Boost Productivity !! use Best-Practice Management & Leadership
Adopt Best-Practice Management & Leadership to boost UK Productivity.
Whilst the UK’s government’s current focus is to secure a trade deal with the EU that is the least frictionless for UK businesses, as a result of the June 2016 UK EU referendum - UK government and businesses need to focus on improving productivity for the sake of the long-term economic prospects for the UK.
As American economist Paul Krugman has said “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.”
The UK currently lags behind other G7 countries in terms of productivity. For every hour worked by a British worker, a German worker produces 36 % more.
Productivity is a fundamental driver of a nation’s prosperity and ultimately of personal incomes and tax revenues.
One of the key priorities for raising productivity for UK companies is to improve business and management practices. Good management is strongly linked to good company performance. good management practices are associated with high labour productivity.
Sow to Reap’s concern is that businesses that are falling short in the use of best-practice management methods don’t know it !
As the well known acronym for what ‘Team’ means…..
Together
Everyone
Achieves
More
.……..having motivated, inspired teams means they will go the extra mile for a company and deliver more.
High performing teams do not happen by accident. What is required is the practical application of the best of academic theories on human motivation and management on the ‘shopfloor’ by managers in the workplace.
Social psychologist Douglas Mc Gregor expounded two contrasting theories on humnan motivation and management in the 1960s: The X Theory and the Y Theory (McGregor, 1960). Mc Gregor promoted Theory Y as the basis of good management practice, pioneering the argument that workers are not merely cogs in the company machinery, as Theory X type organisations seemed to believe.
A person’s management style is strongly influenced by their beliefs and assumptions about what motivates members of their team.
Below are some of Sow to Repeat ‘s truths on how best to manage and get the best out of your team
Treat someone how you would want to be treated yourself
Treat staff as adults
Trust your team
Delegate responsibility
Grow your team members skills by giving them responsibility – Life long learning for all !
In revenue generating roles …help your sales team by coaching (don’t just be X Style just focussed on the numbers )
Get to understand what motivates your team members
Training of staff in supervisory/management roles on X & Y Theory and other best –practice management styles
As well as Mc Gregor many other academics’ work is cited and applied practically in the workplace by us.
At Sow to Reap we define a Leader who lives by the following maxim:
Lifelong learning (for you & your team)
Empowers
All of your
Delegated team(s) to
Enjoy & expand their
Responsibilities
The Leader Acronym©StephenKelly2018
A recent example of good management and leadership would be Gareth Southgate - England’s football team manager during the 2018 football World Cup in Russia.
When Southgate became the England manager he looked at other sports – US basketball and American football for insights and approaches to use with his England team. As part of his analysis he disected the whole process of penalty taking.
He made his team practice and think about all the steps and processes a player needs to go through in taking a penalty in such a high pressure situation as a football World Cup.
A young and inexperienced England team won a penalty shoot in Russia 2018 against Colombia to reach the World Cup quarter final. In the subsequent match the young and inexperienced England side beat Sweden in a calm, assured performance to reach the World Cup Semi-Final. The last time an England football team had reached a World Cup semi final was 1990.
Why do we cite what Southgate did ?
A contemporary, high profile example of a leader…..learning !....But also ...in addition the England Football Team players of World Cup 2018 when asked what it was like at the Russia tournament stated that Southgate’s management style and approach instilled happiness in the team.
This is the other reason why we are using Southgate at World Cup 2018 as an example - A happy team that outperformed its country’s expectations !!
It is surely a fact that in work, rest or play being happy is what we all pursue each day.
Poor management practices will only render staff /team members de-motivated and ultimately unhappy - with obvious negative consequences for individual/team morale and performance.
Boosting the long-standing productivity problem in the UK is critical for our future economic prospects –post Brexit.
Improving management practices must be one of the top priorities for UK companies as we face an uncertain future in a post-Brexit world.
References
I.Knight – Sunday Times July 8th 2018
International comparisons of Productivity-final estimates:2014, Office for National Statitics (ONS) February 18,2016 ons.gov.uk
Paul Krugman – The Age of Diminished Expectations, first edition, Washington DC:The Washington Post Company 1990
For copies of this article or further information on how Sow to Reap can help your organisation please email us at: info@sowtoreap.org