Daniel Markovitz
Mount Tamalpais
Operational excellence. Measurable improvement.
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Articles by Daniel Markovitz
Go to Where the Actual Work Is Being Done
Do you often feel reactive instead of proactive? Do people complain that decisions at the top take too long to percolate down to the frontlines? If so, you probably manage your organization and your direct reports through weekly meetings and email. You should instead consider “leader standard work.” Leader standard work is a term often used in lean manufacturing. However, it needn’t be confined to the factory floor — it’s equally valuable anywhere in the organization.
Ask not what your employees can do for you; ask what you can do for your employees
The vast majority of employees come to work to do a good job and do their best to add value in their assigned roles. When they don’t—as eminent scholar W. Edwards Deming repeatedly pointed out—it is usually due to a failure of the management system, not the people. Poorly-designed processes and inadequate (if not actively harmful) management systems prevent workers from creating the value that companies need and customers expect.
How Visual Systems Make It Easier to Track Knowledge Work
Walk into any fitness center, health club, or gym in the country and you’ll see yourself. Or rather, reflections of yourself. It doesn’t matter whether the gym is one step up from a cave or a posh Park Avenue fitness emporium — you’ll see mirrors, and lots of them. The mirrors aren’t a manifestation of the customers’ narcissism. They’re actually there for an important purpose: to help people do their exercises properly.
When You Give Your Team a Goal, Make It a Range
Goals! Managers love setting them. Employees (hopefully) want to achieve them. And for good reason. A well-constructed and thoughtfully considered goal can be extremely motivating and rewarding. It’s no surprise, then, that they are a staple of any modern day manager’s motivational toolkit. Want to focus your organization on winning new business? Then set the sales team a goal for the number of outbound calls made, business development meetings arranged, and trade show contacts followed up on.
To Motivate Employees, Do 3 Things Well
Given the extraordinary low levels of engagement in the U.S. workforce — a recent Gallup poll showed that 70% of employees are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” at work — many leaders are looking for solutions. Some turn to material perks (bonuses, game rooms, free food) in the hopes of making employees happier. However, research suggests that these efforts, while appreciated, do not address more effective drivers of long-term well-being.
A Primer on Setting Goals for You and Your Team
Goals are crucial to personal and professional success. In contrast to New Year’s resolutions—which seldom include a plan for how to accomplish them—goals provide a sense of purpose to your activities. They also make you accountable for certain outcomes. Through goal setting, you and your team decide where you want to go and what you need to do to get there. When you work with your direct reports to design specific, challenging goals, you help them achieve high levels of performance.
No One Likes to Be Changed
Listen to the language that any leader, consultant, or HR professional uses, and you’ll hear them expound at length about how “we” need to change “them.” That says it all: the fact is, no one likes to be changed, even if the change is ultimately beneficial. In his recent HBR blog post, Ron Ashkenas argues that the reason most change management initiatives fail is due to stunted managerial capability to implement change.
Feeding the beast: getting your order to Amazon on time
Amazon is increasingly demanding of the retailers and brands that sell it products. Congratulations! Amazon has continued to increase their regular purchases from your company, and things are looking up for the next quarter. Unfortunately, with Amazon’s tighter shipping window, it’s easy to lose much-needed profit from this order to chargebacks. Here are three places where orders might bog down in your system and delay shipment—and how to deal with them.
The Folly of Stretch Goals
Let’s dispense, once and for all, with the managerial absurdity known as “stretch goals.” While it’s true that renowned psychologists Edwin Locke and Gary Latham described goal setting as “the most effective managerial tool available,” it’s also true that no less a thinker than W.E. Deming insisted that companies, “Eliminate management by objective.” In my opinion, there can be no such debate over the lack of usefulness of stretch goals. Here’s why. Stretch goals can be terribly demotivating.
To-Do Lists Don’t Work
Stop making to-do lists. They’re simply setting you up for failure and frustration. Consider the to-do lists you’re currently managing: how many items have been languishing since Michelle Bachman was leading the field for the Republican nomination? How often do you scan your list just so that you can pick off the ones you can finish in two minutes? How many items aren’t really to-dos at all, but rather serious projects that require significant planning?
Make Every Minute Count
CPA firms often end up writing off time they should be charging to their clients. How can you get more done in less time and avoid spinning your wheels? Follow these simple tips. Filter out low-value information. Thirty-nine percent of executives squander between a half and one full day per week on e-mails, voice mails and meetings with little value. Lighten the burden on your time by unsubscribing from mailing lists and publications you don’t read.
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