Comments

I think the question is not one that is 'relevant' to the corporate machine: they push until it breaks and then replace. Capacity (determination) is not the issue.

Posted by Dennis Price at April 16, 2007 6:10 PM

Your analogy of 'push it til it breaks' pretty much bears out my experiences in consulting and coaching. I have watched organisation after organisation pare back the fat and pare and pare and pare ... until they hit bone. Couple of thoughts:

(a) An organism that consists of bone with flesh stretched over it is not a healthy organism.
(b) An organism that consists of bone with flesh stretched over it is not a particularly attractive organism
© That organism is not going to have the reserves necessary to deal with lean times - illness, cold, famine or whatever.
(d) When you hear the 'clink' of knife on bone, it is too damn late to do anything about it.

You don't run your car to the red line every time you change gear because you know you will kill your car. You can't run your stereo at maximum volume all the time and expect to get any life out of your amp, speakers or ears. So why would a business be any different?

Well, because you can replace defective parts in a business relatively easily. When 'parts' become worn out in a business, they either vote with their feet or get downsized as part of some sort of rank-and-yank exercise.

And that's about how long-term I see the majority of companies thinking. Until someone figures out how to break out of the extraordinary myopia that business is suffering from, we are going to be stuck in a mode whereby last year is ancient history, next year is science fiction and this year/quarter/month/week/sale is the only reality that impinges on the consciousness.

If you ran a corner shop on that basis, you'd be out of business in a month. Somehow, the big guys are surviving on that basis - for now.

Posted by Rowan Manahan at April 16, 2007 6:36 PM

Dennis, I can't argue with that entirely. But it seems to me if they push it until it breaks, then capacity of the individual is the issue. I have spent plenty of time in Fortune 100 companies, and don't find them consciously looking to suck their talent dry, then recycle. I personally prefer small organizations, but it strikes me without the big corporations, I wouldn't be typing this response on a pretty cool laptop. Sometimes it takes large scale to accomplish large things. And in my work, I see the same demanding work loads and resource stressing happen in a small enterprise of 10 people, as well as the mega corporation.

Posted by Mike Neiss at April 16, 2007 6:38 PM

I consider this to have two main parts to the problem. First is management not measuring everything important. Second is the business (down to the individual) not being aware of their own limits.

If only I got a dollar for every conversation I've had where someone said they are overworked. Working 15 hour days, and usually some of the weekend. The employee hates it, and will break soon. Most people that I deal with in this situation seem incapable of telling management they need help, are overworked, or unable to cope until something breaks. At which point its too late to do much at all. Combine that with management that seems to expect their employees will be overworked, and then get upset when sick leave increases, productivity drops etc.

In both cases, they are ignoring the direct (15 hour days, insomnia, increasing stress, etc) and indirect (productivity drops, increased absenteeism, etc) feedback.

Posted by Michael Vanderdonk at April 16, 2007 8:04 PM

Part of the answer may lie in the term "human resources" which clearly connotes something capable of being used for an end. In most companies, the balanced scorecard discussion starts with the financial quadrant - EBITDA/Profit/Cash Flow/Revenue and ends, almost as an afterthought, with the people quadrant. The end justifies the means. Most of us as leaders would not admit that such thinking occurs because we would think it is too callous to call each other, much less, ourselves out on the topic. While it is true that "developing direct reports" is rated among the most important leadership competencies, research reveals that this competency is consistently rated at the bottom in actual performance by leaders. The refrain that will be heard more often in future is "talent happens and then it leaves."

Posted by David Porter at April 16, 2007 8:24 PM

Simply a lack of honesty - with ourselves, each other - both individually and collectively

Posted by PaulH at April 17, 2007 1:49 AM

Shock horror!!!!! Tom Peters is quoting Billy Bragg talk about embracing diversity, well in musical terms anyway, and an American who knows who Billy Bragg is too!!! Outrageous, but heart warming.

Seriously, having had my own virtue tested and broken, the capacity overload was for myself to determine enough was enough. Being in the UK working for a US parent the phone would stop around 23:00 hours and would start again at 07:00 the next day. I turned over in bed to my wife and said I can't keep doing this, she didn't even turn over and look me in the eye, but a very truthful "About time, just hand your notice in we will survive" and we have and we do and I work from home now! Its about support, from leaders, the team, the friends, yourself and those who love you and see your situation for what it can become, a madness.

