I was meeting with a CMO who indicated he had over 1,500 emails in his inbox. In the same meeting, the CEO of the firm said that he didn't have more than 40. Interestingly, I sent a similar email to both as a follow-up and the CEO responded within a few hours while the CMO failed to respond. They had different systems for organizing their professional lives, which impacted their ability to manage essentials like email effectively.
Figuring out how to increase productivity is something on the list of most C-level leaders. To better understand what the productivity killers are, I turned to Joe Staples, current CMO of Motivosity and former CMO of Workfront, who has conducted research on the topic. What follows is Staples' perspective on the key productivity killers (and how to stop them).
Kimberly A. Whitler: What research have you done to understand different productivity killers?
Joe Staples: As part of my role as CMO, I've conducted research that looks at a lot of productivity killers. In addition, I also regularly meet with hundreds of customers who provide great insight into the challenges they have in the workplace relative to efficiency and productivity.
Whitler: What are the top productivity killers?
Staples:
1. Overloaded inbox. This results from people who cc all; sales pitches; report summaries that you never read; etc.
2. Status meetings. These are so unproductive... except for the five minutes of the sixty-minute meeting where the person actually provides a status update.
3. Cubical drive-byes. The friendly person who always, "just thought I'd stop by to say hi".
4. Tech that doesn't work. You go into a conference room for a video conference and spend the first ten minutes trying to get the technology to work.
5. The boss who urgently asks for a tiny piece of obscure information. The problem is when this becomes a regular occurrence.
6. Tech that you haven't been trained on. You only use certain applications once a month and spend time trying to figure out all over again how to complete the task.
7. Notifications. A new email arrived, something new has been posted, a social media alert, etc. These are constant interruptions to the flow of getting stuff done.
Whitler: What have you learned that leaders should be aware of?
Staples: While executives can always be looking for ways to improve productivity, there are a couple that are the low hanging fruit. If marketers simply put in place methods to minimize wasteful meetings, and to eliminate the latency associated with the review and approval process, they would see dramatic gains in productivity.
How To Stop The Productivity Killers
Staples:
1. Automate the Work: The best way for marketers to avoid productivity killers is to use technology that will help them automate the work that is being done. The productivity killers, are in most part, the result of very antiquated manual ways of doing things. This includes relying on email to get the status on a project; allowing work requests to come in from any and all sources; or to use printed items to be routed for review and approval. Instead, a good work management software application will allow team members to effectively collaborate and to automate knowledge work from initial requests through to final completion of the project. It is this structure that can liberate and accelerate team productivity.
2. Eliminate Meetings: Employees should take measures to eliminate wasteful meetings. Though a bold approach, this could include 1-2 days of the week where no meetings are held at all. This is a tactic that then provides an increased focus on ensuring that the other meetings are really essential.
3. Flexible Work Schedules: If team members are allowed to work from home periodically, they often can plow through backlogged projects because of the lack of interruptions.
4. Email Management Boundaries: Setting boundaries for yourself around email management can also be a big boost to how much you get done each day. A huge productivity killer is constantly going to your email inbox and wading through the barrage of messages – most of which aren’t essential. The problem is this constant attraction to your email breaks your concentration and attention on bigger projects. So a better way is to pick times that you’re going to check email throughout the day – as the day starts, one time mid-morning, one time mid-afternoon, and once at the end of the day. That means you may go a couple hours without seeing something important, but it also means greater concentration on the real work that’s on your plate.
Join the Discussion: @KimWhitler
