Over Assigning And Delegating Work - Part 3

Happiness and Productivity (and other thoughts)

As always, GREAT podcasts!  After a vacation and the end of our fiscal year, I'm getting back into the habit of listening (and reviewing premium content).

I found the three podcasts on Over Assigning intriguing.  I totally agree that managers often fail to delegate and hence miss opportunities to develop employees.  I chuckled as I thought of employees who complain of being "overly busy" while spending hours on Facebook, personal email, online shopping, etc.

I also did some deep personal reflection.  I am one of those people who works 60+ hours a week and the majority of this is "great work" (stealing from Michael Bungay Stanier's work and podcasts on "Doing More Great Work").  And, yes, I keep fairly compulsive time logs and spreadsheets and know where my time goes.  I'll probably benefit by thinking about my work and how it relates to overall strategy and organizational goals.

Great managers know their people from one-on-ones, coaching, etc.  They know when assigning more will develop and when it could potential (and metaphorically) "kill" employees.  I suspect listeners were thinking about employees who fall in each category, and hopefully thinking about the "too busy" employees who could benefit from over assigning as well as those who might focus on work-life balance (I know Mark, work-life balance doesn't exist - grinning).

One challenge:  While I agree that in most cases productive workers are happier, there is a fairly strong body of research supporting that happy workers ARE more productive.  (For example, see "The Happy-Productive Worker Thesis Revisited," Journal of Happiness Studies, Zelenski, Murphy, & Jenkins, 2008.)  While I used to scoff at the "positive psychology" literature, I recently read Shawn Achor book "The Happiness Advantage" which includes data on happiness and work.  I believe that happier workers are more engaged, engagement is related to productivity, and organizational culture and climate are probably positively correlated with workplace happiness.  (See also "What Happy Companies Know," by Baker, Greenberg, and Hemingway, 2006.)  Trust me I'm not big on "warm, fuzzy" stuff, am a hard core behaviorist (well, cognitive behaviorist), but am increasingly impressed with the literature being generated on happiness and productivity.

Just some thoughts and thanks for the great resources, material, podcasts, etc.

Ed

Intriguing

 Wow, intriguing that is a good word for these three pod casts on over assigning.  I had to hear them twice to fully comprehend them.  First time I listen I though: "This can´t be right!", then that moved to: "Ok, you are right AGAIN!", to: "This is really great staff".

I could see the greatest in it within the context of all you other 400 or so podcasts.  This series of podcast should come with a warning: "Not for first time manager-tools user." or "Not to be used in isolation from all the other tools." or "Too be used in combination with all other tools, specially the trilogy: O3`s, feedback and coaching."  And for High C´s boss it should not be listened to without first listening to the "High C Manager Simple Downfall".

The combination of (i) over correcting high C boss; (ii) inexistence or poor performance indicators; and (iii) over delegation and a perfectionist high achiever direct is recipe for disaster. Managers have to be really tuned-in with their people to not over due it. Keep taking the golden eggs from the golden duck and it will eventually stop giving you the golden eggs. 

I used to play the clarinet, I used to spend hours playing it, but at one point I decided I was better in engineering than in music (I was doing both) and I quit. The day I quit my teacher told me: “But you were doing so well.” And I thought to myself: “Why didn´t you tell me this before!” He didn´t because he was pushing the best out of me, and he indeed was, but I was also doing the same up to the point I overdid it. I never played again, and it is not that I didn´t like it, it is just that calculus was easier for me and I thought I was better in calculus than in music. 
 
While I do think people are themselves responsible for finding their own limits and their own emotional stability that gives them the sense of work-family balance, nothing wrong with managers giving a hand. 
 
I will give another very common example, for reflection; not to not do what you advice on this podcast series, precisely to do it, but to do with love, as you have more than once mentioned on your podcasts: 
 
Take a higher achiever, perfectionist professional woman, who cannot say no, who is used to always having to prove herself better than the man, and who for whatever reason demands more from and is actually harder on her self than anybody else is. This same woman now has a baby and suddenly this baby takes a big portion of her time. Within three months, and in the US is even worse as it is less time, this woman (and as a matter of fact her boss and her peers as well) has to make the adjustment of what she was used to achieve at work and what she can achieve now. She has not stopped being a higher achiever, but she is sleeping less and interrupted hours, she is breast feeding, she cannot just concentrate at work and forget about everything else or she will surpass the hour to go pick up the baby, and she wants to spend time with her baby and see the baby grow. She still likes work, and she is good at it, and the company is better with her than without her. The boss continues to assign the same amount of work to her as before the baby, she continues to take the same amount of work, and gradually she starts getting the feeling of being frustrated, of not doing anything right and good enough anymore, of not being as good a professional as she was used to and not a good mom either. 
 
Don´t get me wrong, I am not saying do not over assign work for this woman, this is actually even worse, but do it paying special attention to the podcast number three, listen to this one more than once to fully comprehend it, specially the last 15 minutes. There is a comment on the forum someone saying: “I cannot come to by boss for prioritization, because my boss really expects me to be able to prioritize it myself.” Nothing can be further away from the truth than this one. Manager´s have information directs do not have that they use to prioritize. I have seen so many bosses that over assign, do not help on the prioritization and then make people accountable for the one thing the direct delegated to the floor and do not even recognize the other 20 they have accomplished. 
 
I used the example of a woman who has a baby, as it is very common. But I have seen similar situations happening with man and woman. As much as we would like to, and in fact professionalism requires us to do it, it is very difficult to separate the personal life with the professional life. At times, people will go through personal issues, phases in their life, which may decrease their productivity at work for a while. I think the world would be a better world if bosses and directs were more tuned in and sincere about this and workout together something that, given the new circumstances in a persons life was convenient both for the person and for the company in the short and in the long run. To demand that somebody works this out all on her/his own is a bit cruel, unnecessary and counter-productive in my opinion. 
 
Ed, I can do nothing else than reflect on your comment: "Are productive people happier or are happier people more productive."  I have seen both.  I have felt happy for being productive and I have also become less productive for being unhappy.
 
Nara

Spot on Nara

Nara, I so agree with your comments.  AND, agree that a "Not for New Managers"  and "Know Thy Management Trinity Plus 1 Before Proceeding" warning might be especially important.

Ed

Not over assigning work is detrimental

Thanks for this series of casts.  You've effectively shown how protecting your team from too much work is detrimental to the development of your directs and that the only way to effectively reduce waste is to stress the system with more work.

Craig