The case for a four-day working week

Over the last six months, I’ve had a unique opportunity to rethink everything about my company.  Aside from working on the value proposition and all those good things needed to carve out a niche, I’ve been thinking about work-life balance.  And not just for me – for staff, too.

So many times, we hear people and businesses go on about it, but I don’t think any of that really works in the long term. Various efforts are made to give people social / team based activities and give other perks while at work.  However, the pressures of client deadlines, work schedules, etc., all conspire to force us to work longer hours and make us sacrifice the things we were going to do to get the balance we need.

Then there are the weekends.  How often do you feel like you’ve only just wound down and then realise it’s Sunday? And then the grind starts again.

I think a more radical approach is needed to achieve work-life balance and to do something for staff that properly differentiates the working environment from others to make it an attractive place to work.  I think that truly, the last thing people really want is to have time filled with team bonding activities when they could’ve been at home instead or doing something else completely different.

Starting from 2013, I’ll be instituting a four day working week for all staff.  That is, the whole company will operate on a four day week – Monday to Thursday – with Friday a mandatory day off for everyone.

How will this work?  Simple.  No change to salary (same pay), no change to annual leave (four calendar weeks), no change to billable hours (32 hours per week).  I only expect people to bill 32 hours per week anyway.  The company’s profitability models are based on 32 hours.  Why not do that in four days instead of five?  After all, we all know the maxim – Work fills the time available.

Rather than trying to invent the next contrived activity to keep people motivated and create an attractive workplace with other meaningless games and trinkets, why not give people what they really want – the time to the things they’d rather be doing than going to work.  And here’s another maxim – Who, on their deathbed, ever said they wished they had spent more time at work?

I think the only real way to achieve work / life balance is to have more time for the life component.  Just imagine what you can do with a three day weekend, every week.

Managing for success (Part 7) – Thanking people with thought when they help you

On Friday I presented on my consulting work to the 2IC of the Commonwealth Bank. For those of you who don’t know, it’s the biggest bank in Australia and amongst the top 3 largest listed companies by market cap.

The meeting was with the 2IC, his direct team and peer team members. This was the elite of the Bank and it wasn’t just a little intimidating – it was very intimidating.

And one person in the room took it upon himself to say ‘Good morning, Craig’. Making a point of being friendly and acknowledging that we knew each other. He basically said to me ‘there’s at least one friendy in the room’.

Michael didn’t need to to this. There was nothing in it for him. If you read one of my other recent posts, you’ll see how important it is to do things because they should be done, not because you do it for some material gain.

My responsibility in this interaction is to ensure I thank him for doing it. And not just a quick ‘Thanks, Michael’ email, but one that describes that I knew what he was doing to help.

My email was essentially ‘thanks for making a friendly gesture in an intimidating meeting’. Being precise like that shows him that I put as much thought into my ‘thanks’ as he did in his initial gesture.

People like to be acknowledged for the things they do, especially when they don’t have to do what they did.

Managing for success (Part 6) – Doing things you don’t really have to

I was again talking with one of my students this week and we were talking abou interactions with other people.

The particular situation she was experiencing related to one of her lecturers. The lecturer is new at the game and was clearly struggling to gain the confidence of the students and conduct the lecture in a constructive and meaningful way.

My student described how the class was becoming very dissatisfied with the lecturer and were starting to behave in less then helpful ways. There was general dissent and the students were making it known to the lecturer. unfortunately, the lecturer responded in turn, and around it went.

It’s so easy to fall in behind group behaviour and be like all the others. It’s much easier to criticise than it is to help. And much easier to watch than it is to become actively involved.

Our discussion about this took the direction of what she (my student) can do to actually help the situation, rather than make things worth. The idea is that she can actually engage with the lecturer and provide feedback on how things have transpired and how things can b done better.

I know it sounds a little trite – you’re probably thinking that anyone would do that. However, what I’ve noticed is that most people don’t actually do it. It’s simpler and less threatening if you don’t start a conversation about difficult things – i.e. how to give someone constructive feedback when they’re doing a really poor job at something.

The point of this, is that instead of letting things be like they are, get involved, provide feedback, help out – even when you don’t need to and won’t actually gain anything from it. You do it, because no-one else will.

