TJ - The Publication for Learning and Development

The most precious resource?

By Andrew Mayo (August 2005 Issue)
0 Comments Comments
Article Rating:

Poor Best

Email to a friend | Print Version


Andrew Mayo introduces us to ‘value-adding time’ and suggests we consider more carefully the implications of our actions on other people’s time.

One of the staples of the training portfolio is the good old time management. The underlying anglo-saxon principle is that as much productivity should be squeezed out of each minute, using a range of personal efficiency tools. The good time manager never reads an e-mail more than once; can instantly find any file, and pre-plans each day in clearly defined chunks.

I envy those very few people I know who are fiercely and uncompromisingly disciplined with their personal time. Personally, I have my rewarding moments of high productivity (usually under deadline pressure), but sadly have not achieved nearly as much as I would like in my journey in life. Having said that, I am Anglo-Saxon, and in Fons Trompenaars’ masterly analysis of cultures around the world 1 an ‘attitude to time’ was defined as a distinguishing characteristic of my background.

In the UK, the effective use of time is now part of the government’s agenda of achieving public sector efficiency savings. Sir Peter Gershon, Director of the Office of Government Commerce, in his report on potential savings introduced the term ‘productive time’. It is defined as: ‘the time spent by public service professionals on core activities ie activities that are integral to the delivery of improved front line services’.2 Some public servants, such as those in education and police work, may smile at the irony behind this, since ever increasing amounts of government regulation and inspection over the years have conspired to take them more and more away from providing ‘front line services’.

The truth is, that however efficient I might personally be in my time deployment, I am subject to a system which controls a large part of my day. That system is the network of policies and procedures, ways of working that constitute the culture and essence of the organisation. Internal meetings, for example - the substance of life for many public sector employees - only count as ‘productive’ if they are directly concerned with improved services to the public. But what proportion of meetings is doing that?

I prefer the term ‘value-adding time’. That is time spent adding value to a stakeholder. This is a more inclusive statement than the government’s definition, as it includes adding value to employees and shareholders by building profitability. Commercial organisations have their own challenges in time usage. It is a salutary exercise to do weekly samples of time spent and divide the activities into those that are truly value adding and those that are not.

This latter category includes everything to do with solving problems that should not have happened, re-work, internal ‘maintenance’ such as administration, reporting, updating, travelling, and internal meetings. For some employees, these latter activities are their whole job; we have to keep the organisation in good order. The great majority of employees, however, should be directly linked to adding value to one or more stakeholders. For them, the split of their time is a valuable check to do from time to time.

What has this to do with training? Well, training is about increasing the effectiveness of individuals, teams and organisational units. It is much more than courses in personal time management. That mainly helps us with our discretionary time, which may be very limited. At the individual level, my concern is how I impact other people’s time in the organisation.

As a manager, I need to look at what demands I make on my people? How often do I command them to unnecessary meetings; request information ‘just in case’; or ask them to do other non value-adding pieces of work? Do I clog up people’s e-mail boxes with ‘peripheral’ information? In addition to sampling my own time, how much of the time of other people in the organisation have I taken this week?

As we move beyond the individual, we cross the line between training and organisation development. How much team building effort is made to work out how the team spends its time, both as individuals and together, to figure out how the productive proportion can be optimised? And in larger organisational units, what are the processes and customs that suck people away from ‘the front line’?

At this level we are into cultural analysis. Is there a hierarchical mentality that keeps authority and signing levels high, prevents transfer of information downwards, and requires frequent reporting? Is there a risk averse culture (so prevalent in the public sector today) that means extensive assessments and paperwork are required to evaluate even the most unlikely risk? What is the balance between trust and control? The controlling culture not only expends a lot of effort defining the controls but also in ensuring conformance by checking on what is happening. All these activities reduce ‘productive time’.

The learning facilitator cannot solve all these problems but can make a major impact in helping people understand and redefine their desired cultureand change to develop effectiveness skills. Finally, the facilitator can design events to provide the most productive learning for the time spent. In these days of focusing on ‘enjoyment’, doing that is a professional challenge in itself.

References
1. Fons Trompenaars, Riding the Waves of Culture, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1997.
2. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/FE9/DC/productive_time010405.pdf

 

Andrew Mayo is a consultant, speaker, writer and facilitator in international HR management, with specialisms in people and organisation development. He can be contacted on +44 (0) 1727 843424, at andrew.mayo@mayolearning.com or visit www.mayolearning.com

Back to top | Current TJ

 

Readers Comment

Comment on this story here >

Be the first to comment on this news story