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Fostering creativity

Do you encourage creativity and initiative within your team, or do you just want them to follow your instructions and get it done?

I once had a boss tell me that he would like to run his company like a sergeant in WW1 so he could order his workers out of the trenches and shoot them if they refused! Now this is an extreme example of a narcissistic boss, and you will not be surprised to here that his staff turnover would average near 100% p/a, but in some ways I think he is verbalizing what a great deal of team leaders really feel; "I know best, do as you're told".

But what happens when the Sergent gets shot? Or takes leave, or decides to work on a new initiative?  Do you really want to develop a team of dependants that rely on you for every decision they make?  That is surely going to limit the effectiveness of both you and your team, and severely reduce the level of commitment and job satisfaction within your team.

The alternative is to develop a team of independent creative thinkers and problem solvers who come to to the office each day to stretch and push themselves and work at their art!

the value of meetings.........

Meetings are expensive and massive time sinks.  Generally we tend to hold meetings too often, leave them too unstructured and rarely draw discussions to valuable conclusions.  Most often we hold them because we believe we should.

Some suggested changes to make your meetings more effective;

1. Ask if it's necessary?  Would a call conference or group email be more effective?  What value does it bring to the company, what would happen if we didn't hold the meeting?
2. Give it a purpose.  Let everyone know why the meeting is taking place, send out an agenda and give the participants specific guidelines for their involvement, I.e. a breakdown of what they are to report.
3. Limit it's time. Schedule the meeting with a start and finish time, and limit each individuals reporting time. 
4. Don't call it a meeting. Call it a project briefing or team briefing or financial reporting session or something that describes the main purpose of the meeting.   This will allow participants to arrive prepared and focused. 
5. Assign a time keeper. The time keeper's job is to keep the meeting on track in terms of both topic and time.
6. Hold it late in the day.  People are less inclined to drag out a meeting if it starts to cut into their own time.
7. Keep track of the meeting costs and let everyone know.  For a handy meeting calculator click here.  I would also add the opportunity cost for each participant to get a true value of the meeting cost.

In the wisdom of crowds, James Surowiecki concluded that the combined wisdom of a group is of greater value than each of it's individuals (the group is wiser than the individual).  But there was a qualification; greater combined wisdom was only achieved when each individual had a degree of independence and not swayed by the other opinions of the group.  So this means is that if you want the best outcome for a debate or issue, rather than hold a group meeting and/or open forum where the most assertive of the group sway the ideas of the less assertive, you will achieve a better outcome by giving the issue or idea to each member of your team and asking for independent feedback. 

Remember; a camel is a horse designed by a committee!

the pareto principal

The Pareto Principal (otherwise known as the 80/20 rule), asserts that 20% of causes create 80% of results.  Unlocking this idea in your company can unleash huge results and here is a quick rundown of the way this rule may apply to the construction industry;

1. 80% of profits come from 20% of projects  
2. 20% of projects and/or customers take 80% of your time to manage
3. 20% of staff or contractors produce 80% of work or results (or profit)
4. 80% of resources are taken up on 20% of projects
5. 80% of problems come from 20% of causes
6. 20% of your time will yield 80% of your results or outputs

Now this is just a quick example of the most common applications of the rule and it will vary depending on how efficient your team is currently running and the rule may also apply to different degrees. I.e. 90% of problems are caused by 10% of causes or 40% of projects deliver 60% of profits etc.  The importance is to find the imbalances, value and slack and to then act accordingly.

For more detailed exploration into this principle look here.