Let It Flow

 Many of you will know of the concept of a 'flow state' whereby humans enter a mental state where they feel completely engaged and absorbed in the task in hand.  Distractions fade away and you concentrate fully onethe task and applying your skills to it.  It is sometimes referred to as being 'in the zone'. It is when you look at the clock and find you have been heavily focused and working productively for a much longer period than you expected.

The term 'flow state' was assigned  by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi to represent an optimal state of consciousness where action and awareness merge. 

Flow state is blocked by external interventions ands by a real or imagined lack of appropriate skills to deal with a task, and by mental fatigue interfering with full concentration.

Not surprisingly, telephone calls, emails and other forms of messaging interrupt a flow state as does multitasking for most people. Other obvious barriers to achieving a full flow state are anxiety about a task and boredom with the task (or previous similar tasks).

Of course there are things you can do to help achieve flow state - and you certainly need to prepare for it.  

You need to make sure you have everything you need (all the pieces of equipment, tools and so on).  You need (to try) to remove or mute all distractions.  Close down any messaging systems or websites you might be tempted to sneak a look at.

You need to schedule meaningful periods of time - at a time that is in harmony with your natural body clock.

Think about changing your location where others cannot easily reach you.

You will not easily reach a flow stare - but you will have given yourself the best chance of achieving it - and achieving peak performance.

And, of course, you need to ensure your creative staff are aware of flow state and can themselves prepare to achieve it.

Re-Visiting Working From Home

 Those who read my posts regularly will know that I am not a believer in any positive productivity effects of working from home.  It van help but only if the organisation is able to save substantial accommodation costs on workspaces that are no longer needed - and this applies to very few companies who normally 'hedge their bets' by maintaining their properties snd only saving on lower energy costs.

I have been reflecting on this and though I have not changed my opinion, I do feel that perhaps I have been over-critical of those who have allowed employees to work from hime.  It may be that there is nothing inherently or philosophically wrong with home working.  The problem is that most organisations have management teams - and management training processes - which assume 'normal' in-the-workplace environments and systems and processes.  In practice, they need to adjust workflows - and perhaps working methods, communication processes and reporting processes to fit the new environment

Otherwise, processes fail, become inefficient or error-prone.  This is clearly not a recipe for productivity improvement.

So, by all means let employees work from home - if you think it has benefits in employee well-being or in cost-saving.  But ensure your working and communication processes are adjusted to suit the new arrangement. 

Strike A balance

  Some (but thankfully fewer) managers believe that you increase the productivity of employees by driving them harder. increasing their workload and punishing mistakes.   Nowadays, most managers know that getting results is more of a balance between 'driving' and 'caring', ensuring that hard-working staff are not overworked, burnt-out or increasingly anxious about their work.

We need to increase output and productivity without damaging - or indeed, breaking - our employees.

Simple 'time and motion' or work-study men (for they were almost exclusively men) from 50 years ago built 'rest and recovery' periods into the times allocated for specific tasks.  The 'harder' (more demanding) the work, the greater the recovery time allowed.  The advantage of this approach is that the recovery time was built in - it wasn't given on the whim of the supervisor.

Your employees should be encouraged to take 'mini' or even 'micro' breaks during the day - taking a few deep breaths, walking, taking a 'water cooler' moment, etc.

You should also make sure employees have time for focused work - free of (formal or informal) meetings, perhaps with a 'ban' on phone calls.Some organisations provide 'focus rooms' or spaces where people can get sway from their own desk and local environment.

Such small changes mean you give staff the opportunity to recover from their hard work, to feel better about themselves, their work - and the organisation.

They become more productive.

Leave Your Layers

 There has been a trend over recent years to strip out management layers - searching for the great productivity boom said to result from flattened organisations.  Delayering is said to improve communications, increase transparency  and lead to faster and better decision-making.  The streamlined organisation has higher productivity.

Like many productivity approaches, there is an inherent logic to this - but - again as with many approaches - the reality can be different.  There is some evidence to suggest that it leads to disengaged, overworked management team where mistakes van be made and errors not spotted.

Those at lower levels can feel unguided and unsupervised.  Although some may welcome this 'freedom', it is not necessarily a route to better performance.  We have spent 50 years developing management approaches and management education.  Now we seem to be dismantling much that we built.

If this is a problem - and I think the jury is still out - the problem will be exacerbated as AI eats into supervisory and managerial roles.

Don't say you haven't been warned!

Help Your Employees Help Themselves

 Some lucky employees have healthcare benefits as part of their remuneration package.

The rest have to juggle healthcare with other priorities and are subject to the vagaries of the healthcare system and any associated costs.

As knowledge grows of health-related issues, including contextual and environmental factors, people are constantly urged to change theirr diet, stop smoking, reduce alcohol intake and so on.

This is as it should be.  It is a person's responsibility to look after themself … to make healthcare, self-care.

Its helps, though, if work - and the workplace - are not harmful to health and well-being - either physical or mental well-being.

This irequires a supportive employer who creates a workplace - and working roles - that are designed to be 'health-positive'.

For theb employee, this clearly makes sense- their health is of major importance - if not the most important factor in their overall, long-term, well-being and satisfaction.

For the employer, too, there are benefits - fewer days lost to sickness and a more positive attitude to work and to the organisation.  A healthy workforce has higher productive capacity.

The health and well-being of the workforce is a significant productivity factor.

What Can AI do for Your Business?

 Most business owners and managers are taking a keen interest in AI  They have heard the hype and are now excited to learn the reality - to hear of the successful case studies of AI introduction and also the occasional failures (though failures can be under-reported as few want to advertise their failures).

But of course, the real winners are those who have read about the potential of AI to assist with, or replace, business processes and tasks - and have then explored within their own business how that potential might be realised and translated into lower costs, higher productivity, better quality or whatever.

Learning by doing, snd learning by failing, are often the most valuable - if sometimes the most painful - lessons.

So, if you wait to read about a successful introduction of AI to an organisation like yours or to a process like one of yours, you might have the chance to repeat that success. 

But if the successful organisation is one of your competitors, you might be too late.

Take the risk of being a leader.  Leaders often win.  Fewer followers do! 

The Essential Quality Your Business Needs

  Is there one? One quality which is more valuable (and therefore more necessary) than others.

Well, that is not a simple question.   All businesses need a variety and a numb er of qualities to go successful through their start-up phase and then perhaps a different (though overlapping) set of qualities for their 'stablisation' phase, their growth phase - and so on

However, through each of these phases, perhaps one specific quality is more valuable than others.  

Then, we get the situation where the external context (the business environment) makes a particular quality more important.

As of now, all businesses are facing threats from technology (and specifically AI).  Ironically the threat posed by AI is even applicable to AI companies themselves. (The biggest threat is faced by those whg don't think they are facing a threat.)

In situations where there is a generic, external threat (and especially where that threat is only partially understood) all businesses need the essential quality of remaining flexible.  This can be called flexibility, agility, resilience or ….. but it is the ability to 'read' the situation and take appropriate action.  This will depend on the market the business is in - but act it must.  

So, all businesses should currently be reading their own situation snd the external factors that are in play (and how these relate to the business and the way it operates).  You should be getting ready to act - even if tyou are not yet quite ready to act.

Is your business agile enough to survive?