Is money a motivator?

I had an argument with an arrogant tyrant today who was convinced that most people are only motivated by money.  ”They wouldn’t come to work if you didn’t pay them!”

I think the truth is that money makes people do things, but it doesn’t make them WANT to do things.

“What’s wrong with that?” you ask.  As long as it gets the results.  But my point is that money will only get you the minimum that you’ve paid for – you’ll never get your people to go the extra mile, to be creative, to give great quality, to CARE.

In fact money does the reverse.  Once there is a bonus to be had, you get the following problems

1 – it will always be seen as unfair, and demotivate lots of other people

2 – the focus will be on the money, and things like “Doing something worthwhile” or “helping customers” are more likely to get forgotten

3 – the focus on the money means that anything that isn’t paid for won’t get done.  And you can’t pay for everything, so important things won’t get done in the rush for the bonus.

4 – people will be amazingly creative in finding ways to cheat.  All that effort that could have been put into looking after customers.  And all that extra expense that you will have to pay out as the bonuses creep upwards.

5 – How do you set the bonus?  There will be pressure for low targets, which is exactly what you don’t want if you are trying to be worlds class and reach for the sky.  Everyone should be ambitious and prepared to take risks.  They won’t do this if bonuses are at stake.

 

The question I would ask you is “If I arranged for you to be paid a bit more, would you work harder?”  I really hope the answer is no, because if the answer is yes then you already don’t really care about your job and you are wasting 5 days out of 7 of your life and you need to find a better use of your time!  Given that you HAVE to work to live, you might as well do the best you can once you’re there.  Otherwise, how do you live with yourself?

Similarly the question ”If I arranged for you to be paid a bit more, would you do better quality work?”  For the same reasons as above, I really hope the answer is no!

Of course if your pay was cut then you might work less hard – motivation is asymmetric, and money is a hygiene factor.  But this is irrelevant, the question we are discussion is whether bonuses will motivate people.

Once you have a bonus culture then you’re stuck with it.  Taking the bonuses away will indeed reduce motivation, so yes, those people are indeed working for the money, because they have been damaged.  They no longer care about the bigger picture, just themselves.  As do people who have had bad management in the recent past.  They no longer care.  It’s not their fault, it’s a result of how they have been treated. They are now damaged.  You’ll never be world class, or compete, or even survive in the current climate, unless all your people care.

How to get them to care?  Well not with money, that’s for sure!  It has to be involvement, understanding the vision and their part in it, recognition and thanks, teamwork, interesting work, continued learning, ownership and belonging.  Not as easy as money but a lot more effective in the end!

Should better people be paid more?  I think yes.  How to do this?  Promote them to bigger and better paid jobs.  But while they’re doing a job then it’s inflation pay rates or whatever, the same for all.

 

 

 

 

Airport Queues Explained

There’s a simple equation that explains all queues, including the customs check-in ones. And the amazing thing is that the equation shows that there is massive sensitivity in the system, so that a small reduction in staff makes the queues become massive. Here is why….
The equation says that if the utilisation of a resource (number of customers arriving divided by the number you can cope with) is called U, then the average queue length will be U(1-U). Don’t panic, I will explain!
Clearly if the utilisation is greater than 100% (more people arriving than you can cope with) the queues will just grow and grow. But the interesting thing is when the utilisation is just less than 100% – let’s say 95%.

So if you have 1000 people per hour arriving at the immigration desk and because of cost cutting you’ve got rid of all spare staff, leaving you with enough staff to deal with 1050, so you are 95% utilised – a very tight ‘safety margin’ but should be OK, you are thinking. But no!  You are already going to get queues, due to random fluctuation of arrivals (several planes at once, varying numbers per plane, etc ) so the formula predicts an average queue length at customs of 95/(100-5) = 95/5 = 19 people. This was probably about the situation when the airport was running more or less OK a few years ago.
Now let’s say that this would take 35 staff – the actual number doesn’t matter, it’s just an example. What if you get rid of just one person, so you have 34 instead of 35 people and now you can only handle 1020 people per hour – “should still be OK”, you think. Just less waste, less fat in the system. Sounds good! (I’ve just made up the number of people to illustrate that a small change in the numbers of people has a huge effect on the queues) – from the formula, what will the queue length be now…?
Q = U/1-U, and U is now 1000/1020 = 98%, so Q = 50. The queue has more than doubled and all you did was get rid of one person out of 35! And you should still have been OK!
And suppose you got rid of two people and you now can only cope with 1005/hour – although you think you’re still OK the utilisation is now 1000/1005 = 99.5% and so the average queue rises to 200 people!
That’s probably where we’re at now.
This formula is a statistical law which can be shown with dice or a random spreadsheet (see https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6BLBzKogj_iOWZlMzIyNzUtNWI1Mi00YmZlLTkxMWMtNzI2ZTY2MGUwODRi ) so there’s no point in trying to beat the system – it is what WILL happen. The answer is to accept the fact that you need at least 10% spare capacity, preferably 20%, and to pay the accompanying extra cost, if you want to get a decent service. And be very careful about small cuts when you’re already near the edge….

