Avoiding The “More With Less” (Dis)Engagement Tool

Now is not the time to be motivating staff with the mantra of the past. Do more with less. It may have worked the last time budget cuts and staff reductions occurred. It won’t work now. For many, the life has been sucked out in the forms of 401K dives, family members who have experienced job loss, and a huge net of low morale cast over the organization.

Try this on for size, “Do Less with Less.”

This messaging is not just about spin. It’s about re-prioritizing. It’s about being strategic.  It’s about Engagement.

This method of engagement is what your team can hear. And you have to believe it.

It means looking at the priorities of the organization and determining what’s: (1) Essential, (2) Necessary and (3) Nice.  During this time of re-prioritization, if everything is important then nothing is important. 

Taking a note from Dialogue & Deliberation, this is a process to engage your group and get the buy-in (and input!) around setting priorities for this new normal.  Start with these steps:

  • Convene a diverse planning group
  • Determine resources needed
  • Create a clear intent
  • Involve decision makers
  • Recruit & train facilitators
  • Recruit participants
  • Inform the system
  • Convene the event
  • Follow up & follow through

The purpose behind this is to strengthen relationships while generating innovative solutions.  Solutions that involve and inspire your group.

More than ever your team needs to be involved – and by all means, avoid asking (or telling) them to do more with less.  This will be the straw that cracks that back of the team.

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Improv 2 Improve

Yesterday afternoon I got the chance to work with a group on Creativity. Spending Friday afternoon learning tools and methods for idea generation and evaluation. Seems like heavy lifting for late in the week. One of the concepts I discussed was the idea of adding Improv into the workplace. 

Using Improv in our daily lives to improve can be as easy as a set up to a very skilled comedian.  I find the more I can practice the skills of saying, “Yes, and” the better off I am of being more creative and productive in life.  Adding the every popular, “Yes, and” vs. the “Yeah, BUT.”  But stops the story every time. It doesn’t allow for idea generation or creativity. 

Here’s how you start:

Suspend your judgment.  

Easier said than done?  Not really if you are focused on truly listening to what is being said.  

Approach the conversation with a “build on” attitude.  

New ideas start with just a single thought, great ideas take that down the road a bit and build on it.  

Don’t let it end.  

Open yourself and your language up to discovering multiple options and possibilities.  Practice by saying, “Yes, and!” Catch yourself – or just note when others blurt out – “but.” 

Take it further now:

  • What in your life can benefit from a little Improv? 
  • Where have you said, “Yeah, but” in your life? 
  • What would be the benefit of giving this a little “Yes, and” approach the next time around?
  • What new things could you discover if you let yourself?

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