Posted by patrick at April 17, 2007 3:26 AM

I’m no psychologist but I’m aware of a lot of research into what shapes people’s behaviour in a given situation: is it their innate character or is it the environment they’re put in? In the majority of cases, a bad environment will get the better of good people and – whether it’s an environment that leadership deliberately cultivates or tacitly allows - they become bad people.

So, guess what? In a business environment that does all the good stuff like performance measurement and KPI’s, there is always a human, competitive tendency to want more. You did x last period / quarter / year so this time around we want you to take what you’ve learned, work a little bit smarter and a little bit harder and then you should be capable of x + 7%. And there’s always a tendency amongst competitive, ambitious people (or people who are scared for their jobs) to try to do that bit more.

The problem seems to be that we’re not always comparing apples with apples. Selling £1m of widgets in a certain market in 2007 may be easier or harder than it was in 2006. Maybe you did £1m because a major customer won a one-off order and you saw some benefit. Maybe this year he’s relocated the operation to Asia and left a hole in your figures. Unless you have some sense of context around the figures, what do they really mean? And when you add that extra 7%, do you ask if it can be done ethically and safely? But then, how many businesses and/or managers really want to take the effort to understand the context? It implies a degree of judgement that doesn’t sit well with a numbers-dominated culture: it’s much easier to tell people not to bother me with problems or details, it’s your job, just get it done etc etc… And then you're off down the slippery slope where people get burned out, left behind or (even worse) they start taking short cuts.

Posted by Mark JF at April 17, 2007 4:14 AM

Mark as always on the money.

For me its those last two words 'short cuts' that fires me to think of the consequences of this approach.

I guess the crime of corporate manslaughter comes to mind and the lost lives or those cut short by industrial disease.

ABC, Anteceedent, Behaviour, Consequence.

Posted by patrick at April 17, 2007 4:40 AM

Very appropriate question!
In my opinion the 'enough is enough' question is even more appropriate in companies giving services: I think a team, to give a good service, has to be slightly inefficient.
How much inefficient is the balance between cost reduction and giving a good service.
PierG
http://pierg.wordpress.com

Posted by PierG at April 17, 2007 6:13 AM

Organizations that focus on human capital will have a clearly defined method of evaluating employees with various backgrounds. One of the issues with evaluating information workers is that most jobs are a function of ability as well as skills. While there are many different methods or categories of evaluation, here are some that we have used in the past:

Breadth of Technology
Breadth of Management
Delivery
Relationships
Reducing Costs
Generating Revenue
Firefighting
Intangibles

Each of these evaluation components indicates the breath of knowledge and experience required. Very few knowledge workers can simply focus one a single component and expect to be successful over the long term. Each of us needs to evaluate our own personal renewal plan and ensure there are no gaps.

Posted by RTodd at April 17, 2007 7:25 AM

President Lyndon Johnson usually worked 12 ~ 14 hour days and many weekends. He expected his staff and others to do the same. He was famously quoted as saying "An eight hour man ain't worth a damn." President Truman, while a hard worker, often took breaks in the afternoon to take a walk, chat with the press, or even take a nap. He believed in balance in life, even while president. He is quoted as replying to a cabinet member who bragged about how many hours he worked that "if I needed twelve hours to get eight hours of work done I wouldn't brag about it."

So which is the correct philosophy? It comes down to what people perceive as proper in their organization, the examples set by leaders, and the needs of the organization. The eight hour day is a governmental construct that has no basis in reality--ask any farmer. If you want an eight hour day and a forty hour work week you can have it, but don't expect to be a leader.

I wonder if there isn't something else lacking in Mike's leaders that explains their feelings and performance. They seem ready to blame "others" for trimming their workforce, etc. Maybe they really weren't ready for the executive ranks. Maybe the really did micromanage because they did not empower their staffs beyond a certain level. If they were leaders ready for the top tier, did they get there because they blindly went along with the top tier's demands? If you haven't cheesed off the execs by rebelling against hare-brained ideas at least once, I wouldn't want you leading me from that level.

Complicated issue.

Posted by Mike at April 17, 2007 7:28 AM

RTodd...thanks. What I would like to know is how these organizations determine the proper staffing levels. What formula or process are they using to determine what size the workforce needs to be?

Posted by Mike Neiss at April 17, 2007 7:30 AM

Mike posted: "If you want an eight hour day and a forty hour work week you can have it, but don't expect to be a leader."

