I recently finished reading the book ‘Power of Human’ by Adam Waytz, a psychologist and author from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, detailing how ‘Busyness’ has become a key metric for success within society. Those in our world we perceive as ‘Busy’ are clearly ‘important’ and surely provide immense value. As opposed to the reality of being potentially inefficient, unstructured and lacking vision (all worst case of course). After working in the corporate finance world over the past 20 years I have seen this increasing trend without any corresponding improvement in net results.
According Waytz, an experiment performed by Timothy Wilson resulted in a massive 67% of men and 25% of women preferring to press a button and electrically shock themselves than sit still with their own thoughts. This need to stay busy has meant the time required to complete tasks continues to be stretched which results in increased burnout from perceived workload.
Incentivise the Right Outcome
Start by incentivising the right result. What should the team be focused on rather than inadvertently encouraging busyness? It has been long proven that as we incentivise/pay via hourly rates, workers spend longer on a task but less intensely. Therefore, they end up getting less done. The flip side, shows that incentivising for an end result does equate in increased productivity, however as an Edward Lazear study proved, an immediate productivity bump was quickly followed by burnout from overworked employees chasing incentives.
So, what is the solution? I believe, a combination of base line income plus performance-based pay communicates to the team that busyness alone is not valued.
Audit your Busyness
It is no surprise that systemic busyness (non-valuable data entry, non-essential meetings and generic internal reporting, for instance) limits ‘deep work’ or sustained attention to cognitively demanding tasks. An audit of busyness should include asking your team to list every activity they do, how much mental focus it involves, and how much training is required. Once these shallow tasks are identified, work through eliminating them or replacing them with more efficient methods. Especially in this day of AI, automated tech and a global workforce.
Model the Right Behaviour
The more leaders value well being over pure busyness, the more this will resonate with employees. Especially, if they see their bosses take time off. When leaders demonstrate that their own busyness is not a prerequisite for success, the more employees are likely to believe in this.
What attitudes and values exist within your company and, are these ultimately what you want for your workforce and culture?
Build Slack into the System.
Making sure that your team have the flexibility to get the right things done on time is key. What does slack look like? This could be 1) Improvement or reallocation of resources e.g. time, money, space, people and or equipment 2) The ability to deviate from your standard operating processes 3) Human backup ensuring team members can cover each others’ work, thus ensuring checks and balances are built into the system.
Communicate the Strategic Vision
So often, busyness is the result of lack of focus on the ultimate goal and the ‘Why’ behind your company. Whether that is to be the primary service provider in a community, build a subscriber base to 1 million followers, or change lives by empowering those to focus on their values of fun, freedom and flexibility. Without a shared common vision, employees will find self-determined activities to fulfill self-determined goals. Without alignment, a disconnected and mis-aligned work force will follow.
Research has shown that since the 90’s employees are working increasingly harder and under tighter deadlines. There are also more stressful conditions to navigate as they try to master additional skills to outpace the robots gunning for their jobs in a 24/7 world. This has taken a significant toll on mental and physical health. As business leaders we must unite against the busyness epidemic to take care of those in our charge, and create more sustainable workplaces.
