The house we live in is on a half acre lot with lots of trees. It is a beautiful setting, but the situation does call for a certain amount of work to keep the place looking nice.

Some time back I gave my teenage son a job to do out in the yard picking up sticks. Since the sticks look bad and can do damage to the lawn mower, this needs to be done every so often before I mow the grass. Frankly, my son despises picking up sticks. I really don’t blame him. I don’t like to do it either. Most of us, when there is a task we have to do but don’t like, will put that job off as long as possible. My son is no exception. Instead of just getting out there and getting it done, his tendency is to wait until the last minute, then do it half-heartedly.

But, I have observed an interesting phenomenon. Even though he hates this job, there have been a few times when he went out and did it with a lot of enthusiasm. This tended to be times when he wanted me to do something for him, or when he, for some reason, particularly wanted to please me.

Isn't it interesting that a person can actually become enthusiastic about doing a job that they would normally despise. What if you could learn to do that for yourself at will, and inspire the people who work under you to do it, as well?

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The Problem of Productivity

Recently the Gallup organization published a book that gave some insight into this phenomenon. Their research indicated that 75% to 80% of people in any given organization are performing below their potential. The fascinating conclusion, though, is breathtaking. If employers could get their people working to full potential, they would boost customer loyalty by seventy percent and profits by as much as forty percent. What would that be worth? It is one thing, though, to know the math, it is another thing to actually get people working better. But it can be done if approached the right way.

While many companies focus almost exclusively on the financial bottom line, that is not the place where the most benefit can be extracted in creating a better bottom line. If all of the work in the company is handled by some mechanical system, maybe a “bottom line/mechanized” focus is an option. But most organizations depend on people to make the systems work - and people have their own special set of requirements.

I know people who are willing to work harder, and for less pay, because their work situation gives them the kind of personal fulfillment that motivates them. I am also aware of situations where people quit jobs that had very high pay and great benefits because, to them, the pressure was not worth it.

So, what can a company, or a management team, do to get its people operating in a way that produces high job satisfaction, high customer loyalty, greater productivity, and a bigger bottom line? The answer is to know your people and challenge them in ways that fit them individually. This may seem like a daunting task but, if the Gallop organization’s conclusions are correct, figuring this out may be the most important thing your company can emphasize.

This is actually not that difficult a task. But, it does require that every level of the organization be staffed with people who are right for the job. This may not to be so difficult to do if the organization has a large number of people to draw from. The HR department can usually pick out the people with the right qualifications to do the company’s work. The difficulty lies more at the management level where individual managers must have great people and decision making skills, in addition to the task skills.

This is often where “The Peter Principle” kicks in. The Peter principle states that in every hierarchy, each employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. The primary reason this happens is that people who are great at doing their production job get promoted to positions which require them to have relationship and supervisory skills that they don’t have the training or the personality for. It is not enough for them to be experts at doing the job, they have to become experts at helping other people become experts at doing the job. This can be developed and should become the focus of management placement.