Managers can take up a task to improve the organizations by following some basic approaches, but with the ongoing pressure many they feel to do more with less, now is a great time to review short list practical, easily implemented actions appropriate for them. These low-hanging fruit are capable of producing dramatic results and do not require significant resources.
Good products and successful organization is a result of good people. It is not sufficient to have good people, but organization needs people who can innovate, learn new techniques and unlearn old things as fast as possible.
Simple Actions Capable Of Improving Results
Over the past decade with several hundred organizations around the world some basic approaches are successful in general. Based on observations in dealing with each of them, the following actions categorized by lifecycle stages are proven to produce results quickly.
Attracting Talent
Make job exciting – Many organizations pull job descriptions from internal systems that were written long ago for purposes and are dull. They do not offer much challenge and thinking opportunity. Managers should rewrite them so that they sell the exciting aspects of the job and give an idea of how they will be able to influence the future of organization as well as individuals. At the very least, they should be tested against competitors’ descriptions to ensure they are more compelling.
Target innovators — Innovators may contribute more to profitability than top performers. Make employees feel that organization is looking for innovators and then revisit screening approach to ensure that potential innovators are not screened out by overly rigid and antiquated competency profiles that do little more than maintain the status quo. Make sure ample time is allocated in the interview, appraisal process to both ensure that organization is able to innovate and probe the employee’s ability to be innovative. Because innovators can be vocally intolerant of outdated practices, educate managers to expect a degree of different behavior from them during the process.
Assessing Talent
Add real problems to discussion — Although there is some value in talking about the past, discussions can be dramatically more valuable when they focus on real problems organization will face in coming future. Don’t give them a puzzle or a theoretical situation. Give them a real difficult problem that only the best could solve.
Reduce spend on low-impact actions — Although organization may have a tradition of using some processes and procedures routinely, they often produce only mediocre outcomes and have a relatively high cost. More effective tools to consider as alternatives include challenging the present procedures as rituals.
Target key individuals — High employee turnover puts a strain on recruiting resources, so lighten your future load by proactively identifying a handful of high impact employees who might be at risk of leaving and who would be very difficult to replace. Work with them to identify the job elements and factors that excite them and keep them happy as well as the factors that might cause them to consider leaving. Then work with their manager to ensure that they are continually provided with an ideal job, following a retention plan that is tailored to each individual.
Final Thoughts
One could get the impression that the only way to dramatically improve the results is by spending millions of dollars on sophisticated solutions. While most high-dollar solutions are valid in some cases, they aren’t in all. Simple actions taken by individuals can also produce dramatic almost immediate results, without requiring stratospheric budgets.
