Productivity up, Sick Leave Down

For years and years I have been speaking and writing about the need to blend human needs with business needs. The need for leader managers to connect with the people who work for and around them; to communicate, to embrace diversity, to create an environment that enables people to be self motivated and to use their strengths, whilst still paying attention to structural elements like vision, systems and processes.

I know the difference it makes because I lead and managed teams in that way myself in the 90s and 2000s. Since I began helping other business leaders to do the same I have been very poor at recording the changes. So this last week I was very excited when a client laid beautiful evidence in my lap to share.

I met ‘Paula’ last year when she participated in a workshop I facilitated at The Lean Summit in Cape Town. Afterwards she contacted me to arrange coaching.

Her words to me were something like this, “The company has invested a lot of time and money in me. They sent me on a year long management programme and I got the top marks. I have lots of tools but I still don’t feel I know how to manage teams, especially the more senior people. I want to admit my real weaknesses and work on my EQ. I have just taken over a new team and I want to implement all that I have learnt.”

'Paula' already had great skills in the structural and operational components so we were able to concentrate on the aspects of managing the team that she was unsure of. Knowing that she had a sounding board gave her the confidence to implement many of her own ideas whilst questions or observations from me helped her to tweak the things that weren’t quite on track.

Whilst 'Paula' has been making changes to help her team do their best work she has also been tweaking her own working style to ensure her strengths are being well utilised and that she is doing her best work.

 This month her team nominated her for a leadership award.

You can see from the words in the nomination that she has earned respect, they feel valued and she communicates well; all aspects of creating good people connection. It is evident that this has improved the team cohesion and the work ethic.

Shortly after 'Paula' introduced the daily stand up meetings (mentioned in the motivation above) she was going on leave for a few days. The team approached her asking if they could hold the meetings themselves in her absence. Clearly this team is also on its way to developing a good productive culture; an important component so that the work continues even without the manager being present.

After hearing about the leadership nomination I asked 'Paula' what the productivity statistics were like as these had been a problem for the first few months. Her response was “all team members are now stepping up and delivering above target.”

The actual figures show that the average personal completion rate, year to date (ytd), has increased by 59% compared to the period before 'Paula' took over. Being ytd it includes the early bad months so the most recent months are up by much more than 100% - truly amazing. And since the team and 'Paula' settled into their new way of working sick leave has decreased by 76%.

All the changes that 'Paula' introduced are small, some are subtle. Each one on its own may seem insignificant but the difference they make together is definitely significant.

Apart from not taking unnecessary sick leave no-one is working more hours than they used to. They are simply being enabled to bring more of themselves to their work.

In seven months this team has shown both individual and team growth as well as huge bottom line improvements. Improvements that are sustainable because they are based on a strong foundation of people centred management.

What would it mean to your team, department or company if you could have a happy group of people producing 50%, or a 100%, more than what they do at present?

Would it be worth experimenting with some small changes in how you and your managers interact with your people and create the environment in which you all work?