Autonomy ➠ Greater Productivity

One of the most often cited aspects that employees enjoy about their jobs is autonomy…the ability to perform their tasks in the way that’s most natural, comfortable and productive for them.

Years ago there was a concept called cognitive task analysis that attempted to standardize the way employees performed a task. Here’s a brief summary of the rationale for cognitive task analysis (CTA).

CTA rationale

As a manager, you identify the most productive people in a given job. Then you interview them to learn what makes them so much more productive than their coworkers. These interviews require the manager to drill deeply into how the employee performs the task because the initial answers would all be superficial: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4.

The employees aren’t being intentionally vague, it’s just that they perform the task so naturally that they don’t give much thought to how they do it. By drilling down and getting the employee to expand on each step, the manager discovers what makes that employee more productive than their coworkers.

Armed with this information, the manager then standardizes the process and educates their less productive employees on the new process. This improves productivity across all workers in that job. At least, that’s the theory.

CTA is great theory, but it was one of the shortest-lived concepts I can recall. The reason is that it ignores the individuality we humans possess. What works well for you, may be so unnatural and uncomfortable for me as to render me less productive. Here’s an example to illustrate my point.

Autonomy & individuality

Years ago a dear friend of mine, Lori St. Clair, On Target For Profitable Growth, and I did a joint presentation on planning.

Lori is a very detailed planner. She creates spreadsheets outlining the various tasks involved, deadlines for each and, in some instances, subcategories for each task.

I, when asked what my 30, 60, 90 day plan looked like responded: “I choose a direction and start moving in that direction. At the 30-day mark, I evaluate the progress made and lessons learned and adjust my direction accordingly. At the 60 and 90 day marks, I do the same thing I did at the 30-day mark.

Now imagine what would happen if you required Lori to use my approach to planning. You better have a defibrillator handy because you’re likely to trigger a cardiac event.

If you required me to use Lori’s approach, you’d better have a padded cell on your speed dial because I would become a danger to myself and others.

The stress that each of us would experience would seriously impair our ability to produce the result you desire.

Some may wonder which approach is more effective (quicker) in producing the desired result: Lori’s or mine?

Quick results

I doubt that there would be any significant difference in the amount of time required to produce the result. While I might get a quicker start, Lori would quickly catch up…and possibly surpass me.

The time Lori invests upfront in creating a detailed plan will quickly be offset by the time I need to review the results I’m getting, determine what course adjustments I need to make and make adjustments accordingly. In other words, we’re likely to spend roughly the same amount of time creating and executing our plans. The difference is that we’re employing approaches that are natural and comfortable for us, which enables us to move forward confidently.

If you allow us, or any of your employees, to use their natural styles, you’ll get what you need, in the timeframe you desire AND your employees will be much happier.

Takeaways

The quickest and most effective ways to get the results you desire from your employees is to:

• Communicate what you want to achieve.
• Establish, with them, the deadline.
• Allow them to choose their own approach in producing the result.
• Recognize them appropriately for having produced the desired result within the deadline.

The autonomy this approach affords assures the result you desire when you desire it while assuring that your employees enjoy both their jobs and the fact that you trust them to produce the result you desire.

If you’ve found this post helpful, please share it with your friends. It’s a great way to let them know how much you care.

If you’d like the leaders in your organization to learn how to use the numbers more effectively and dramatically improve the productivity of your workforce, contact me to learn more about these resources:

Resources

Making the EXCEPTIONAL Normal program helps you identify and nurture emerging leaders who elevate all around them to higher levels of performance and greater job enjoyment.

Financial Awareness & Strategy program where employees learn to identify opportunities to improve financial results and prioritize these opportunities on the basis of which produces the greatest impact with the least effort. Greater financial awareness = Better decisions.