Management: Activities vs Results

Activities vs Results

Written by Graeme Nichol

You have two employees, one that comes to work early and is always repparttar

last to leave. They always seem to be busy rushing here and there. The second employee doesn’t ever work late unless asked to and really doesn’t seem to be that busy. If you had to choose one, which employee would you rather have in your company?

In my opinion, repparttar 149185 amount of activity they seem to be doing tells me nothing. I am not interested in how much an employee runs around and how many hours they work. What is important is repparttar 149186 RESULTS they produce. Which employee does their work on time and performs above expectations? That is repparttar 149187 employee I want around.

Employees that regularly work overtime and always seem to be rushing around raise a red flag. Either they are disorganized, or they don’t know what they are doing or they have too much work to do. If they are disorganized and if they don’t know what they are doing they need to be trained. If they have too much work to do, I either need to reorganize my company or employ an additional person.

People often confuse activity with results. Time and again we come across business owners and executives who believe they are adding tremendously to their company because of repparttar 149188 numerous hours they put in. When we analyze what they spend their days doing, we usually find that they spend a lot of time doing someone else’s work.

Why do someone else’s work? Well, it is often easier and more enjoyable work. They can be seen to be busy – confusing activity with results. Sometimes they really have no idea what they should be doing and therefore do anything.

Dialogue vs. Discussion

Written by Graeme Nichol

Have you ever sat in a meeting where everyone is busy giving their point of view and trying to prove why they are right? Where no one is actually listening or trying to understand other individuals’ points of view. The alternative meeting format is where everyone listens to and agrees with repparttar

meeting leader. No one contributes or adds ideas, they are just compliant.

In my experience most meeting are either one or repparttar 149184 other. But when you think about it, what is repparttar 149185 point of most meetings? Meetings are usually held to make decisions. The outcome that most people would want from repparttar 149186 meeting is that repparttar 149187 BEST decision is made, not that any decision is made, or another sub-committee is formed but that a decision that delivers results is made. Then we move on.

So as we hustle from meeting to meeting being very busy, achieving nothing in repparttar 149188 way of measurable results, we land up with yet another sub-committee. All because we have lost repparttar 149189 art of dialogue. So, repparttar 149190 question is; what is repparttar 149191 difference between dialogue and discussion?

DISCUSSION – Discussion is repparttar 149192 way that most people communicate. During discussion we present our ideas and everyone analyzes and dissects them from their different points of view. The purpose of discussion, though, it to make sure you win, or that your point of view is repparttar 149193 one that is accepted. During repparttar 149194 discussion you will support your idea and give your points more strongly until, eventually, others agree with you. You want to prove that you are right, and repparttar 149195 most knowledgeable, as does everyone else in repparttar 149196 discussion. Great! With everyone trying to win repparttar 149197 argument, no decision is ever made and we eventually need to form a sub-committee to decide. Or repparttar 149198 CEO, or team leader, uses his or her divine autocratic right and decides for repparttar 149199 team.

DIALOGUE – Dialogue on repparttar 149200 other hand is an exploration of ideas. It is not a new form of communication but is repparttar 149201 way repparttar 149202 ancient Greeks and many so called ‘primitive’ societies are seen to explore ideas. During dialogue everyone works together contributing towards repparttar 149203 idea. Remember repparttar 149204 team is greater than repparttar 149205 sum of repparttar 149206 parts; therefore more is achieved from repparttar 149207 dialogue as each person’s ideas add to repparttar 149208 last. In a dialogue no one is trying to win. They are trying to learn and create. They suspend their individual assumptions and explore ideas and issues. It is a free flow of ideas where participants continue to think and watch themselves think. The great physicists Heisenberg, Pauli, Einstein and Bohr described repparttar 149209 conversations they had with each other. As we know from history their conversations (dialogue) changed traditional physics because what they could achieve as a group exceeded what each could do as individuals. Interesting? So who is ‘primitive’ now?

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