Being productive doesn’t mean getting everything done. I know it sounds a little like organizational heresy but you need to admit the truth (at least to yourself): You can’t get everything done.The more you try the less you really end up accomplishing.  True productivity means working on the right tasks. Identifying the right task in the moment when the phone is ringing, your email notification is blowing up and your boss is standing in your doorway asking if you’ve finished that report yet, can be very difficult to do. That’s why so many of us spend so much of our time engaged in activities that don’t really add the value that we might like. We’re busy, we’re getting things done, but we aren’t accomplishing the things that will make a difference. Sometimes it can feel as if we are a race horse with blinders on, coming out of the starting gate in the morning, running full-out around the track throughout the day, only to end up back at the starting line when we finish.

There is a better way. It requires two things: Planning and Discipline.

When I ask people if they plan their own work they invariably say yes. Then when we explore it, it turns out that the planning is usually limited to making “to do” lists – often times multiple lists, some of which are written on post-it notes and attached to their computers. A few of the people I talk to go a step beyond the list. They schedule items on their calendar. There’s nothing wrong with scheduling or lists, but they aren’t enough.

There are three types of planning you need to engage in to dramatically boost your own productivity:

• Personal Strategic Planning
• Weekly Alignment & Activity Scheduling
• Daily Calibration

1) Personal Strategic Planning

Organizations engage in strategic planning. They identify who they are and what’s important to them. They formulate long-term goals and decide on strategies to accomplish those goals. The reason they do those things is because it pays off for them in the long run. They are better able to direct their talent and resources. They are more successful. You need to do the same type of planning to help you identify the best use of your time and energy.

You need to figure out who you are and what is most important to you. How is beyond the scope of this post, but I will tell you what you should focus on. Identify your most important roles and goals.

We all play a lot of different roles. I’m a father – husband – son – coach – friend – teacher – neighbor – a musician (at least in my own mind) …. the list goes on and on. But some of those roles are more important than others. What are your key roles? Don’t forget to consider both your personal and your professional lives. Stay balanced. And in addition to the role, identify who your stakeholders are and how you want to be and be seen.

For example, one of my key roles is to be a Supportive Parent. Now, we all have paradigms and baggage about what being a Parent is all about. But I’ve had to peel back those layers to identify what it really means to me.

How do I want to be with my children? Relaxed, natural, genuine, helpful are some words that come to mind right away.

How do I want to be seen by my children? I want to be seen as caring and loving. I want to be seen as offering unconditional support.

It’s important to recognize that how I want to be, and be seen, can both be aspirational. My kids will be the first to tell you that I am not always helpful, that they don’t always see me as caring or offering unconditional support. But by clearly identifying and articulating those behaviors here, I can work to make them more a part of who I am on a daily basis. And for each of the roles you identify, set goals to help move you forward.

2) Weekly Alignment & Activity Scheduling

It can be tough to stay true to what’s important with the urgencies and pressures that bombard you throughout the week.  You need to realign yourself to your most important priorities on a regular basis.

Take ten minutes to review those roles and goals at the start of every week. Refresh your memory about how you want to be and what you want to achieve. Ask yourself “what can I do this week to move towards who I want to be”? Identify one or two activities that will add value to each role you’ve captured. They don’t have to be large projects, just activities that will help you move in a positive direction. Being truly productive is often a matter of doing the right small things. Identify what you can do that week to further those roles and goals. Then schedule your ideal week. Studies show that actually scheduling an activity increases the likelihood that you will accomplish it. Once you’ve identified those value-added activities for the upcoming week, pull out your calendar – paper, smartphone, notebook, whatever you use – and allocate time on the calendar to actually do it. Create a time block to accomplish it.

3) Daily Calibration

Things never work out exactly the way we anticipated. So, you need to review and recalibrate your weekly plan every day. Ask yourself questions like: What didn’t I get done yesterday that I need to carry over to today? What new issues have come up? How important are they? If new issues have come up, or an activity that needs to get done didn’t, don’t just put it on a “to-do” list that you may or may not get to. Block out time for it. Put it on the calendar.