Getting the most from your training budget

1. Fill the courses, and don’t let your budget system prevent this If each department has a budget, and they’ve run out, then you could end up running a course only half full, which people want and need to come on, and places would have been effectively free if you sent more people on it – what a criminal waste!

2. If you are a small or medium sized company, you might be able to share a training course with other small non-competing companies near you, to get more numbers on the course and therefore a better day rate – possibly even free if you sell places rather than just dividing the cost.

3. 360: measure performance before and after, by surveying bosses, colleagues and subordinates, to find out if there has been a change, and also to prove to the attendees that they do need to change in some areas.

4. Involve line managers in implementing the learning afterwards – all they have to do is ask “What did you learn?” and “How can I help you to apply it?”

5. Consider having an internal speaker from the company doing a 30 minute guest spot, to anchor the course in reality. For example, a real project manager could talk about real problems they have encountered and how the theory helped them. External trainers can’t know everything about the company, and getting them to customise the course could add to the cost unnecessarily.

6. When selecting training providers, judge them by getting the actual trainers (not a smooth sales person) to do an actual 5 min demo of part of the course, rather than using a massive procurement paperwork process where you don’t even meet the trainers, let alone see them in action.

7. Don’t always buy the cheapest trainers – for another £30/head you might get the difference between OK and inspiring.

8. Consider the extra cost of getting a course accredited, because if there is a qualification at the end then the attendees will be motivated to do the work-based assignments, and these will ensure learning and application of ideas to the workplace.

9. Blended learning – use a mixture of taught and on-line learning. This makes the training cheaper, and probably more effective too. On-line on its own will be even cheaper, but not as effective.

10. Consider splitting the course into two parts with homework in-between, so that the delegates have to apply it and then report back on how they got on.

Things to NOT say when being interviewed for the Royal Navy

I was remembering back to 1979 and thought I’d recall the key moments:

When one of your team falls off the plan into the imaginary crocodile swamp: “We never liked him much anyway, did we team?”
When being quizzed about geography in front of a huge map of the world: “Fair enough, I don’t know where the Malacca Straits are, but if I was captain of a warship I’d probably have a map”
When being asked about how you feel about the physical training at Dartmouth, yomping across fields with a 30kg back pack etc: “It’s not my idea of fun but I could do it”
When you have each presented a solution to the snowmobile logistics scenario and then have to discuss it as a group and come up with one plan: “His idea is the best one, let’s do that”
What asked what you’ll do if you don’t get in: “Then I’ll take one of the other jobs I’ve already been offered”

 

I’m sure the decision they made back then was correct. Clearly it was never my destiny……

Why do a Management Diploma?

I often get asked about whether it’s worth doing a Diploma, so I thought I’d get my thoughts organised and get it all down in one place:

Advantages to the Company

You can show that your managers are professionally trained

You get better managers – the course fills in all the gaps, including subjects they may tend to avoid (maybe people don’t like going on Finance courses) or didn’t even realise they had (subjects like Managing Information are much more important than people realise)

Retention – people take a couple of years to do the programme, they feel valued to be on it, and you could have a lock-in arrangement afterwards (if the leave within x years they have to pay y% of the costs).

Learning has to be applied, which hammers it in better. In order to get the Diploma they have to do a number of work-based assignments, and this means that they have to a) pay attention in class, b) apply the ideas to their work and then write it up, and therefore discover that they CAN do it and it DOES work.  Imagine for example that they have to do a really textbook project, with Gantt charts etc, they are much more likely to carry on using the new ideas in their job.

The assignments are useful work in themselves.  At the very least you get a textbook project (could be worth thousands!), and all the other projects on strategy, leadership, innovation etc.  You can have some of the projects presented to a management board if you want to up the profile of the course and harvest the ideas being generated.  I would recommend that.

You can assess future talent by seeing who passes the course, who presents the best projects at the presentations, and maybe get feedback from the tutors on the high performers.

…And they don’t mind doing all this work because they get a qualification out of it.

