Submit Article

If you would like to submit an article, click the button below.

Navigation

<-- Back to Current Category

Activities vs Results

By: Graeme Nichol, Sat Dec 10th, 2005 12:10:46 PM

You have two employees, one that comes to work early and is always the last to leave. They always seem to be busy rushing here and there. The second employee doesn’t ever work late unless asked to and really doesn’t seem to be that busy. If you had to choose one, which employee would you rather have in your company?

In my opinion, the amount of activity they seem to be doing tells me nothing. I am not interested in how much an employee runs around and how many hours they work. What is important is the RESULTS they produce. Which employee does their work on time and performs above expectations? That is the employee I want around.

Employees that regularly work overtime and always seem to be rushing around raise a red flag. Either they are disorganized, or they don’t know what they are doing or they have too much work to do. If they are disorganized and if they don’t know what they are doing they need to be trained. If they have too much work to do, I either need to reorganize my company or employ an additional person.

People often confuse activity with results. Time and again we come across business owners and executives who believe they are adding tremendously to their company because of the numerous hours they put in. When we analyze what they spend their days doing, we usually find that they spend a lot of time doing someone else’s work.

Why do someone else’s work? Well, it is often easier and more enjoyable work. They can be seen to be busy – confusing activity with results. Sometimes they really have no idea what they should be doing and therefore do anything.

Have you seen this in you company? I would be surprised if anyone says “No.”

So what can you do about it? LOTS. The most effective way to get RESULTS and not just activity is to ensure that everyone puts together an annual plan. The plan should outline what is expected of them for the year. It should also allow everyone to measure what is achieved against what was expected.

Annual planning should not be time consuming, it should take no more than a day to put together. For a straight forward role you should be able to put together a plan in a couple of hours. At the end of the process everyone should know what is expected of them and what they will be measured on. Hey presto you have a performance management tool as well!

To ensure success of your annual plans and ensure you get RESULTS out of your employees it is important that everyone updates their plan on a monthly basis. We have found time and again that the best results are obtained when there is monthly follow up. This also need not be time consuming but it must be done.

Either put together your own annual planning process or use a simple and effective tool such as One Page Business Plan (www.onepagebusinessplan.com – take the system tour). We have been involved in business planning and project planning for many years. In every case results are improved when the planning is done and followed up with on a regular basis.

Create effective and results driven plans.

About the author: Graeme Nichol (www.arcturusadvisors.com) has worked on four continents and 23 countires over the past 20 years. Graeme focuses on developing teams that produce results through being focused aligned, accountable and pulling in the same direction

Sign In