Those three steps – Personal Strategic Planning, Weekly Alignment & Activity Scheduling and Daily Calibration can make a major difference in your personal productivity, if you live them.

Living them will always be a test. It’s hard to change habits. It requires discipline – the ability to do what you know needs to be done even when you don’t want to do it. Discipline can be painful. But as the legendary Jim Rohn, wrote “We must all suffer one of two things: The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is that discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons”.

Management is about getting things done through and with others. When things aren’t getting done the way that they should, it can be a real challenge to turn the situation around. And there is usually a pretty steep price to pay in the process.

It is also big time drain for the manager. There is only so much time to go around. The time that the manager spends working to help solve the performance problem is time that they can’t use elsewhere.

But maybe the biggest cost is an emotional one. Performance problems can take a pretty steep emotional toll – on everybody who is involved. It is not unusual for a manager to carry that emotional baggage home with them, to think about – maybe even obsess about – the issue outside of work. They literally, lose sleep.

And let’s not forget about what the issue may be doing to the employee. Sometimes, when we are working with an ongoing performance problem we can start to lose awareness of how the issue is affecting the employee. We can start to see them as being the problem, rather than as having a problem to solve. When we do that we can end up on a slippery slope that can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rather than working with the employee to solve the problem together, we can end up creating an “Us versus Them” conflict, which is probably not going to end well. It can leave both the manager and the employee feeling as if they are victims.

Performance problems come in different flavors:

• Type 1: Substandard Work Performance
• Type 2: Problem Work Behavior
• Type 3: Not performing up to potential

Stop The Pain

There are two parts to a successful resolution. The first part – the most direct part – is to get them to improve what they need to improve, or stop what they need to stop. Simply put: Stop the pain. The substandard performance improves, the problem behavior goes away, they start performing up to their potential.

 Maintain (or improve) the Relationship

Ideally, there’s another part to a successful resolution. Maintain, or even improve the relationship. Managers and employees are dependent on one another. Think about the impact that your boss has on your life – how they affect what you do on a daily basis and how you feel about coming to work. If you talk to the people in HR about why employees quit their jobs, you’ll hear from many of them that it is directly related to their manager. A 2007 study at Florida State University involving 700 employees affirmed what we already knew. It is an old saying – people don’t leave their jobs they leave their manager.

It is not a one-way street. A problem employee can make a manager’s life a living nightmare. Since you as a manager are dependent on the employee – it is in your interest to work to create a positive relationship. One that is characterized by:

• Rapport
• Understanding
• Trust

Both stopping the pain and maintaining the relationship are essential for a successful resolution of the problem. Let’s take first things first. In this post I want to focus on a key aspect of stopping the pain.

The first step is in assessing the cause of the problem. There is a saying in architecture that form follows function. Things should look like what they are supposed to do. The best way to resolve a performance problem depends on what you are trying to influence – the cause of the problem. Imagine how it would be if you were feeling unwell and you went to your family doctor. Before you got two words out of your mouth he / she handed you a bottle of pills and told you to “take two every four hours”. Ridiculous! We all recognize that the best treatment for any symptom depends on the underlying disease or cause.

It is the same way with a performance problem. Effectively solving an employee performance problem depends on your ability to identify its underlying cause.

• Why is the employee doing what they are doing?

• Why aren’t they doing what you want them to?

Diagnosing the cause of the problem is the most important step. Everything else – all the actions that you take to resolve the issue – should flow from that diagnosis.

To help you diagnose, let me give you 5 possible reasons for performance problems.

1. Lack of Knowledge, Skill or Experience

All of those contribute to a lack of ability for whatever the task at hand is.

I know that it sounds completely obvious but you have to know how to perform a task before we can have a reasonable expectation that you will be able to perform it successfully. You must have the required knowledge, skill and experience.

While it sounds obvious, we can overlook it for a number of reasons

• We assume they should know – but they don’t
• They Think That They Know – But Don’t
• We approach it from with a Global Bias: They are good at other tasks so we assume they will be good at this task
• Telling isn’t Training: You’ve told them what to do, but you haven’t trained them how to do it.
• They have a lack of aptitude for this particular task.          