You get a feeling of ‘total immersion in 2 years of training’ for the cost of about 24 days – because the monthly sessions are a constant top-up, with reading and assignments in between.  So it feels to the delegates like a lot of training.

Networking between members of the course – they get to know each other really well over the 2 years that a Diploma runs, so if you have a large company or have divisions which tend to be literally that, then this gives a great team effect.

Advantages to the Individual

You get a recognised management qualification at level 3 5 or 7.  The Diploma is the ultimate, but if you do fewer units you can get a Certificate in Management, and the introductory qualification is an Award (these can both be extended up to a Diploma later by simply adding more units).  See http://www.chriscrofttraining.co.uk/diploma_in_management_studies.html for The Cube of Possibilities.

You can upgrade your Diploma to an MBA at a later stage, by doing one more year, at a cost of about £4500 (the cheapest possible way to get an MBA!) – see http://www.chriscrofttraining.co.uk/forum2/viewforum.php?f=17 for details

You get all your gaps of knowledge filled in – even the gaps you didn’t know you had.

You get to be a more effective manager, which has to be good for your career, promotion prospects, job security, and job enjoyment.

You get to feel more confident as a manager, because you know what it’s all about and you know you can do it.  You’ve even done some of it when you did your assignments.

You get a relationship with a tutor, who you can ask questions each time you see them – “It didn’t work when I tried it, what can I do differently?” etc

You get practice at writing up your assignments – the ability to write a well structured yet brief report, when y ou don’t have a lot of time, is a valuable management skill.

You might get exposure to senior managers, if they are at the project presentations or maybe dinners during the course, where you can ask questions about company strategy etc

You get to have some fun as well!

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for more info on all this, see www.croftcentre.co.uk

The Management Potato applied to the band

I know you like stories about management ideas applied to real life, here’s one:

You may remember the idea of the Management Potato, where if you criticise people their ‘Potato of Performance’ just gets smaller until it becomes a prune, but if you build them up you can get a pumpkin…

Well, even if you know about the theory, it still happens, and I can feel it happening to me in the band – and there’s not much I can do about it.

It started when I made some posters for us to give to pubs, and our guitarist and band leader, who is a very talented artist but too busy to make any posters, said “Oh well, I suppose they’ll do until we get some proper ones”. So I don’t think I’ll bother with making a version 2…
Next I got us a gig at a pub that turned out to be less than brilliant, and the comment was (translated for spam filter suitability) “This is a rubbish gig you’ve got us Chris!” It took several visits and a few phone calls to get that gig, they’re always a pain to get, and so I think I’ll not bother with getting gigs any more.
Our previous bass player used to bring song ideas along, but they were nearly always rejected out of hand by the leader, and although I think I’ve got some really good ones I don’t think I’ll risk it.
I had been planning to get a back-drop printed, and I’ve got a good idea for a design, but I know what he’ll say, so I think I don’t do it.

So basically I don’t really do anything now, apart from the minimum, which is to turn up and play. Don’t get me wrong, I love the music, and the band is great, but it needs people to do more than play, and that’s just not happening any more. I guess everyone else feels the same as I do!

Conclusion:

a) Am I too sensitive? Should I persevere for the good of the band? Maybe, but it wears you down after a while (the above were shortened for clarity, it’s been a long relentless process), so however tough you are your potato gets diminished eventually. Mine has taken about 5 years to reach a prune…

b) What should the leader have done, given that maybe my posters weren’t very professional and the gig I got was a bad one? The answer is to think “Posters – At least he’s done this much, which is more than anyone else, and much better than nothing” and say “Brilliant, thanks Chris!”. Gig – “Don’t worry about the gig not working out, there’s no way to tell until you get there on the night, and your next one will probably be a great one”. And yes, he should have agreed to play one of the bass player’s songs, even if it wasn’t our best number. I expect John Lennon’s first song wasn’t as good as Imagine!

c) Parallels with work – anyone who suggests ideas or does work beyond the minimum needs to be noticed and encouraged, however small their efforts appear and however tough and experienced you might think they are. The oak tree has to start as an acorn, at which point it is easily trampled!

Onwards and upwards!

CC

PS – Don’t try and help me solve the band’s problems, I’ll be alright! – the point of this email is to get you to ask yourself if you are nibbling away at someone else’s potato without realising….?

The forgetting curve

There’s a thing called the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve which says that
within an hour you’ve forgotten half of what you’ve been told,
within a day two thirds has gone,
and within a month 80% has gone and there’s only 20% left.

