Barriers to Performance Improvement – Part Two
This is part two of a five part series about the Barriers to Performance Improvement.
These are all major and common in business and organizations today and will need to be addressed in order to completely turn around our competitive advantage in the global economy.
The Second Barrier to Performance Improvement is…
Wasteful Work Patterns and Processes
Here we have tendencies of shaping our activities in a matter whereby everyone looks busy doing regular, familiar and non-challenging routines which allow for total avoidance of anxiety and thought provoking change.
This is a major reason for organizations actually feeling no one has the time necessary to implement anything new or different into their processes – even if they know it would be beneficial in the long run.
So how can you recognize if Wasteful Work Patterns and Process are in your organization?
There are three common signs to point the way.
Here are the Three Common Signs of Wasteful Work Patterns and Process in your organization…
- Busyness and Clinging to Certain Routines
These are the energy and time suckers of a workforce. It is as if people fall into a time wrap whereby their job never changes or verifies literally day after day. Energy levels are low and morale is questionable. Why and how does this happen? Because there are a number of manager types who believe everyone should be doing something all the time – and better yet, they should be doing the same thing together. What is missing in this simple equation is two things – non challenging or changing work flows and no value to thinking which leads to tinkering which leads to innovation. Remember, innovation is that elusive thing everyone wants to have today in order to be different and more successful. Maybe it would be better to have thought and dialogue sessions on how to improve a work flow or process. Simplification is the number thing on my agenda as we have found processes are set up for the exceptions in work processes rather than the norm. - Impulsive Actions
On the surface impulsive actions sounds somewhat like innovative ideas and new things to do for change. Yet, this is the entrepreneurs number one nemesis in terms of loss of productivity and performance. Included in this error of judgement is a workforce that has no idea regarding the real direction of the organization due to the changing priorities. The key to turning this common influence on barriers is to understand the true north of the organization’s purpose. Know your purpose and create a vision to use to test any new ideas or impulses of action. Loss of focus is a major killer of productivity and performance. - An Infinite Variety of Idiosyncrasies
This is a bit harder to identify since many people will campaign to keep their favorite idiosyncrasy or what I call a personal Sacred Cow. Usually these items are connected to an individuals personal belief structure and can be very hard to counter – since they are very personal to someone. Think about people who show tendencies of idealistic behaviors. Our experience is the carriers of these tendencies will not be changed by others – so they have to educated or unfortunately relieved of certain duties in order to eliminate or change a process for the better. Remember, performance improvement is our goal and tough decisions need to be made in order to move forward.
There you have the big three causes of Wasteful Work Patterns or Processes. Look for these within your organization as well as your personal life and take action immediately. Procrastination is the enemy of dealing with these issues so action is even more important for gaining traction for performance improvement.
Voss Graham
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Tags: common signs for existing barriers, Perofrmance Improvement, Procrastination, Voss W Graham, wasteful work patterns, wasteful work processes
