Get People to Do What You Want
Ensure that Your Employees Will Work on the Most Important Things
Assign people the right amount of work and they will do what you want; give them too much or too little work and they will do what they want. (Quinn's Law)
In today’s competitive world, most investors and owners have many choices as to where they can employ their capital, and a typical customer has many places where he can take his business. This fluid environment exerts great pressure on business leaders and their subordinate managers who must respond by accomplishing more than ever before, using reduced resources – in less time. These conditions have spawned an array of methods and approaches that hard-pressed leaders employ to keep their noses above water and, in a few cases, achieve superior performance.
These methods range from Management by Objectives (MBO), Decision Matrix (DM), Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, Business Process Management (BPM), and Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) to outsourcing, restructuring, and downsizing. All of these approaches are only as good as the people that lead and implement them. The road to success is littered with the debris of expensive programs that consumed valuable corporate resources, only to fail because management was not fully committed, workers obstructed or undermined the change, or because the money ran out.
The Problem with Change
Too often, leaders who implement these types of initiatives overlook human nature. When faced with the choice of what to do, most workers will choose that which benefits them, avoids pain, is interesting, or easiest to do. In other words, people will work on what they want to do unless they have no choice.
Activity vs. Action
If leaders want their people's performance to soar, they must be able to differentiate between activity and action. Unless they provide workers with strong “wings” they will see performance plummet due to the “gravitational pull” of self-interest. Do your people too often engage in the activities below, instead of actions that contribute to outstanding performance?
· Hours surfing the 'Net and/or handling, answering, and filing emails each day
· Scheduling a meeting, a call, or a trip and believing it is an accomplishment
· Using company time and equipment for personal purposes
· Doing nothing – gossiping, taking long breaks, and “inventing” work
How to Ensure Your People Do What You Want
As a leader, you are responsible for how your people spend their time and what they accomplish, but before you can decide what to have them do you must make certain they will do the work. Here is one simple rule you can follow to take this first important step to seize control and get your people to do what you want.
“Assign people the right amount of work and they will do what you want,
Give them too much or too little work and they will do what they want.
-- Quinn’s Law
When you assign people exactly what they can handle and insist that they do the work, they will have little time to do anything but that work. Don’t be afraid to stretch them a little – that’s how they’ll develop.
The alternatives to Quinn’s Law are both bad:
- expand to fill the time – reducing productivity
- selectively completed only to “look good”
Once you have determined how much work people can handle, then assign the most important and appropriate tasks to each person and eliminate any tasks that don’t contribute to organizational goals. Balancing workloads can quickly improve morale.
Remember, every failure is ultimately a failure in leadership!