What’s the worst that can happen? They don’t listen, they get angry, they think you’re nosy. But now it’s actually their problem. You made the effort.

Don’t let it dishearten you. In the long run, you’ll make a difference. Most people like receiving feedback, especially when it’s done well. But that’s a topic for another day.

You’re probably asking your self what did I do to help. Well, I rang the Head of School and talked to him about the feedback I was hearing. I asked about how the lecturer was being supported and even made some suggestions about other things that can be done.

Again, what’s the worst that can happen? The Head says ‘thanks but it’s all in hand’. Nope, that didn’t happen. He understood my motive, took the feedback on board and gave me an undertaking to take an active role in supporting the lecturer. It turns out that he didn’t quite realise how things really were.

I would say that that’s a pretty positive outcome – I wonder what would’ve transpired if I hadn’t made the call. Who knows? But at least I did what I could.

Now, this post is not about being a martyr, or about how I’m a martyr. People who know me would never associate that word with my personality!!! The point is that I got involved when I didn’t have to.

It’s not about throwing your weight around or being a sticky-beak. It’s about genuinely wanting things to be different and if there’s an opportunity to make a difference to someone, despite the fact there is no material gain for me, then I think that’s a good thing.

Not everyone wants feedback, but that’s not your problem because you can’t predict whether someone will want feedback until you try. If you’re not sure, you can always ask them: ‘would you mind if I gave you some feedback on that?’ They’ll either say yes or no and you take it from there. If they say no, then you go about your business and work with people who are interested in getting feedback.

You can’t help everyone – work with the ones you can.

Managing for success (Part 5) – Trusting people

This week’s discussion with one of my students brought up a very important issue about how managers treat staff.

She (my student) commented to me that whenever she comes in she always notices that people email to the group that they are working from home. She asks me about how do I know that they’re really working?

Simply, I trust that people are actually working from home. Do I know they are actually working from home – yes. Why? I trust that they are, therefore they must be.

I know that sounds illogical since I don’t really know what they’re doing because I’m not there with them. But at the end of the day, I trust that they are doing the right thing – and that’s good enough.

Let’s look at what happens if you don’t trust people. Managers who don’t trust their staff are continuously monitoring people, trying to catch them out. What these managers don’t realise is that they are creating the very environment that will cause people to do things that reinforce the managers lack of trust. Or the manager will interpret some seemingly innocuous behaviour as an indicator of doing something untrustworthy. It’s a vicious circle with only one outcome.

In contrast, it’s much easier to start with the view that people are trustworthy and will do the right thing. By doing this, you also set up an environment where people do things that indicate trustworthiness.

Fortunately, you will be right most of the time (whichever view you take!!!). I’ve only experienced 2 or 3 serious breaches of conduct over the last 9 years of running PTG where people outright lied or did something that was in very poor form. Those people no longer work for my company, either because they left or were exited.

It’s dissapointing that this happens, especially when you make a real effort to trust them and ‘this is what you get for it’. But you can’t think that way. It poisons your view of people and causes you to behave in a reactionary way and take away people’s freedom to make their own choices.

Rest assured that the odds are very much in your favour if you start with a positive view of people’s motives. You will get what you look for.

Managing for success (Part 4) – Offloading unnecessary decision making

We regularly have students working with us as they do a placement as part of their degree. Specifically, UNSW and Macquarie University students studying for a Masters degree in industrial psychology are required to complete around 1,000 hours of placements over the two year full time.

I spent some time with one of them discussing how I run PTG Global. We talked about some of the things I do while running PTG. The first thing was about the nature of the people I employ.

When I started PTG (some 9 years ago), it was always clear to me that I needed to employ people who could compensate for the things I was not strong at. It’s often treated gliby when people say they employ people better than they are, or who can succeed them, but I don’t think people actually do it. It’s very threatening to employ people who are smarter and/or better than you are. And I imagine that managers are concerned that they might lose their job if there are people better than they are in the pool.

But the reality is that as a manager, you need to make yourself ‘dispensable’. That is, if you aren’t there for any reason, and all work stops, then it’s clear that you aren’t doing your job. Although i’m in the position where I own and operate PTG, it’s critical that I have people who can maintain things while I’m not there.

