Leading Productivity Away From the Email Onslaught

About the author

Dermot Crowley is a leading productivity specialist and author of Smart Teams

by Dermot Crowley

For many years personal productivity has been regarded as a core skill to be developed and honed by all managers and staff in medium to large businesses.

Increased productivity was attained by running training and resourcing the workforce with the latest productivity technology.

But if we only focus on skills and tools, productivity gains are often short-lived, and rarely survive in the face of the constant deluge of emails, endless meetings and urgent issues that pervade the modern workplace.

The cost of this lost productivity is massive. An online survey of 400 white-collar workers conducted in the US in 2015 found that workers estimated that they spent 3.3 hours per day checking work emails, and a further 2.1 hours on personal messages. Many of these workers are likely to have had some training on email management or personal productivity, yet they are still slaves to their inboxes.

To achieve a real and sustained increase in productivity, it must be seen as more than just a competency to be developed. Productivity needs to be perceived as a leadership issue. The culture of a team or an organization greatly influences the productivity within that group, and leaders must hold a space to allow their people every opportunity to do their work without the constant distraction and overload that many modern workplaces have come to accept as normal.

A recent conversation with a senior client highlighted the extent of this issue. He confided that he came into the office at 6am most mornings as it was the only time he could get a clear run at his email. The rest of his day was generally spent in endless meetings.

He then told me how he loved his work, but hated his job.

He was passionate about managing his team, but was being ground down by the volume of emails, meetings and urgent issues. This was not what he had signed up for.

So, what can leaders do to create a more productive culture and environment? First, they need to ensure they are not a part of the problem.

Historically, new physicians took the Hippocratic Oath, and embraced the spirit of the Latin phrase primum non nocere, meaning ‘First, do no harm’. Leaders should take this approach to productivity, and ensure they are not dragging the productivity of their team down themselves.

If they approach work with their team organization, leaders can reduce the unnecessary noise and urgency that can get in the way of important work. It is also critical that they lead by example, and demonstrate good productivity behaviors. That means using email communications effectively, turning up to meetings on time, and following through on what they say they will do. A leader’s brand is always on show.

Team productivity will flourish when there are a set of agreed rules that the team can operate by. This is how society works, and while there are often rules in place to ensure appropriate behaviour in the workplace, they are often lacking when it comes to how we work together productively. Email and meeting protocols can help, but they must be led from the top, and if possible, created and policed by the team themselves, rather than management. Again, leaders need to champion these agreements, and hold themselves to the highest standard.

Finally, unnecessary urgency needs to be managed. In some organisations the main, and sometimes the only form of prioritisation, is urgency. Whatever is most urgent gets actioned. Whoever screams the loudest gets attention.

Leaders need to create a sense of urgency, not senseless urgency. Whilst some of our time will always be spent reacting to urgent issues, most of our time should be spent being responsive and proactive. This requires a different mindset, and again, requires a leader to create the space for the team to operate this way.

Productivity is such an important element of performance within an organisation. It is definitely worth putting time and effort into creating a culture where productivity flourishes.