I respectfully submit:
I look around me right now. I see "non-leadership" who choose to work 12 hour days to better service their international clients. I also see "management" who work longer than 8 hours by the clock, but there are questions as to what constitutes "work", and perhaps this could be completed within 8 hours.

Inflating face time for the sake of face time is a sad practice.

I believe you can work a productive 8 hour day and be a leader.

Also, as for how people get to their levels... I look around me and see a Director "saved" by a VP, an Associate Dir. "saved" by the Director, a manager "saved" by the AD. All have worked together for years. Poor mentoring begets poor management. There are a lot of ways to get into a leadership position, whether you are ready or not.

Posted by gm at April 17, 2007 8:49 AM

These are difficult issues because corporate performance always matters to the owners and they don't want to see declining results. Cutting to the bone is the easy answer, although difficult to implement and difficult to maintain. The healthiest companies in the long run are the most creative and these are not the cut to the bone companies. They provide and allow for some creative thinking as part of the day. Not always easy to do in the push for increasing profits, but someone must be going against the grain, taking on the groupthink mentality - true leadership. "If everyone is thinking the same, someone isn't thinking" - Patton

I think this is one reason we are seeing a trend to more privately held companies - the leaders find a way to run their own show, independent of the public investors.

Posted by Jim Rowland at April 17, 2007 9:04 AM

Mike,

This is a very challenging topic - we all know that people are not machines whose behaviour and output can be predicted easily. In my experience you never really know what a person is capable of until they are stretched. They do of course need the basic competence to do their job, but beyond that all depends on the context. What are they doing, does it fulfill them, does it matter?

I know myself, when there's a lot to be done, I do it. And when I do a lot I find myself able to work faster and in a more focused way. And yet it is easy to fall back into a lower level of output - is that OK in today's challenging world of work? High energy companies just ooze that mindset, and it becomes infectious, and the opposite is also the case.

Is this a case of people wanting to have their cake and eat it? We all want a reasonable standard of living, but that has to be paid for. And compared with the work lives of our ancestors who worked in the fields and the factories of old, they would probably say we have never had it so good?

Perhaps we are expecting too much of the big employers - after all there is always the option of dropping out of the rat race, and adjusting your life style to suit, as many visitors to this blog know only too well.

Posted by Madeleine McGrath at April 17, 2007 10:06 AM

RTodd - a good list but I take issue with one point: firefighting. To me, good guys are the ones that don't let fires happen on their watch, or at least they extinguish them before they're very big. I appreciate you sometimes need people who can parachute in, understand an issue, put in a quick fix and set the scene for a proper fix. But you've got to give recognition to that steady manager who doesn't make a fuss, doesn't have big problems and delivers every time.

Mike - the UK Prime Minister at a similar time to LBJ was Harold Wilson and he said it was the easiest job he'd had. He set policy, agreed actions with his ministers and let them get on with it. Maybe a few more people need to learn the art of delegation?

Mike N - I'm not sure there is a scientific formula for determining the size of the workforce. In fact, too many problems seem to stem from people thinking there is (e.g. sales per salesman, cases picked per hour, helpdesk issues resolved per man) and failing to understand the factors that influence the chosen measure.

In my job (logistics, in a very seasonal and "peaky" business) I can give you a good estimate of the likely productivity and cost of an operation but this is probably based on historic information. There are any number of variables that can affect these numbers and my job is fundamentally about: i) understanding the service levels the business wants me to deliver; ii) ensuring I have an operational team that can deliver that service and keep the costs under control; iii) ensure the team and I understand those variations so I can explain them to the business. If you insist on an exact budget then tell me a year in advance how many orders, which products in what mix, when, to which customers etc and I'll give you a figure. If you can't do that, and most businesses can't, learn to manage.

Posted by Mark JF at April 17, 2007 10:10 AM

I think there may be another component that is often completely overlooked when evaluating employees and leaders and that is personal work style. What kind of a person are they and how do they work best? By this I mean that some people iterate and others incubate.

Iterators tend to work on projects in a well-disciplined, step-by-step manner and are able to show progress incrementally.

Incubators on the other hand tend to appear extremely busy at the beginning of a project and then seem to stop working on it for a while before re-engaging in a flurry of activity near the deadline.

Neither one is necessarily more effective than the other, though each type is often better suited for certain roles. I have known very effective leaders with each of the qualities. The problem comes when one type is forced to behave like the other due to circumstances - performance management systems, a boss who insists on certain types of reporting behavior, etc. Iterators tend to do less well in situations where the end result is emphasized over a specific process - they feel under managed - and incubators don't do as well when progress is measures incrementally - they feel micro managed.

