Last week, I wrote about the myriad ways that productivity is destroyed in the workplace — both intentionally, via an OSS manual from World War II, and through my own observations.
Reader Anne McGrath, who used to consult with non-profit groups and now does organizational assessments, offered these additions to the list that I thought were well worth sharing.
- Assume no one has ever attempted to do what you’re trying to do, and start from scratch.
- Hide mistakes along the way, and don’t bother collecting or sharing ideas for your best practices or lessons-learned folder.
- Spend no time identifying & recruiting effective partners or participants for your project, just invite anyone and everyone, regardless of what they’d bring to the table.
- Have a murky or never-discussed vision, goals, purpose, and values. Assume everyone has the same end goal in mind.
- Don’t evaluate leadership capacity. Just use the leader you’ve always used for every project.
- Don’t engage the people you are trying to help. For example, if in a school, leave students out of the equation regarding all decisions that will directly impact their lives.
- End meetings without a clear action plan for what to accomplish and bring back for the next meeting. This helps create meetings that go on forever with nothing changing.
