Are you leading people to do the 'right work'?
"...the downfall of low-performing [organizations] is not their lack of effort and motivation; rather, it is poor decisions regarding what to work on. So the problem in low-performing [organizations] is not getting people to work, it is getting people to do the 'right work'."
from: School Leadership that Works by Marzano, Waters, & McNulty
(ASCD - Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and McREL - Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning)
Perhaps choosing the wrong work occurs most when top-down models exclude team members from the decision making process.
ReplyDeleteThere is an old story about a factory manager who ordered a new machine to replace two older ones in order to speed up the productivity of his workers. when the new machine was isntalled, productivity fell drastically. The foreman reported that roughly half the workers were left handed and could not use anything but the old oujtdated machine. The task took to long on the neew "right" one. Had the manager involved the staff, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble and increased the productivity of the team.
Maybe making the right decisions involves input from and giving voice to the people in the trenches who kinow firsthand what the needs are.