Thinking Out of the Box
Every
company has a performance appraisal system in place to measure the
effectiveness of its employees. Employees are normally rated in most of the
companies in the above categories. Apart from the above nonperformance category
is also there, which is not depicted here ) . Needless to say everyone wants to
be rated Outstanding. What is the yard stick and how do you measure these
aspects?
Employee
"A" in a company walked up to his manager and asked what my job is
for the day?
The manager
took "A" to the bank of a river and asked him to cross the river and
reach the other side of the bank. "A" completed this task
successfully and reported back to the manager about the completion of the task
assigned. The manager smiled and said "GOOD JOB"
Next day
Employee "B" reported to the same manager and asked him the job for
the day. The manager assigned the same task as above to this person also. The
Employee "B' before starting the task saw Employee "C"
struggling in the river to reach the other side of the bank. He realized
"C" has the same task. Now "B" not only crossed the river
but also helped "C" to cross the river. "B" reported back
to the manager and the manager smiled and said "VERY GOOD JOB"
The
following day Employee "Q" reported to the same manager and asked him
the job for the day. The manager assigned the same task again. Employee
"Q" before starting the work did some homework and realized
"A", "B" & "C" all has done this task before.
He met them and understood how they performed. He realized that there is a need
for a guide and training for doing this task. He sat first and wrote down the
procedure for crossing the river, he documented the common mistakes people
made, and tricks to do the task efficiently and effortlessly. Using the
methodology he had written down he crossed the river and reported back to the
manager along with documented procedure and training material. The manager said
"Q" you have done an "EXCELLENT JOB".
The
following day Employee "O' reported to the manager and asked him the job
for the day. The manager assigned the same task again. "O" studied
the procedure written down by "Q" and sat and thought about the whole
task. He realized company is spending lot of money in getting this task
completed. He decided not to cross the river, but sat and designed and
implemented a bridge across the river and went back to his manager and said, "You
no longer need to assign this task to any one". The manager smiled and
said "Outstanding job 'O'. I am very proud of you."
What is the
difference between A, B, Q & O????????
Many a times
in life we get tasks to be done at home, at office, at play….,
Most of us
end up doing what is expected out of us. Do we feel happy? Most probably yes.
We would be often disappointed when the recognition is not meeting our
expectation.
Let us
compare ourselves with "B". Helping someone else the problem often
improves our own skills. There is an old proverb (I do not know the author)
"learn to teach and teach to learn". From a company point of view
"B" has demonstrated much better skills than "A" since one
more task for the company is completed.
"Q"
created knowledge base for the team. More often than not, we do the task
assigned to us without checking history. Learning from other's mistake is the
best way to improve efficiency. This knowledge creation for the team is of
immense help. Re-usability reduces cost there by increases productivity of the
team. "Q" demonstrated good "team-player" skills,
Now to the
outstanding person, "O" made the task irrelevant; he created a
Permanent Asset to the team. If you notice B, Q and O all have demonstrated
"team performance" over and above individual performance; also they
have demonstrated a very invaluable characteristic known as
"INITIATIVE".
Initiative
pays of everywhere whether at work or at personal life. If you put initiative
you will succeed. Initiative is a continual process and it never ends. This is
because this year's achievement is next year's task. You cannot use the same
success story every year. The story provides an instance of performance, where
as measurement needs to be spread across at least 6-12 months. Consequently
performance should be consistent and evenly spread.
Out-of-Box
thinkers are always premium and that is what everyone constantly looks out for.
Initiative, Out-of-Box thinking and commitment are the stepping stone to
success. Initiative should be lifelong. Think of out of the box.
This is the
extended version of this episode:
This manager
went to his reporting authority immediately after all the subordinates had
finished their assigned tasks and submitted his consolidated report with an
expectation of a word of appreciation. Alas! To his utter dismay he heard him
talking to the Accounts chief: “Hey! Immediately settle the account of Mr. X
(this manager). I never knew he has a set of self-starters who don’t need to be
supervised at all.”
Moral: only
such of those tasks that cannot be completed without the ultimate solution of
the manager should be assigned by him to his subordinates!
(Make sure
that the many negatives in the sentence do make sense!!)
Have a great
day!!