I know this doesn't answer Mike Neiss' original question about how companies evaluate personal capacity, but I firmly believe it has to be part of the equation. When organizations understand how their up and coming leaders work best they can get the most out of them without destroying their ability to lead.

Posted by Andrew Hayden at April 17, 2007 11:46 AM

Part of the problem is that there is no measure of personal capacity. We can measure hours worked. We can measure output for some people and jobs and not for others. There are so many dimensions of possible measurement (time, quantity, quality) that we often wind up comparing, not apples and oranges, but apples and backhoes.

Posted by Wally Bock at April 17, 2007 12:35 PM

One thing about perceived overload is - how much choice do you have of what to do next? Those workers whose every working moment is laid out by someone or something else feel high levels of stress. Those workers who can choose between several tasks what to do for the next minute / hour / day, as long as the package of tasks gets done, feel less stress.

My own work load is very cyclical in the month - the first week or two is very busy. But, I have a worklog of tasks that has to get done each month, but I can generally pick and choose the sequence I get through the tasks. Yes, some are higher priority than others, but there is still a lot of flexibility.

Steve Prevette
Statistician
Fluor Hanford Safety Programs

Posted by Steve Prevette at April 17, 2007 1:49 PM

While very few people will admit that we spend way too much time fighting fires, the truth is that many of us do just that. Information workers have the skills to be able to handle situations that are not structured and need to be handled in a timely manner. Invariably in technical companies, there are more problems and opportunities than time or people to deal with them. There are more things that the organization should work on than it can, realistically, work on. At best, this leads to situations where minor problems get ignored. But too often, it leads to a syndrome called "firefighting”. Information workers that can perform under these circumstances can be extremely valuable.

In the firefighting syndrome, engineers, managers, and other knowledge workers rush from task to task, not completing one before another interrupts them. Things that are merely "important" but not "urgent", such as long-range development, are continually interrupted by the latest fire. Although the most urgent tasks do receive attention, productivity suffers. Some jobs get "overtaken by events" and never completed. And although a task may appear to be completed, it may need to be redone later, perhaps in another form, because it was not truly solved the first time. Management is a constant juggling act, of deciding where to allocate overworked people, and which incipient crisis to ignore for.

Interesting that Robert Hayes reported that American managers seem to enjoy working in crisis mode while Japanese managers consider it evidence of failure. While there might be a cultural aspect to firefighting, many managers in corporate America thrive in this type of environment. Is firefighting a result of too much work and not enough people to properly work the project? Clearly, the flattening of the organization has an impact on the strategy, planning, and execution of any large scale program. Others lean toward the fact that technology changes almost daily and the needs of the business must be addressed; planned or unplanned.

Information workers who are skilled in situational assessment, organization, and have a sense of urgency find success here. Unfortunately, the organization begins to execute operationally in an emergency mode if firefighting is not held in check. Eventually, firefighting consumes people and resources to the point where human capital diminishes.

Posted by RTodd at April 17, 2007 2:04 PM

patrick...re billy bragg...I have been waiting for the great leap forward for years!

Posted by Mike Neiss at April 17, 2007 4:11 PM

Mike, sorry to confuse you with Tom! But I have just downloaded a heap of Billy stuff I currently have on Vynil!

Everything changes and we change with it! A bit like when Enough is Enough from my own experiences,

Simply change it.

Posted by patrick at April 18, 2007 5:26 AM

no problem patrick..tom is the older, but thinner one..:)

Posted by Mike Neiss at April 18, 2007 6:31 AM

I believe in Goldratt's theory of constraints as applied to people. Simply put, if you have to give 100% effort to get your job done, then you are the constraint.

On the other hand, if you give 100% all the time even though you don’t have to, then much of your efforts are being wasted.

Most companies seem to unintentionally use drum-buffer-rope to pace their workforce by putting the least productive person in charge. Since productive work is thus being constrained by management, people have to come up with non-productive ways to fill all their extra time.
If managers are working long hours it is because they are unable to keep up with their subordinates. This is a clear indication of incompetence, not leadership.

