On three separate occasions throughout my career, I’ve had my boss tell me: 1) That I produced more work, more quickly, than they had expected, however, 2) I seemed to spend a lot of time away from my desk. Despite my productivity, I was chastised for being “too chatty” or “spending too much time talking with others.”
Don't wait for permission to build relationships.
What these managers failed to realize, was that I was able to be as efficient and productive as I was not through some sort of wizardry while at my desk, but because I was busy building relationships at the personal level. If I needed some finance data, I didn’t ask “Accounting” for it, I asked Anne. If I had time, I didn’t phone or email Anne, either, I walked up to her desk and asked how she was doing, how her family was, what her vacation plans were. I genuinely cared what the answers were to these questions, since I believe people are far more interesting than the work they produce. Oh, by the way, I’d also ask for my data, too.
When I didn’t have time to be chatty and had to work through email or phone, I still received the data, exactly the way I needed it, quite quickly. By making friends, my requests moved to the front of the laundry list of hassles everyone confronted, every day. Not only that, but I would receive exactly what I needed, no more and no less, because I spent time the time to talk with the person providing it, and we identified what could be provided and how. I wanted to help them, so they wanted to help me. No meetings, no telecons, no 3-hours-long email exchanges just to refine the data sets so I could do my work. Just people helping each other to put out a fire.
In the workplace, we’re often discouraged from leaving our desk, cell, post, office, station or whatever place has been given to us. While some jobs do require you to maintain a fixed position (let’s say a security guard, or a machine operator, for example), there’s still no reason for not becoming more familiar with the environment. Most of us have been told that there are office suites we shouldn’t enter, factory floors we can’t disturb, and the like. Why do these places exist? Certainly, it’s possible for the company to conduct tours, at the very least, where anyone can go and see what’s going on in another area. More often than not, however, we don’t go and visit other areas due to some preconceived notion that we’re not supposed to go “over there.”
Lean Thinkers utilize a method called the “Gemba walk” for managers and other members of the leadership hierarchy to go and see what’s happening away from their offices as a way of understanding the “real work” of the organization. Why should this practice be limited to management, however? Understanding how the work is done, and who is doing it, by name, personalizes the workplace. It is far too easy to blurt out an email that is even more easily misunderstood, or that comes across as terse or condescending.
Get up from your desk, get out of your usual workspace, and go see the people you work with and the work that they do. You just might find that the time you spend away from your desk is the most productive part of your day.
©2010 David M. Kasprzak
About the author David M. Kasprzak
I am a seasoned project and management analyst with over 14 years of experience as a trusted advisor to all levels on planning, measuring and analyzing activities. From small-scale internal projects to multi-year development efforts supporting enterprise-wide initiatives at the C-level, I “get geeky” seeing great management practices yield great outcomes. I am a fierce & vocal advocate for learning, collaborative approaches to work and pursuing Operational Excellence through challenging the status quo and fostering management innovation
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