Strategy: Once you have determined that the cause of the problem is because of a lack of knowledge, skill, or experience the solution is pretty straightforward. You’ve got to teach them how to do it. Setting clear expectations and then providing training and coaching are the keys. Break the assignment into smaller pieces that are manageable and then supervise closely.

2) Lack of Awareness

Another possible cause is that they simply may not be aware that they should be doing a particular task or engaging in a particular behavior. There is a great deal of data that points to managers and employees not always being aligned in their understanding of expectations. How have you communicated the expectation? Could there be ambiguity? Might they have misunderstood?

Strategy: If it is a lack of awareness – great! That is a problem that is easily solved. Build the expectation into their performance plan. Identify a specific Key Result Area, set a goal for it and then manage the plan. Build in checkpoints and alignment discussions to make sure that the message is clear.

3) Lack of Motivation

The first two possible causes are pretty straightforward to deal with. A more challenging potential cause to resolve is the employee’s motivation. I am not talking about general engagement as much as I am talking about task specific motivation. How motivated is the employee to engage in the behaviors that you want? Again, just like with knowledge and skill you need to look at motivation from a task specific perspective.

Motivation is unique to the individual. What motivates me isn’t necessarily the same thing that motivates you. But one thing we both have in common is that we tend to do things for our own reasons and motivations. As you are looking at, and trying to assess an employee performance problem, ask yourself: What is in it for them? Why should they do it? Are they rewarded for not doing it in some fashion?

One of the very loud signals of a potential motivation cause is a change in performance or behavior. Have they been successful at the task in the past? Have they always followed the policy up until now? Is the problem behavior something new? All of those changes raise the possibility of a motivation problem.

Strategy: There is no simple answer for a motivational issue, but there are better strategies. Telling them they need to do it – or else – may get compliance, but it is unlikely to lead to commitment. Directing them how to perform the task will just be a waste of your time and theirs. They already know how to do it. The better strategy is to engage them in a dialogue to uncover the reasons behind their lack of interest in performing that particular task. Point out the performance issue in a tactful way, express an interest in helping them improve and then get them talking about their perspective. When they’ve clarified their concerns don’t prescribe a solution. It will be more likely to “stick” if the solution comes from them. Ask them how they plan on resolving the issue. For more ideas about motivational issues take a look at http://www.drjosephreed.com/the-single-most-…loyee-motivation/.

4) Lack of Confidence

Another reason that employees may not do what they are supposed to do is that they lack confidence in their knowledge and ability to do it successfully. There is a difference between confidence and competence. You’ll see this play out most of the time as employees are learning how to perform a new task. As they work on it, as they start to understand how to do it, you will often find that their knowledge and their ability progress faster than their confidence in their ability.

• When that happens they will ask questions that you know they already have the answers to
• They will appear to be hesitant to try new things or take risks
• They will ask you for advice and direction – despite the fact they know how to perform the activity
• They will doubt them themselves

Strategy: If confidence is lacking, the manager’s job is to help build it back up. You can’t do that by providing answers, solving their problems or providing direction about how to do things. It’s also not a good idea to throw the team member into the deep end of the pool and expect them to be able to swim. Don’t expect them to work through it on their own. When an associate lacks confidence they engage in self-doubt. That self-doubt may actually prevent them from using the knowledge and skill that they have. It can mask their confidence. What you need to do in those circumstances is to engage the employee in a dialogue. Ask them questions and get them to arrive at their own solutions. Get them to hear their own voice as they solve their own problems. That will build confidence.

So far I’ve identified 4 possible causes of performance problems:Knowledge/Skill, Awareness, Motivation and Confidence

But there is one more reason that you have to consider.

5) Is it out of their control?

You shouldn’t hold people accountable for issues that are out of their control. Ask yourself:

• Do they have the necessary resources?
• Is it the system itself that is preventing them from performing?
• Are there conflicting expectations getting in the way?

Strategy: If it really is out of their control, then it is up to you to make the situation right:

• Remove The Obstacle
• Provide The Resources
• Develop A Work Around
• Change The Expectation

In this post I’ve described 5 possible causes for employee performance problems. The first step in solving a performance problem is to identify its cause. It is the most important step in the process. If you misdiagnose the cause you will be solving the wrong problem.

