You need your people motivated out of commitment not compliance. Compulsory processes, difficult to carry out suck the life out of your team. What can you do? Try building a Stop Doing list to get at what you can stop or do differently. You unlock capacity and energy when you do!
As you seek to win the battle for your people’s discretionary time, effort and energies you need to ensure they have a headset of commitment versus compliance, or it won’t happen.
The mindset of compliance versus commitment (I do because I have to versus I believe in the cause) is difficult to tackle as a leader. The obligation, real or perceived, of compliance based activities and processes, weighs heavily on organizations and individuals. It steals capacity you can use more productively. More important it chips away at energy and engagement. In the extreme, it sucks the life out of people and with it those discretionary efforts.
Fear not, you can get at and change it! You can begin to liberate your team from the feeling of “have to.” In return, you get fresh air for them and better business outcomes of all sorts.
The Fine Print
I received a twelve-page document in the mail from a credit card provider. All 12 pages seriously looked like the picture above.
The tiny print on the first page said ADDITIONAL CARD BENEFITS. There is no way to read this document but for breaking out the magnifying glass thankfully part of Apple’s iOS. Even with the magnifying glass, it was dreadful to read. There was no cover letter with the document to offer any context.
So, I’m sure the credit card company is required by law to send annual documentation. Check, done.
As a customer, I got zero value from it. The company had a point of customer engagement they completely whiffed on. For me, it would be great to know the additional benefits are (apparently there are a lot of them). For them, they could reconfigure a compliance-driven moment into a customer-driven one.
What About You & Your Team – Commitment Versus Compliance?
It got me thinking about the burdens of managing a team and running a business overall. There are things you must comply with either legally or internally mandated by your organization.
There are also long stand practices and processes everyone uses or follows. When summer interns and new college grads look with amazement at how work gets done, stop and see what they see. Some of the requirements make perfect sense while some are over-engineered, outdated or both.
So, for long-standing practices and processes, it’s worth asking:
Do customers and employees benefit from the processes and practices? Are we providing value proportionate to the effort to deliver?
Related: How Binge Watching Undercover Boss Will Make You A Better Leader
How Much Of The Problem Is You?
It’s also worth a think on what part of the requirements your team carries, you own. You put in place specific processes. Sometimes they drive great outcomes; sometimes they do not. If your people are always in a state of “I do this because I have to,” you don’t get their best thinking or their sustained energy. And commitment remains elusive.
Are you calling them to the problems and opportunities in your business or directing them on what to do and how to do it? The latter is demotivating.
Leaders dig into their business to learn painful realities rather than peaceful illusion. – Orrin Woodward
— Gordon Tredgold (@GordonTredgold) October 28, 2017
Why Commitment Versus Compliance Matters
Compliance is an external force. Employees (generally) obey. They do what they have been told to do and often no more.
Commitment is an internal force. Work is done to achieve the best outcomes possible. Employees do whatever it takes when they believe in and connect to the way forward.
Every leader and every organization needs employees to want it. You win when they are committed to the vision, the outcomes and see their contributions as critical to getting there.
I’m Standing On The Inside!
The blog, Recovering Engineer recounts a story that gets at this reality for employees:
“A young boy insisted on standing up in class. After the teacher spoke with his mother, his mother made it clear that he would experience severely negative consequences if he got in trouble with his teacher again on this issue. The next day, as he sat in his seat, his teacher said something to him about how nicely he was sitting. He replied, “I’m sitting on the outside, but I’m standing on the inside!”
You do not want your employees having any version of “standing on the inside!”
If your people get wrapped in knots about mundane or compliance-related work, it zaps motivation. And they are so much less likely to be committed and creative.
What Can We Stop Doing?
How can you crack through this? You need to get at organizational must do’s and those you direct. You need to uncover what’s weighing your team down into a compliance mode of being and thinking?
Good to Great author, Jim Collins states that identifying “what should we stop doing to increase our discipline and focus” as one critical part of the good to great journey.
You can do this with your team, now. Start building a stop doing list.
Get your best and brightest truth tellers and start by asking this question:
What could you stop doing (or do different) that would allow you to spend more time on BLANK (your team’s core mission – internal or external customers presumably)?
You likely will uncover things are falling into a handful of categories – things:
- They do because they have to
- Have to expend way too much energy & time on – far outweighs the value
- That are over-engineered and could be done more streamlined.
As you work through the discussions and their feedback, you need to identify:
1. Which things can you stop doing, can be changed or must continue? On the latter, part of your work could be to provide more context on why something must stay.
2. Organizationally mandated activities to rein in. Be relentless in trying to stop the activities. This is a substantial lift. However many ideas your team comes up, push for more. Most plans make sense in isolation. Not so at the field execution level.
CLICK HERE NOW FOR HOW TO TOOL: Build A Stop Doing List – Think About It Questions
It’s Bigger Than Me (Truth: It’s Not)
You may end up thinking their suggestions are great but you can’t put a stop to any or change them. I suspect you influence more than you realize.
You can not solve our problems with the same we used when we created them. Albert Einstein
Dig in:
Effect the change you can. Find some wins but addressing those you have some or total control over and yet still live within existing requirements. Do it. Give credit key individuals and the team for the improvements.
Push the issues uphill. Senior leadership in an organization is desperate to uncover what their organization can stop doing or do differently. It is incredibly hard for an executive team to find. You can be a or the leader to bring forth a constructive set of ideas. Challenge your organization to be better. Make the business case based on how you will use the capacity you release!
Keep the dialogue going with the team. This isn’t a one and done discussion. Once you have an open conversation about a Stop Doing list, you will better support an environment and culture that resists undo process and roots it out when needed.
Incremental gains of time repurposed to more impactful and creative activities will lean people into commitment versus compliance. And not only will your people appreciate actively engaging in the retooling, but it also fosters accountability to the mission at hand.
Win The Battle
Take on compliance-like activities that invariably yield a compliance mindset. Try the Stop Doing list.
Over time this will help you tap into your team’s discretionary efforts. After that, you win whatever battle you enter!
Question: How do you inspire commitment versus compliance?
Tools For You
Build A Stop Doing List – GET HERE
Inc Magazine Article – 3 Things On Jim Collins’ Stop Doing List
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