Philosophies to abandon in the workplace (3rd article)

This is the third article in the series “philosophies to abandon in the workplace”. In the first article I talk about why we should let go of the notion of “going the extra mile”. In the second, I discuss why “multi-tasking” is not something we should brag about.

The third article challenges the age old proverb of “time is money”. Can you hear these words ringing in your ears? Think of the scenarios when someone has said that to you. Who was it that used those words? What was their role? What behaviour or response do you think they were trying to initiate? Most importantly, how did it make you feel? I can recall that for me, it felt like someone was telling me that I was wasting time or not working quickly enough. I also remember that often the people that used this saying frequently, would also follow my sincere question of  “When do you need this?” with an answer of “Yesterday!”, always accompanied with a smirk of sorts.

Most official definitions of “time is money” suggest that it’s best to do things quickly. Yes!, pace is important because businesses often position their performance around competitive edge. Within this, the strategy could largely be about getting new products and services to the market first. In these types of businesses, the organisation should be structuring themselves in a way that is conducive to creativity, innovation, agility and speed. However, this is not the business model of all businesses. I would suggest that most business are followers. So maybe you still want to be quick off the mark in order to be second or third to market. Despite all of this, I feel that the terms “time is money” or “I need this yesterday” are likely to do more destruction in terms of motivation and energy in the long term. In addition, where the key driver is not pace but perhaps quality or precision are critical, then should we be hearing these terms in the organisation’s vocabulary.

Putting the type of organisation aside, if there is a strong underlying culture of urgency and everyone is always rushing, there are many adverse consequences that need consideration. The one that I feel is most important is the impact of the mental wellbeing of the employees. Would employees easily be able to insist on work-life balance in an organisation with this rushing ethos? The continuous pressure and possibly always feeling like your pace is not good enough or that you may at any time let the team down, will ultimately result in some people burning out or developing a stress related illness. What is concerning, as discussed in my first article is that often people who drop out of the system, get easily forgotten.

The other adverse consequence is poor quality and the cost of rework. In my thirty years in big corporates I witnessed so many examples where the output (be that a task, a project deliverable or a customer facing product) did not meet the required expectations and needed to be reworked or was simply abandoned as a result of the time related pressure that the team was put under. It was clear that the result could have been different if the team was not operating under the “time is money cloud”. Often if you unpack the dynamics critically you will find that leadership should take the consequences on the chin and not the team who was unable to deliver the desired result in the time frame. If you consider that the same teams have continuously been driven hard to deliver everything “yesterday”, this particular project or piece of work could just be the one where the exhaustion catches up with them or where they decide no more. In addition, leadership who attempts to produce something knowing that that they are not properly equipped from a capability and capacity point of view, should always be the ones who take accountability if the results are less than perfect or not on time.

Summary and final thoughts

So in summary, what does this and the other two articles reveal? There is a leadership theme that is emerging which relates to the intent of the organisation and how this translates into their approach to the human capital philosophies and behaviours. If the organisation remains in the traditional mind-set of only being profit driven, then it is likely that all three of the philosophies mentioned, and related behaviours, will make a strong presence. It is important to bear in mind that it is not only the lower level employees that are exploited within these organisational cultures, leadership employees will also inevitably end up disillusioned or discarded.

Whereas organisations that have a strong desire to perform but do so by focusing its energy and investment on equipping their people with skills, capacity, mentoring and a sincere interest in their value as human beings, will thrive with very little cost of rework, low instances of employee burnout and hopefully contribute to an improvement in the overall mental health of the collective workforce in society.

The concept of Mindfulness Based Leadership aims to shift leadership philosophies and practices in order to move away from the old mind-sets and introduce strong cultural themes of compassion, empathy and humility.

Where is your organisation on this journey?

List of articles is the series: Abandoning the following workplace philosophies and practices:

1. Going the extra mile
2. Multitasking
3. Time is money (this article)