That dynamic plays out regardless of if the issue is a Health Club, a restaurant, a blog post or a relationship. Every interaction we have is affected by our expectations. And our satisfaction or dissatisfaction occurs even if our expectation is illogical or as uninformed as my implicit assumption about when the new Health Club would open its doors on Sunday. Yeah it was my own fault for not looking at the Sunday hours before I joined. But that didn’t stop me from being upset and disappointed with the Gym when the reality hit me. And it won’t stop your customers, your boss, your spouse or friends from being unhappy and dissatisfied when their implicit expectations about you – or your business – aren’t met, either. Which is an important point. Even if someone’s expectation is ill-conceived or illogical, (or like in my case, their own fault) if it’s not met, they will still be disappointed. And that disappointment can lead to a loss of trust in the relationship and maybe to a loss of business.

• If you are running a business, setting clear expectations is important for customer satisfaction. If your customers believe that your business will be doing something, and you don’t do it, good luck. You’ll have an unhappy customer. It’s one reason that an upscale hotel might receive lower ratings than a budget motel. While the upscale facility is observable better than the economy property, expectations for the luxury hotel may have been unrealistically high and not met.
• If you’re a manager, do your team members really understand what’s expected of them? Do you know what they expect from you? Have you worked through the differences to arrive at a clear understanding and agreement? If not, their level of motivation and engagement will probably suffer. That happens more often than you might imagine. According to research at the Gallup organization, only about half of employees believe that they know what is expected of them at work.
• As a parent, the expectations you establish – implicitly or explicitly – with your children communicate mountains of information to them. Clear expectations about their behavior and effort and their responsibilities within the family lead to better long-term relationships. Expectations in areas that they have less control over – like the outcomes you expect them to achieve or the abilities you believe they should develop – can lead to relationship problems.
• And for the rest of us, working to establish clear expectations with the people we work and live with is an essential – and often overlooked part – of building and maintaining strong relationships. One of the biggest withdrawals from the relationship bank account occurs when one or both sides in a relationship feel as if a basic expectation has not been met. It destroys the lifeblood of the relationship – Trust.

It could be as simple as expecting your significant other to call you at night before they go to bed when they travel. When they don’t, the voices start inside your head. Why haven’t they called? Are they ok? Don’t they want to talk to me? Meanwhile your significant other, who had a busy day and had no idea of the expectation, is blissfully unaware and fast asleep. Over time, even unmet expectations about seemingly little things can have a profound impact on the trust in the relationship.

Our work relationships are also built on expectations. Arriving at a common understanding with the people you interact with at work is an important relationship management strategy.

Reaching agreements with them about goals, communication, how you will work together and workplace behaviors will help put a foundation for trust in place.

Unfortunately, instead of having those conversations we often assume and act as if we share a common purpose and understanding. Maybe we act that way because we really believe it, or perhaps because we are uncomfortable confronting and talking about potential differences. Whatever the reasons, when misunderstandings inevitably occur, (and they almost always do) not only does performance suffer, but also the relationship. Blaming, disappointment and recrimination lead to less effective relationships.

So what can you do about it?

Here are 9 steps to get in front of the expectation gap.

1) Recognize the importance of expectations. Take the time – and the courage – to bring them into the open

2) Be clear in your own mind about what your expectations are. If you can’t articulate them to yourself, there’s no way they can be clear to the people you work or live with.

3) Identify the “why” of your expectations. What purpose do they serve? Are they rational and logical or are they based in emotion?

4) Make time to specifically talk about expectations with the people with whom you will be interacting. Those conversations can sometimes be a little daunting. Have courage.

5) Know what type of expectations to work towards. To create mutual understanding and set the relationship up for success, discuss and work towards agreement on:

• Expected Outcomes – Exactly what are you trying to accomplish together? Be as specific and concrete as possible.
• Timelines – If you are clarifying expectations about responsibilities, behaviors, goals or projects, timing may be important. Talk about “by when” things need to be done.
• Roles and Responsibilities – Who will be accountable for what?
• Processes – How will you work together to achieve the common goal? How will you communicate? How will you make decisions?
• Resources – what human, financial, technical or other resources will you and they have access to?