Posted by John at April 18, 2007 12:03 PM

This looks familiar....one of the first things about teams is that they can be "not very good teams" that get a job done but leave people feeling cheated... What Tudor Rickards calls Teams from Hell. In the middle conventional teams (taht management think are good... well compliant) and then there are "Teams from Heaven" that are hell for managers but Heaven for leaders... probably look inefficient but are effective... I measured output from my teams from Heaven and found they can be 30x more effective.... and they came in late, went to see their kids in the school play and came back to do wonderful things.. there is incredible scope to do amazing things but if you do what you have always done you get what you always get. The most challenging team matter I ever faced was how do you make several Xerox operatives into a high performing effective team... I found it is possible but it is about setting a vision and getting out of the way ... and trust them!

Posted by Jim Rait at April 18, 2007 3:13 PM

Forgot to mention a piece on Teams at my blog about Tudor Rickards, http://snipurl.com/1h2pu

Posted by Jim Rait at April 18, 2007 3:17 PM

If you're listening to Billy Bragg, I'm going to guess that you're "soft on performance demands" by corporate (and possibly even capitalist) standards. --Though I congratulate you for even attempting to claim that peculiarly insane territory. :)

Until those who create content are rewarded commensurate with the inspiration they deliver, our economy will be run not by creatives but by those who apply their inspiration to motivate others in the creation of material goods. (And those neurotic and unhappy individuals who aspire to motivate others with no inspiration at all.)

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Inspiration is running the show but as it's distributed in mass fixed price formats, the content is disconnected from niche demand. A single Pollock painting can go for $140 million--showing us the demand is almost unlimited--but no song can even get $5. Even if 400 people would pay $80 for it. viagra in the states

It's no wonder most of us are feeling uninspired.

Another way of putting this is the world used to be over-mysterious, so we developed pricing structures that valued control (management and motive power) and devalued support (inspiration and magnetic power).

These pricing structures have been so successful that the world is now almost completely unmysterious. Control is toxic and inspiration a dream.

But we're approaching the problem with the same pricing structures. Prices for material goods remain flexible--responding to demand--and prices for content--especially creative--remain fixed and demand resistant.

Demand for a new book or movie could be unlimited and not a single artist would line up the next day to create the next one.

Why? Because demand was unlimited in only 50,000 people (maybe 10,000 for a book)--which means it tanked. Getting the next one made will be four times the fight for possibly no additional reward.

If demand is unlimited for a material item in 50,000 people--say a car--they raise the price and there's a waiting list along with two competitors ramping up knock-offs. Boom--another million dollar Bugatti.

Even if 50,000 people were willing to pay $50 for a new Rolling Stones song, they'd have to wait. And in waiting they'd probably go to a concert where prices were not fixed, and buy $40 t-shirts, $8 beers, and $300 seats.

Assuming the artist is in charge (and not management or the label), he looks at the books, and then decides when he wants to pay to stop touring and record another song. (Tom is no different, I'm guessing. Having to tour constantly to afford to write the books that actually inspire folks so much.)

How can anyone achieve excellence in that atmosphere? If they do achieve it, how could they possibly hope to maintain it without becoming significantly unhappy (uninspired)?

Neither managers nor artists can afford to be creative/inspired very long--any time spent outside the states of control and motivation (that would include creation and inspiration) are literally costing them money. With no return.

Which is why they go there only when forced. Or desperate. And at their own, significant risk.

Relief is simple. Pricing songs, magazines, TV shows, movies and books the same as jeans, caviar, mattresses, gasoline, seeds, fertilizer, paper, cars, toothpicks, ball bearings, consulting services, yoga classes and rides at Great American aught to do it.

Or just buy my book The Love Artist. It's $120.

Best,

Eben

Posted by Eben Carlson at April 18, 2007 3:57 PM

Interesting post Eben...but I assure you I am not soft on performance. I am a capitalist through and through and believe the best performers ought to win...period. I do not however, equate hours spent on a job with hard work. Libertarian free marketer I suppose. Thanks for your thoughts. I may listen to Billy Bragg, but you need to be careful to draw too broad a conclusion from that...

Posted by Mike Neiss at April 18, 2007 6:06 PM

I have considered that a leadership quality is rising from the battlefield. Those that have been tested are one location to find leaders. It may not be the only, but it is an option. Virtue must be tested, and will generally be tested without even looking for a battle.

Many good comments have been posted already. Until most executives realize that people must be led, not managed, the workplace will not change much. People are not objects to be used like machines. If treated so they will automatically revolt in some form. The company will face the consequences of an unmotivated workforce producing mediorce quality of service or product.

