Unlock long-term success through intentional "unproductivity"

One of the biggest lies of our age is that we need to keep moving quickly to be successful. It is incredibly sneaky because it sounds true: the faster we move, the quicker we get there. So we must get as much done in as little time as possible. But this way of thinking assumes that if we keep going at the same pace with what we are doing and how we are doing it, things will turn out fine.

But what if you are so focused on "getting things done" that you don't see the storm brewing on the horizon? What if you are so focused on being productive that your employees burn out?

I believe there are three "unproductive" things that you and your leadership team should do to give yourselves the best shot at being successful in the long term.

Periodic away days

One of the most crucial ways of being "unproductive" is slowing down and taking your team on away days. I would suggest three or four of these a year, and I am not saying we need to do obstacle courses, fall backwards blindfolded, and have a meal together. Those things are fun, but we all need to slow down and look at work stuff from a 30,000-foot view.

On these off-sites, we must ask ourselves the fundamental questions: how is our work going as a team? Are we working well together, and are we aligned? Is our overall strategy working? Is there anything missing?

You can't deal with these and other significant questions in a weekly meeting amidst other operational issues. We need to deal with operational/tactical stuff while we are on the job but strategic stuff needs more reflection and time for you to be effective as an organisation.

I think there are a few reasons why your team might push back a little if you propose these away days every few months:

We aren't getting any "real work" done

It can seem like we are not doing anything "useful" by talking about things for a day or two. We also know we will have more work when we return to the office. But when we don't take the time to do these away days, we risk going further down the wrong road, and every step down the wrong road is further away from our goal.

We like ticking things off a list

Some people enjoy the type of work away days offer, such as thinking about things deeply, unearthing gaps, and looking at issues that could arise soon. Other people don't like away days because they like getting things done. And talking about teamwork and strategy doesn't hit the spot for them. That's okay. But you can comfort them by letting them know that by investing time with the team on the away days, they know they will do the right things when they return to the office.

We are addicted to firefighting

While nobody wants to spend a lot of time firefighting, and we complain a lot about it, there can be a part of us that loves it because putting out fires gives us a dopamine hit. Those dopamine hits are quick and intense, and we feel we have done something useful. Away days take us away from fires, and away from dopamine. But away days promise greater peace and a sense of control, which is more of a slow-release and longer-lasting hit.

Have your leaders waste time with employees by being interested in them

The second way I suggest being "unproductive" is to spend time with your team to get to know them and have your team do the same with their teams. We all need to know that we are appreciated and not simply a means to an end. The antidote for this is to get to know and appreciate the people you work with.

It can seem that asking employees about their hobbies, their likes and dislikes, and any other things they might want to share is a waste of time. But it makes them feel so appreciated because they don't just feel like they are there to do something but that they?are someone?outside of what they do. Not only is this a good thing to do anyway, but, as a result, it will boost their morale and productivity, and they will stay longer with the company. That is a huge ROI for just a few seconds or minutes consistently invested in your people.

In the last series of articles I wrote, I shared that the secret sauce for good hires is keeping them engaged. If you would like to go a bit deeper into the idea of employee engagement, you can check out that article?here.

Have more meetings as a leadership team

You may have gotten sick to your stomach as you read the title of this section, but stick with me. I don't think the problem is meetings, but bad meetings are. Bad meetings are where information flows in one direction (you don't get to weigh in), and your input is not wanted or needed. But, on the contrary, we have all had meetings that we came out of and said, "That was actually a good meeting!"

Whether we like it or not, meetings are where the success of your organisation plays out. Meetings are where we discuss important issues such as admin, tactical, strategic, and high-level things. But the key is not to mix those four things.

Patrick Lencioni, in his book?Death by Meeting,?speaks about four different types of meetings where we should deal with each of the four of these things separately:

Daily check-in (admin)

The daily check-in is a 5-10 min meeting (max!) at the beginning of the day where you don't sit down, and each one shares the things on their plate for the day. This type of meeting helps get an overview of things each one plans to do. Since everything is interconnected, this can save a lot of emails back and forth during the day.

Without this short meeting, one person on the team may be trying to contact another and get frustrated because that person isn't picking up the phone or answering emails. Having the meeting would reveal that that team member is out most of the day with the company's most important client and won't be available until 3 pm.

Sometimes the daily check-in might unearth the idea that one or more team members might have to rearrange their priorities for the day to advance something more urgent as a team.

Weekly tactical?

The weekly tactical is similar to the weekly staff meeting we are all familiar with. It usually lasts about 60 or 90 minutes and the team gets together to discuss the bottlenecks that might be preventing them from achieving their short-term goals that fit into a larger overall plan.

I have a client whose goal for that time was to spend a few months fostering client loyalty. Each week, they would review the 4 or 5 things they were doing to accomplish that goal and what obstacles were coming up.

This type of meeting can be a great way to create focus and alignment among the team so that everyone works in unison to move the ball forward in a given area.

Strategic

Every so often, big things will come up that you can't deal with in the weekly meetings. This can be things like a competitor changing their offering, a change in legislation, or an economic crisis brewing.

Again, the key here is that everyone on the team focuses on coming up with solutions for the issue on the table, and you should discuss each issue in separate meetings. There is no set rhythm for having these meetings - just when the need arises. These meetings typically last a few hours so you can dedicate time to ensuring you deal with the issues effectively.

Off-site

The off-site or away day is the meeting I dealt with in the first point. These usually last a half day up to a few days.

While it can be tempting to save time and resources by having this meeting on-site, it is always best to have it off-site for a few reasons.

The first is that people can get dragged into everyday things. Leaders can be interrupted by others, even when they are out on a coffee break, and they can get sucked into operational things that take them out of the mindset of the purpose of the off-site.

I recently had an "on-site" with a team, and even though I had strongly recommended that the meeting be somewhere else, the team leader decided it would be easier to have it on-site. We started late because some people were in their offices and wanted to bang out some emails before the meeting; others were dragged into other conversations. At the lunch break, rather than having conversations with their teammates about things that came up, everyone returned to their offices to get some more stuff done. And, you guessed it...they were late to return after lunch.

While that particular team did get a lot out of our time together, it was clear to me that they would have gotten a lot more out of it if we had had the meeting somewhere else.

The second reason is that a change in scenery gets the creative juices flowing. Being somewhere else than the office helps us see that this is a different type of meeting than the others, and we are away from the hustle and bustle of everyday work.

Finally, with fewer distractions, the team can sink their teeth into the issues. "Water cooler talk" is about the things discussed on the off-site.

On one off-site with a client, one of the issues that surfaced was that a few of the team members didn't trust each other. During a moment between sessions, they talked it out and managed to heal their rift. While I am unsure if the venue changed anything, I think the fact that we were away from where the trust had been broken and that they couldn't run back to their offices during the break was instrumental.

Wrap up

We live in a busy world, and anything that feels unproductive doesn't seem worth doing - it feels like time lost. Try these three practices and see if you end up gaining time. It is like an investment, but the return does come.