Productivity and Success: A New Model for Leaders and Decision Makers in the Workplace

 

InView September 2010 Issue

Productivity and Success: A New Model for Leaders and Decision Makers in the Workplace


By Jay Slosar, PhD


Today's workplace environment reflects the excess that has occurred in the country, which has finally caught up with us. Whether it is obesity, taking medications, rampant healthcare costs or failed budgets at the personal, state or federal level, we can no longer ignore our lack of self-control. Nor can we ignore the reasons that contribute to it. Financial collapse and the great recession have forced workers to make changes for economic survival and to stay employed. Associations and other nonprofits that are rebounding are now faced with a rapidly changing culture that must redefine what success is. These cultural forces include the speed of technology, technology coupled with media and the risk-taking that comes with excessive capitalism.


Understanding these trends and their impact on behavior has profound implications for the workplace. Here are some key points that can help offset the fast and uncontrolled pace of today's workplace.


1. Develop Quantitative Skills.

Today's workers have much avoidance of numbers and anxieties surrounding math. This is reflected even with overall U.S. scores in school in math and science. Employers desperately need people with math and quantitative skills. It is paramount for employers to help staff develop quantitative thinking and skills. The development of these skills has a carryover effect: the use of analytic thinking and better decisions. This is because this thought process is slower, more deliberate, and avoids the fast screen media impulsivity that leads to poor decisions.


2. Establish Boundaries and Limits.

Surveys show that one of the most prized workplace issues today is to have flexibility. Staff constantly want to not have fixed hours, to work at home, and to have much flexibility in their schedules. Unfortunately, this contributes to a less structured and diffuse environment that contributes to less self-control. Employers (like parents) have to set boundaries and limits. A young employee cannot grow and develop without boundaries and limits. Employers seem to think that productivity increases with flexibility because workers are happier. The primary culprit in declining self-control reflected in increased risk-taking and cheating is the lack of boundaries and limits. In an era that prized deregulation, we have deregulated our internal mechanisms of self-control.


3. Develop New Measurements of Success.

Total emphasis today in business is usually on quantity and dollar figures, that is, the proverbial bottom line. It is important for decision makers to develop qualitative measures and show how they relate to workplace improvement. Today's new model of success is more refined and qualitative. It results in finding ways to improve efficiency, develop better member relations, and making things safer, easier, and more efficient at work. If it makes life easier, it will surely be noticed and improve the proverbial bottom line.


The dramatic changes that have come from the Great Recession demand a new perspective and a new model of success. What is more important is that improvement in the above areas will develop an efficient, healthy and productive workplace.


Jay Slosar, PhD, is a psychologist in private practice in Irvine, CA, and the author of The Culture Of Excess: How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success. (ABC-CLIO, ©2009).

 

 

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