A client recently said to me after the week-long road trip we were on ‘I bet you’ll have a million things to do when you get back on monday’. I said to him ‘If I have a million things on, then I’m not a very good manager’.

It’s one of those things – we’d like to think we get great people around us, but a lot of people don’t do it. I’ve found it critical in my business to ensure people are empowered to make decisions.

How do you do this? It’s really quite simple and I do a couple of key things:

1. I let people make decisions
2. I provide some broad parameters for things in and out of their decision making authority (e.g. You make any performance management decisions and I’ll make salary decisions – truth is, I’ve even let that go now)
3. If people ask me things things that should decide on their own, I say something like ‘I don’t need to know about it – just do whatever you think is right’. If you do this a few times, people soon get the hint – but you must have the boundaries in place.
4. If people make a decision that’s not right, it nearly always can be fixed – so there’s no need to come down hard on people. As they say, ‘Shit happens’ – no-one dies, nothing bad happens in my line of work.

If you don’t offload as much as possible in the way of day-to-day decisions, your staff will wait until you get back to make the decision for them and nothing will get done. You will have become a road block in the business.

Keep focussed on managing and growing your business – you can’t do this if your always making day-to-day decisions for your staff.

Managing for success (Part 3) – Our old f(r)iend: the fundamental attribution error

I was in a cab early on Monday morning this week. We took off and I noticed at the first corner that the meter already had $7 on it, when it should have been about $3.

Like most people, my first thought was ‘bloody cabbie ripping me off’. A thought driven by stereotypes that was circling around in my head making me get more and more annoyed as I watched the meter creep up.

We got to the harbour bridge and I said to the cabbie: ‘Can I ask you something? I noticed that the meter was at $7 when I got in. Why was that?’

Read more »

Managing for success (Part 2) – Managing meetings around decisions: an escape from meeting ‘hell’

Last week I was a guest in a meeting. Half an hour later, I don’t think a single action or worthwhile thing had taken place.

Notwithstanding the fact that the meeting was run without an agenda, I started thinking about what makes for an effective meeting and how to get the most of them. I thought about the role of an agenda and considered that even with an agenda, the same thing as I saw would have ensued. I even thought about why you would even bother having a meeting since nothing seems to change in the workplace as a result of having one.

Most meetings are run with an agenda, with the view to keep things focussed. They still end up being discussions, albeit generally around the item topic. But nothing really gets done.

It dawned on me that there should be two kinds of meetings (and possibly a third if you’re like me and consider a ‘short’ meeting to always be a good meeting ):

1. Information presentation meetings
2. Decision making meetings

Keep reading to find out what these are about… Read more »

Managing for success (Part 1) – Micro managing people: how to spot it and how to stop it

In this post, I outline a recent experience in micro managing. As a manager, if you’ve ever experienced the sensation that you can do a better job than your staff, or that your staff don’t seem to spot the obvious or think for themselves, then read on. You’ll be in for a bit of a surprise.

This post shows you how to identify if you’re micro managing people and what to do about it.

Read more »

How to succeed in business – fire your top sales people

SignonSanDiego reports that Circuit City’s cost cutting strategy is to fire its top sales people.  I don’t know about you, but I always thought to succeed in a sales business you need to attract and retain the best sales people.  And good sales people cost money.  I wonder what will happen when they’re sales drops as fast as the cost cutting?

Perhaps a better strategy would have been to weed out the poor peforming sales people.  It’s not hard to do – you just look at their sales figures.  At the same time you’re doing this, you can analyse the proportion of sales your top people bring in compared to the rest.  It’s not unusual to find the top 10% of sales people bring in 20 – 30% of all sales.  Now why would you fire those people?

A messy desk equates to more productivity

Every day when I sit at my desk I say to myself ‘I’ve got to clean up my desk’. There are paper and notes from one end to the other – things i just know I’m going to need (yeah, right!!).

A friend and colleague and a local university has a desk with nothing on it but his notebook, notebook stand and second monitor. Everytime I see him, I look enviously at it, wishing I could do the same.

In truth, I can. But the tidy only lasts a day – if at all. ExtremeTech features an article on research about messy desks and productivity. I feel a little better, but still secretly wish I could maintain a little more order.