A good rule of thumb is think about the effectiveness in the past at home. If I told my spouse, "Go make dinner and serve me." Do you think she would be motivated to do so? I don't think so. She expects me to treat her as a person.

Many do not believe in a true right and wrong that applies to everyone, however, considering the consequences of actions of poor leadership behavior there seems to evidence to support that followers desire certain virtues and will react accordingly.

Posted by JQ at April 19, 2007 6:53 AM

I find the topic of the human machine to be very interesting. I am not an organizational expert. However I know that top quality and excellence are often found at the margin of human capacity. I am a former Canadian Olympic athlete in flat water canoeing. I was 4th in the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.

I dedicate myself nowadays to giving conferences and workshops to organizations through which we compare reaching excellence in my canoe to reaching excellence in their canoe-- their team and organization. My concept is pretty straight forward: The organizational canoe metaphor.
In my workshops, we get to a point called “Enough is Enough” where I say: My coach’s job was to push me to my limits in order to redefine what I could do out there. He had to push me to develop my potential. However, he made sure he would NOT push me too much or he would get the exact opposite of what he was trying to achieve: Over training is the burn out for athletes.

That limit of my capacity was simple: When the quality of the work was affected we had reached it! He would then pull me aside for a conversation. Based on our communication, he would either send me alone to work at my own pace to get the feelings back; or he would send me home to rest so I can come back fresh the following day. If the quality wasn’t there the following day, he would adjust the program so top quality could be retrieved as soon as possible.

My coach did not want me to develop bad habits. He wanted top performance. From my canoeing experience, that limit, where enough is enough, is at the point where quality starts decreasing.

Thank You

Posted by Maxime Boilard at April 19, 2007 3:03 PM

Wonderfully presented Maxime. Thank You! This invites another topic at some point. Leaders need to understand and value this coaching dynamic. I am not certain with today's growing span of control that many managers are investing that kind of time to their performers. Beautifully crafted metaphor. So glad you stopped by for a visit and this great comment...thanks again...Mike

Posted by Mike Neiss at April 19, 2007 3:56 PM

I don't think you can predetermine a person's work capacity. You can only manage one's time by being clear about values, self care and performance expectations. If you place expectations on people for sleep, diet and exercise, and family relations, then I think you can also ask more of them. The problem is pitting the quality of a person's life against the competitive demands of the business. This I believe is a failure of perspective, of seeing the business as a whole, rather than simply a spreadsheet of results. Maybe what needs to be developed is a measurement than computes this larger perspective.

Posted by Ed Brenegar at April 19, 2007 4:36 PM

Yes, Ed...but my whole point to this blog,,,is that somebody in the organization is determining capacity when they establish employment levels. Are they just guessing that a person needs to be added or removed?

Posted by Mike Neiss at April 19, 2007 5:16 PM

Mike, sorry to join this party late, but I'd like to amplify Jim Rait's comments about the team factor in all this. IF these two leaders have actual teams they're managing - as opposed to collections of individuals who are working in separate worlds (which is sometimes and necessarily the case) - I'd say the best leverage point for ratcheting up performance is in team development, ideally from day one. It's costly on the front end (who has time for education/development - i.e. more meetings?) but, if done right, it may be the only hope in the long run.

Posted by John O'Leary at April 20, 2007 6:32 AM

Maybe the issue is not the manager, but the inverse proportion of the size of the team to the simplicity of the solution. Often managers, when confronted with a seemingly insurmountable task, add players to the team in order to "support the workload". The only problem with this is that often the more people you add to a team the more complexity you are creating and thus increasing the workload of the team leader. It kind of creates a self perpetuating and vicious cycle.

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When I was in design school, I remember one of my professors stating over and over that one of the most important lessons you can learn is when to stop designing and do. My experience is that teams that grow to "support the workload" continue to "design" and add complexity, but have a hard time actually doing anything. It goes back to the precept from In Search of Excellence and the importance of a bias to action in successful companies.

I also remember the lesson from business school about the founder of either Wang or DEC computer computer company (I cannot remember which one). When their teams began running into difficulties in solving problems or getting things done, he didn't throw more resources at the problem, but instead cut the team in half. The result was a more streamlined approach to problem solving. When they went away from this approach is when they began to get into trouble.