6) Take ownership and responsibility for ensuring that both sides expectations are surfaced. It’s not enough to unilaterally share your expectations. You need to be prepared to ask good questions and really listen to identify and understand the expectations of others

7) Make your intentions transparent. Explain the why’s and context behind your expectations and help the other person understand the bigger picture. Usually, the better they understand, the easier it will be to reach a mutually acceptable agreement. If you don’t explain your intentions the other person will come to their own conclusions about the “why’s” of your behavior.

8) Be proactive. Do your best to manage the expectations – the perceptions – of the people you interact with, particularly those you provide some type of service to. I had elbow surgery recently to repair a torn tendon. After 6 weeks I was still in considerable pain and had limited movement of my elbow. I felt disappointed and dissatisfied so I made an appointment to visit the surgeon. He explained that what I was experiencing was normal, and that rather than evaluating my progress day-to-day I should instead look for improvements week to week. It was good advice; however it came at the wrong time. That was information he should have shared immediately after the surgery to help proactively manage my perceptions about my recovery.

9) Don’t overpromise. Whether it is a customer interaction, a discussion with a colleague or an interaction with your five-year-old son, over-promising leads to unmet expectations. As a rule, promise a little less than you believe that you will be able deliver. Exceeding what you promised is another deposit in the relationship bank account.

Good communication? Genuine affection and caring? Maybe you supported and helped one another? All of those qualities are related to the key ingredient in any successful relationship: Trust.

Trust is the fuel of great relationships. Without trust, the relationship isn’t going anywhere.

The other person:

• Reaches out for your advice
• Is more inclined to accept and act on your recommendations
• Is more likely to treat you as you wish to be treated
• Gives you the benefit of the doubt
• Forgives you when you make a mistake
• Respects your instincts and judgments

When trust is low it’s even more obvious.

We know who we trust, and who we don’t trust and that knowledge affects how we view the person and how we interact with them. If you lack trust in someone, you are less likely to take them at face value. You’ll question their intentions and motives. You’re more likely to imagine hidden agendas. You’ll waste more time and effort defending your position. You’ll likely be less open to new ideas. Trust affects everything about the relationship.

Most of the work people do in organizations today requires the ability to build and maintain trust. Whether you are a leader, a technical specialist, or an individual contributor you need to be able to establish strong relationships with your colleagues and customers. It doesn’t matter if you’re a scientist developing a new drug or a customer service agent interacting with a client, relationships matter.

With high trust, things go faster. Time is a key ingredient in cost. When things go faster, costs go down and profits go up. The ability to foster trust isn’t some “touchy-feely”, nice to have, soft skill. It’s a business requirement for anyone who aspires to leadership.  And it’s not only essential at the top. Trustworthy individual contributors are worth their weight in gold. Your ability to build – and maintain – trust is a key factor, not only in your personal life, but for your business and professional success as well. Lose the trust, lose the relationship. Lose the relationship, lose the business.

I worked on a development project, not long ago, that required coordination and collaboration between two different organizations. It ended up taking four times as long as it should have, because of a lack of trust. It felt as if everything I did had to be vetted. The simplest actions required review after review. We had countless conference calls to discuss minutia and trivial issues. The members of one of the company’s involved questioned the motives and intentions of the other members of the team. Participants from the second organization acted as if they believed that their counterparts didn’t know what they were doing. They seemed to question their competence. The whole project bogged down because of a lack of trust.

So, what makes someone trustworthy? It’s a complex human condition and there’s no simple answer. Trust can take time to develop and can evaporate in the blink of an eye. People choose to invest their trust in us – or they don’t. So in many ways, your trustworthiness rests in the hands of others. How do they perceive you? Their perceptions are their reality. We all live in our own personal universe.