Scary!

The ramifications for presentations are therefore:

1 – Decide on one clear message and hammer away at that. If they just remember one thing, what do you want it to be? Design your whole talk around that message.

2 – If you can have a refresher straight afterwards and then again a week later then the retention is much better, and with two or three refreshers it nearly all goes into the long term memory. These could be done by talk part 2, a follow-up email, or in the case of training, by the line manager getting involved and having a meeting with the person straight away to ask “What did you learn? What will you do differently?” and then a few weeks later “How have you been getting on with you list of planned changes?” Line managers are really important in getting training to work and to be good value for money!

You can see here http://www.cleptestreview.com/supporting-images/projected-forgetting-curve-small.png that even just three refreshers bring the long term retention up from 20% to 80% – a huge improvement!

3 – taking notes is a way of immediately doubling the number of times your brain sees the message, and then if you go through the notes afterwards and condense them, that’s your first refresher

4 – Another way to get a repeat in a fun way is to get whoever has been on a course to tell their colleagues all about it. And of course this means that the others get a (sort of) course for free; and the person on the course has to pay extra attention because they know that later they will have to regurgitate it.

The above apply to people giving talks or training sessions, people who are paying for training sessions / sending their people on training sessions or to talks, and to those who attend talks and training and want to gain as much from it.

Finally, if you’re delivering a talk and you want it to be remembered, there’s the excellent old chestnut which says that activities are much better than just being talked at – “If I am told it I forget, if I see it I remember, if I do it I understand”…

Onwards and upwards

CC

Test yourself

Working with my good friend Andrew Bourke at Studioverse we have produced these self-diagnostic quizzes, which are fun and interesting, I hope you like them

How good a manager are you? http://vizmatch.studioverse.co.uk/index.html#client=cmc1

How good at Time Management are you? http://vizmatch.studioverse.co.uk/index.html#client=cmc2

How good are you at Project Management? http://vizmatch.studioverse.co.uk/index.html#client=cmc3

If you have questions and outputs that you want to put into a quiz format like this we can easily make them for you – email me if interested

CC

Management websites

Here is a list of the various sites that I have created over the years – you might find some of them useful:

My main website for my training courses:
www.chriscrofttraining.co.uk

A summary of project management:
www.project-management-courses.co.uk

Click here to see me doing a free 15 minute e-learning mini-course on Project Management
http://www.online-management-training.co.uk/project-management/player.html

And here I am explaining how to produce a Gantt chart using Excel

http://youtu.be/dDetfOCCMQo

 

A summary of time management
www.time-management-training.co.uk

A story about delegating and not accepting monkeys from people
www.management-leadership.co.uk
or
www.management-training-courses.biz

The First Book of Management (aka Being a Good Boss)
www.chriscroft.com

Sign up for free email tips:
www.free-management-tips.co.uk

Everything you need to know about accredited management courses
www.croftcentre.co.uk

Archive of tips of the month
www.cc-training.com

Online time management course
http://www.online-time-management.co.uk
Samples:
http://www.online-time-management.co.uk/demos/lifestyle/lifestyle_diagnostic.html
www.online-time-management.co.uk/demos/procrastinate/procrastination.html

This blog! www.chriscroft.co.uk

Enjoy!

CC

Problem Solving techniques

Here’s the list I sent out as a tip earlier:

The nearest I have got to a system for being creative is the following list of methods to help stimulate whatever creativity we already have within us. It’s a long list, but if just one of the following ideas works for you then it’s been worth it.

1. Daydream – It’s OK to let your mind wander. The best way to tap into your subconscious is to release your mind, either when relaxed, or half asleep, or thinking about something else.

2. Reversal – Think about how to make it worse, then do the opposite. Think about doing the opposite to what you’d planned; are there any ideas to be gained?

3. Dictionary linking – Pick a word at random from a dictionary, and then think about how this word could be used in a possible solution to the problem.

4. 20 Ideas – Force yourself to write down twenty solutions, however ridiculous. Then, later, review them for the beginnings of ideas.

5. Looking back – Visualise the problem already solved, then think about what you did to get there. Imagine yourself saying “It was easy, all I did was…”

6. What-if – Follow some possible sequences of events, based on different starting points. What if the people were different, or if you changed the product, or the timing, or the method, or the promotion. What might happen? List the main features, then think about changing each one in turn.

7. Sleep on it – Just before you go to sleep, consciously and formally ask your sub-conscious for an answer to the question, to be given in its own time, when it is ready.

