WHEN I TELL PEOPLE I am a writer, they tend to be less interested in the things I write about than in hearing about the mechanics of my craft. “How long does it take to write an article?” they ask. Or, “How do you develop the discipline to sit alone in front of a computer all day?”
My responses invariably disappoint them. For me, writing is a process that begins the day an article is assigned and ends the day I finally e-mail it to my editor. It has very little to do with the time I spend sitting in front of a computer. I think about my assignments when I’m on the treadmill. I think about them while I’m driving to the store. And many an insight comes when I wake up unexpectedly in the middle of the night. It’s a messy process, with very few rules or boundaries.
This is quite different from the days when I worked in an office. It wasn’t that the creative process was really dissimilar. There too it generally progressed in fits and starts. But my superiors appreciated at least the appearance of order. Trips to the watercooler were discouraged. Gazing out the window drew looks of disapproval. And personal music players were regarded with suspicion.
Today, with the advent of iPods, cell phones, and instant messaging, the number of potential distractions in the workplace has increased considerably. And new generations of employees are asking, as I did, “If I can manage these distractions and still get my work done, what does it matter?”
It doesn’t matter much at all, says Scott Cawood, co-author with Rita V. Bailey of Destination Profit: Creating People-Profit Opportunities in Your Organization (Davies-Black, 2006).
“It always comes back to the fact that there are two behaviors that you need to focus on in any organization,” says Cawood. “Those are behaviors that drive customers to your business, and behaviors that drive customers away from your business.”
This understanding should focus your attention on two things: context and motivation. An employee using an iPod while working a customer service desk, for example, would obviously be inappropriate. But an employee listening to music while working on a sales report would likely pose no problem whatsoever. Cawood maintains, however, that matters like these are best resolved by employees themselves, not their supervisors.
“The question,” says Cawood, “is can you build a culture that has more a philosophy than a set of policies? The goal isn’t so much enforcement as it is giving the employees a chance to make the right decision for the business. If people are maximizing their contributions to the organization, managers are going to have to lighten up and understand that there’s a whole person sitting here, and that we don’t have complete control over them.”
The very notion of giving employees that much discretion runs against the grain of just about every manager or supervisor I have ever met. Yet Jennifer George, Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Management and Professor of Psychology at Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, believes that empowering employees to make their own decisions about appropriate workplace behavior makes good business sense.
“People are under a lot of pressure today to do more with less,” George explains. “Companies are getting leaner, and employees who remain are expected to do more and more. And people are increasingly staying connected to their jobs when they’re not at work, through e-mail, through cell phones. And due to globalization, sometimes people have to interact with people in other time zones. There’s a lot of pressure for people to do more than they have in the past.”
Giving employees more discretion, then, inspires loyalty, which ultimately translates into productivity. And, notes George, inspiration often comes in the moments when employees seem to be doing nothing productive at all.
“Sometimes watercooler talk, for example, can actually be very beneficial. It can be a place where people share information, where they might bring up some problem they’re having and get advice from somebody they might not have even thought to ask. Sometimes that can spark creative ideas. It’s important for managers and organizations to not just jump to conclusions about why somebody is doing something. You have to think about things very holistically.”
For Cawood, effective workplace policies boil down to one simple question: Do you have the right people in the right jobs? “If you do,” he says, “you need to get out of the way and let them execute.”
It’s a philosophy that seems to work for my editors. And I think it’s a philosophy that, given the chance, will work in any business environment.
— Dayton Fandray