Your trustworthiness starts internally and develops from the inside out. Aspects of your character drive your behavior. People see your behavior and make judgements about your motives and abilities based on what they see. They then choose to trust you – or not. There are three main drivers of their perceptions and judgements about your trustworthiness and a fourth factor that can enhance their overall impact:

Authenticity

People have to know you to trust you. They can’t know you through a façade. If you put up filters and walls, if you “mask up” before interacting with them, they can’t see the real you, and that will limit their ability to trust you.

Authenticity begins with self-knowledge.

• Who are you?
• What are your values?
• What’s your purpose?
• What do you stand for?

Self-awareness is only the start of being authentic. Your behaviors matter as well. Do you act in alignment with your values and purpose? Do they serve as an internal GPS guiding your actions? Or do you allow the external circumstances and situational ethics to drive your actions?

To be seen as authentic you have to know who you are at your core and you have to live your life in alignment with that self-knowledge. That may mean making decisions that go against your apparent self-interest to maintain that alignment. Authenticity – at its core – is about, are you who you say you are, and do other people see that alignment?

Character

Authenticity is a prerequisite for trust but not sufficient in its own right. What’s your character? Do you subscribe to and live your life according to the principles that govern effective relationships and lead to trust? Are you:

• Honest
• Responsible
• Fair
• Respectful
• Loyal
• Humble
• Empathetic
• Kind
• Courageous

I know those qualities look as if they’ve been taken out of the boy scout handbook, but they really matter. All of those principles have natural consequences for relationships.

If you are:

• Honest you are seen as having integrity.
• Responsible you are seen as dependable and predictable
• Fair you are seen as impartial – without hidden agenda
• Respectful you’re seen as unselfish
• Loyal you’re likely to be seen as consistent and steadfast
• Humble you are seen as open to new ideas and willing to admit mistakes
• Empathetic you are seen as caring and understanding
• Kind you are seen as benevolent
• Courageous you are seen as willing to do the right thing even when its hard

Have you ever known someone who lacked some of those key qualities? Maybe they weren’t honest or loyal. Did you trust them? Probably not. These principles reside deep within our character. They are expressed through our behavior and they have a major impact on how we are seen by others You are not likely to trust someone who you believe is out to do you harm, or who you feel doesn’t care about you.  To build trust, others have to believe that you have a positive intent. That you have their interests in mind. If we demonstrate these principles, we are more likely to be seen as having a positive intent.

Competence

My wife and I have been married for 35 years. I see her as authentic and principled. But when it came time to repair the tendon in my elbow last week I didn’t trust her to perform the surgery. Why? Because she’s an elementary school teacher not an orthopedic surgeon. Competence is situational. Are you seen as having knowledge, skill and experience within the area that trust is required? Remember that trust is conferred upon us by others, so it’s their perceptions that really matter. You can have all the knowledge, skill and experience in the world but if it’s not recognized by the other person trust will suffer.

Think about a specific individual and a specific area within which you’d like more trust.

• Do they recognize and value your technical skills?
• Do they see you as knowledgeable & well-informed about the issue?
• Do you have a history of sound judgment with them?
• To what extent do you have a track record of prior success with them?

Those three main ingredients – Authenticity, Character and Competence are the three big keys to building trust with others. There is a fourth area that has an impact: Likability.

Think of likability as an enhancer. It’s not an essential ingredient, but it can multiply the impact of the big three. On its own, likability doesn’t ensure trust but when it’s paired with the three core ingredients it can dramatically improve credibility and trust. You can be Authentic, Principled and Competent but not very likable and still be situationally trusted, but if you want to deepen the trust and expand the relationship the other person has to like you.

Authenticity, Character and Competence, along with Likability show up day-to-day in our behaviors. To build and maintain trust with the people who matter to you:

• Be transparent – Make your intentions explicit
• Let other people see the real you; let your guard down
• Share information freely – personal(appropriately) as well as professional
• Do what you say you will do; Be reliable
• Don’t promise something that you can’t deliver
• Develop clear expectations
• Make the other person feel heard
• When you’ve made a mistake or somehow violated trust apologize sincerely and deeply
• Forgive others when they’ve made a mistake

Living those simple nine behaviors will do wonders for your relationships. Trust me.