement in productivity, customer satisfaction, or even revenue. And each of these should be connected to its actual impact on the free cash flow creation attributed to your corner of the business. If you don’t know what’s improving, you need to figure that out before moving ahead too much. In terms of reasons change is slow, almost as strong as “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is “if you’re gonna fix it, you better fix it.” Indeed, they’re probably two sides of the same coin, or maybe even the same side of the coin.
2. Employees need security. Unless you have control over their jobs, they, as you, have reason to fear changes that will inevitably, in their minds, be used to blame them for poor future results. If you want more power in this regard, put your job on the line and negotiate for more budget/P&L control. Put your compensation at risk, and then your employees may feel more open. The Ranger/Infantry version of this is “lead from the front.” Employees take their cues from the top, and there are lots of levels of “top” in a big company.
3. Companies don’t “get it.” They can’t, any more than the Army can “get it.” Parts of the Army get it (special operations) most of the time, but then you realize that even then, it’s about individual leaders. When lots of good leaders find and develop more good leaders, you get organizations that are set up for success, but that’s just opportunity, not a guarantee. So if you get it, then you bring your team along bit by bit and show them “the Mark way” and why it’s better, demonstrably better, than what they were doing before. (NB: this ties to the “what metrics are improving?” point.)
My personal “favorite” leader, the one guy I will follow anywhere if he tells me it’s important , says it very clearly: you lead people, you manage things.
(For those who might not understand the Army, here’s a more famous version of the same thing: be the change you wish to see in the world.)
Tagged as:
culture,
employee,
leadership,
organization