Referring to your post, it raises the question of whether these leaders are being judged and evaluated on their ability to build and manage a bureaucracy or address and solve the problems they are confronted with. The capacity of a leader to "do" and "act" in simple and creative ways should be measured in the results they achieve, the methods they use to get there and their level of sanity at the end of the process. The metric is the outcomes, both organizational and personal.

Posted by Andrew Hayden at April 20, 2007 9:56 AM

A very timely post.. I'm helping out in rebuilding an organisation to help cut costs - so reengineering processes, simplifying everything and "rightsizing" of a customer contact centre.

What we are trying to do is find out the average handling time (measured in the past) and estimating the volume of calls in the future (using scenarios) and straight out dividing the product of (volume x average handling time) by 6 hours per day to get the number of employees needed. There are some factors also considered like kind of employee, nature of workpack etc; but the above methodology is simply stretched to fit these..

It's simple and people get it. 6 hours of work in an 8 hour day is quite OK I guess? But I live in the Netherlands where unions, employees and management take work life balance very seriously... viagra best price uk

Do let me know if I'm on the right track here?

Posted by Arun Sadhashivan at April 20, 2007 4:40 PM

We need to be careful that we don't over generalise here. Leaders differ in terms of their resiliance, just as organizations differ in terms of their climate or culture. Leaders play an important role...no, make that a critical role, in shaping that culture. They then have to react to it. So they need to be resiliant.

Leaders today have to deal with many conflicting demands, and the ones that can demonstrate the most resilience tend to stand the test of time.

Posted by Brian Ward at April 22, 2007 12:36 AM

One key component of any good leader is determine their team's bandwidth. How much capacity to they have to get how much done? When leaders stay aware of bandwidth, commitment and productivity we all win. Fresh, committed employees and managers working to optimum, not maximum, capacity is the ideal to strive for. Once your team or your business is on overload it's time to look for additional resources, alternate processes or technology to stay at optimum output. A very tough thing to stay in touch with in today's ultra-competitive landscape!

Posted by Dave at April 23, 2007 3:14 PM

Mike:

My view is rather simplistic on this. Measuring capacity is the wrong measurement. Measuring results is the real world, bottom line metric. If you are achieving your objective, and doing so at a profit then the equation is a winner. Maximizing human output can't be done externally - it has to come from within. Internal motivation comes when you feel your contributions are valued and you have a culture that encourages and rewards both success and failure.

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If one stops to think about it, the only way we can maximize human output is to understand the maximum limit in the first place. Personally, my experience would indicate that the only way we can affect this as managers is to optimize the environment. Senge makes the case by describing approaching management as either being an auto mechanic or a gardener. In the former, you listen and watch for what's wrong or is not performing to spec. If things are out of whack, then you fix it (manage) give it a tune-up (optimize performance). As a gardener, your focus changes to making sure that the environment promotes optimal growth. As a mechanic you are limited by the physical properties of your engine. Every once in a while the farmer has a bumper crop that defies explanation. And so it is with people. We are dynamic creatures that surprise even ourselves on occasion.

Posted by Walter White at April 23, 2007 3:20 PM

Walter

I couldn't agree more with you. My question on the blog really wasn't about determining capacity, I really just have a simple question. Whether we call it rightsizing or rationalizing the work force, somebody is making the decision on how many employees we retain or reduce. I am just curious how people are doing that and what kind of thought goes into it. I really appreciate the discussion on this, but the question still remains unanswered. I really hope it is not all done by trial and error. Thanks

Posted by Mike Neiss at April 23, 2007 6:23 PM

What's so wrong with trial and error?

I work in logistics and although I can measure how many units per manhour we've processed in a warehouse in a given period, the business is so seasonal and the product has such varied handling characteristics that these measures are at best only indicators of what we might be capable of. I have to make a judgement about is the right manpower level based on performance data that's probably only a 90% reliable guide and sales forecasts that the guys are encouraged to beat every month!

As a result, I try to carry a base labour force that can take me through a higher than average month but (and this is the key) can still handle peak volumes with some addition of temporary labour and always at a high service level for the business. It may not be trial and error exactly, but it certainly relies on knowing the business, having a feel for the operation and some good old fashioned judgement.

Posted by Mark JF at April 24, 2007 2:57 AM

Yes Mark, I too spent a good deal of my life in logistics at UPS and got quite good at analyzing labor needs based on projected volume. So I wasn't really addressing labor that has a "countable" output. How do you determine the size of the management and support team?

Posted by Mike Neiss at April 24, 2007 4:09 AM