8. Matrix – Ensure that all combinations have been covered by drawing out a matrix combining the variables, for example, people with places, products with customers, markets with methods of promotion, etc.

9. Mind Map – Draw the problem out as a picture, and make sure you have fully explored all the branches.

10. Other people: one to one – Explain the problem to someone else. If doing this isn’t enough to make you come up with new solutions, go through each of your ideas and describe the pros and cons of it. Describe what the ideal solution would be like.

11. Other people: group – Brainstorm ideas, as many as possible, writing them all on a board without judging any of them.

12. Question the problem – do you really need to solve it? Do you really want to solve it? Is there a different problem you could solve, or a way to live with it?

13. Define the solution in clear detail – visualise it. How does it feel? What does it look like. Get every detail. Live through the sequence of how it feels to have it solved.

14. Sit with your mind absolutely blank. You are not allowed to think about the problem at all!

15. Keep going after the first solution, however good it may seem.

16. What are the rules / the system / the convention? What if you didn’t follow them?

17. What would other people do? How would they approach it? Make a list of people and their different approaches.

18. “Morphological analysis” – list the attributes of your starting point, usually as verb + noun (e.g. travelling on wheels, or powered by petrol). List alternative nouns for each verb. Make new phrases and combinations of these phrases.

19. Innovation transfer: transfer your situation to a different trade or market (e.g. butcher, doctor or teacher wants to cut costs, sell more, etc.). Brainstorm for them, then translate the ideas back into your own context.

20. Consult a fool – they could give you a new angle on the situation. The “fool” could be an untrained person, or perhaps a child / some children.

21. Think of some silly, fun solutions. Fun opens up the creative section of the brain. Do a brain-storm where only silly solutions are allowed.

22. Become more creative by changing yourself as a person. Visualise and self-talk- “I can…” “I am…” “I do…”

23. Cut out newspaper headlines, maybe cutting and mixing them to produce weird mixtures. TV listings can do the same. Use these to give you new ideas on your problem.

24. Take a random CD and pick a random track. Are the lyrics helpful?

25. Scribble / doodle / sketch / make patterns:- what does it bring to mind? Group members look at each others’ drawings and get ideas.

26. What if the problem was a good thing? Where would that lead? e.g. what if it was good to be slow, or heavy?

27. Sacred cows: what are the fixed restrictions that will always be there? Now wheel these into the abattoir. How does that change things?

28. Nature – how do animals and plants cope with this type of problem? Bees swarm and leave to make a new nest, bears hibernate until the spring comes, etc.

29. Write a film script about a person who solves your problem. How do they do it?

30. Cacophony – all mill around and shout your ideas out, loudly, at once, while sort of listening too. Having heard bits of other people’s, everyone pauses, writes down some new combined versions, and then we go back to another round of shouting.

31. Pick two random nouns (from a dictionary or from other teams) and then think about how they combine.

32. When selecting possible ideas or plans from a list – give each person £100 to spend on whichever of the options they like – divided in any proportions. See which ideas get the most money. Or, quicker, give each person 5 coloured stickers to spread around (they could give all 5 to one plan if they want).

33. What is the second best solution? This forces you not to take the obvious or first choice. How can the second best solution be improved to make it the best?

34. Use adjectives from another noun, e.g using cat on ships: cuddly ships, dead mouse ships, ships that stay out at night, ship flaps…

35. Chunking up or down: orange juice goes up to drink, down to beer, up to alcohol, down to Vodka, up to Made in Russia, down to fur coats…

36. How would the Chief Exec approach the problem? What about the lowliest worker? What about a plumber or a brain surgeon or a farmer? This isn’t about them solving it in their job, it’s them solving it in your job, if you asked them for advice.

37. Thesaurus – start with your current plan, however inadequate, and surf the Thesaurus on the key words.

38. Type the key words of your problem into an internet search engine.

39. Aim much higher than normal, e.g. to sell 100 times as much, or charge 10x as much, or employ 100,000 people. Now, how could you do this?

40. If you had an army of 1000 people to help you, how would you do it?

41. State the problem as “How to…” (e.g. not “we’re not selling as much” but “how to sell more”) and then restate it without using any of the same words. Then restate it again.

42. Mud-slinging: pick the best / most successful product and generate a list of ways that it’s rubbish / doesn’t meet the market needs. Use these to improve your other products or services.

43. Get random pictures from a photography book or newspaper, generate associations from the pictures and apply them to your problem.

44. Give out 2 digital cameras and get teams to photograph unusual objects around the place. Each team gives its pictures to the other team who use these as a source of ideas.