Make your Team more Productive
by
Barry Glauberman
Glauberman & Associates LLC
By making a few easy, yet very important adjustments to your organization’s work processes, you can greatly increase your team’s productivity. Technology tools such as email and meeting scheduling software continue to enable increased business productivity. Sales, marketing, customer care, finance, R&D, HR, IT, and the legal functions have all greatly benefited from these technology tools. However, there are a few adjustments that can make your team even more productive:
Reduce email time. Email has been great for productivity over the past couple decades, however, due to large volumes, the amount of time now devoted to reading and writing email has increased dramatically. Never has it been more important to train employees on how to write concise emails. Also, limit the number of cc’s. Everyone doesn’t need to know everything. Given the length of the average email trail and the average number of cc’s, think about how many work hours can be saved simply by shortening emails and reducing cc’s, let alone eliminating superfluous emails.
Reduce meeting time. Meeting scheduling software is great. Or is it? It seems that one unintended consequence of using meeting software as the centralized tool for a company is a tendency for people to max out their schedules in order to show how “busy” they are. There is a tendency to allot too much time for individual meetings. Why not cut all meeting durations by 50%? How about cutting the number of meetings by 50%? Also, attendees often believe it is the job of the meeting requestor to “entertain” all attendees. Everyone would be better served if all attendees came prepared to add something to the meeting, otherwise they probably don’t need to attend!
Increase informal discussions. Allowing for more informal discussions can go a long way toward increasing productivity. Keeping your schedule “free” for portions of every day so co-workers, underlings, and supervisors can drop by for quick discussions can do wonders for keeping a task or project moving forward without tying up a block of time, let alone a meeting room.
Improve cross-functional relationships. A song from the classic musical Oklahoma! asks the question: “Why can’t the cowboys and the farmers just be friends?” Well, the reason was that they didn’t understand the mutual benefit of working together. Same is true in any company or organization. By reminding each other of the common goals for the entire organization, individuals will realize the mutual benefits of working to help one another, even if they are part of separate functions (e.g. sales, marketing, customer care, finance, R&D, HR, IT, legal, etc.)
Increase the entire team’s focus on shareholder value. One way to align everyone in an organization no matter what function, is through shareholder value. Some effort may be required to show how each member of the organization will benefit (either directly or indirectly) through increased shareholder value. Individuals must be shown what the drivers of shareholder value are, and how the things that they do can affect shareholder value. Individual goals can then be set accordingly, with rewards for increased shareholder value to be shared by all team members.
***
These are just a few adjustments that an organization can implement to make their team more productive. Let us know what other actions you think can be taken to increase team productivity.
*****
Glauberman & Associates LLC advises companies, investors, and government with particular emphasis on building financial and strategic plans and models, executing and integrating mergers & acquisitions, developing and implementing turnaround and restructuring plans and exit strategies, raising capital, and serving as interim management. Managing Director Barry Glauberman has over 20 years of experience in management consulting and industry. Barry has served as an investor, portfolio manager, and adviser for a $150 million corporate venture fund. He has significant experience in both the technology and telecommunications industries. Barry began his career as a management consultant with A.T. Kearney Inc. and Arthur D. Little Inc. serving Fortune 500 clients in a variety of industries. He earned an MBA in finance and marketing from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a BS in industrial engineering and a BA in economics from Rutgers University.
For more information please contact us:
703-264-9093 (office)
703-966-3911 (mobile)