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18 When better does not mean more
“More is better.”
So goes most advertising: measure something and increase
the number. It works pretty well for gasoline mileage and
typing speed.
Someday someone will ask
whether you are measuring the right thing. If you are not,
why increase the number? In ten consecutive years I
completed the neighborhood 10K run, until the organizers wanted a
“better” qualifying time that was faster than mine.
Eventually I learned to run for individual happiness and leave
the timer at home. That ended my pains and left me revived
instead of depleted. It improved my health to measure my
alertness instead of my speed.
Production teams are
subject to a similar dynamic. When team members are
stressed keeping up, production goes down--and usually health
with it. When they lighten up, they resume having fresh
ideas and being contributing team members. Mutually happy
workers contribute more to a company than they would by competing
against each other for production records.
Satisfaction comes by
increasing performance or by adopting more realistic
expectations. Expanding capacity helps, but when speeding up is
not feasible, satisfaction is deciding to work with what is
available. If it causes unhealthy stress to produce 100
widgets per hour, a worker is more productive and more reliable
on a team producing 80 widgets per hour. The long-term
result is greater satisfaction to the people and less turnover in
the company.
Success lies in learning
to measure the right thing. The key is how we perceive ourselves
relative to well-founded expectations.
Being For Others Blog copyright © 2020 Kent Busse
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