Tag Archive for Harvard Business Review

| April 16, 2014
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Non-Compete Clauses Hurt Worker Productivity

Non-Compete Clauses Hurt Worker ProductivityJeff John Roberts at GigaOM writes about research published in Harvard Business Review that says non-compete clauses, which limit workers’ ability to move from one firm to another, may do more harm than good. The research suggests that workers are less motivated and perform worse when subjected to terms that limit their job mobility.

Job searchThe study paid online participants to search matrices for numbers that add up to ten. The article explains that a sub-group of people subjected to a mock non-compete clause, 61 percent decided to drop out and forgo the money compared to 41 percent in a control group. The non-compete group also performed much worse at the task, making mistakes at twice the rate as the others. According to the authors of the study:

We believe that limits on future employment not only dim workers’ external prospects but also decrease their perceived ownership of their jobs, sapping their desire to exert themselves and develop their skills. The resulting drop in performance may be more damaging to companies than the actual loss of the employees would be.

subject to non-complete clauses.Mr. Roberts concludes that the findings could carry big implications for the American workforce, where more than half of engineers and 70 percent of executives are reportedly subject to non-compete clauses.

The study authors also say that existing research shows higher levels of innovation and productivity in regions that outlaw limits on worker mobility.

Silicon Valley and California stand out in this area. Courts there have explicitly banned non-compete clauses on public policy grounds, a situation that makes it easy for companies to poach each others’ employees.

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I’m not a lawyer, so get your own legal counsel, but I can google and it seems that enforcing or challenging the enforceability of a non-compete agreement under Michigan law invariably boils down to four issues:

  1. Do the non-compete clauses protect a legitimate business interest?
  2. Is the duration reasonable?
  3. Is the geographical restriction reasonable?
  4. Is the type of employment or line of work restriction reasonable?
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| October 18, 2012
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Do One Thing at a Time

Do One Thing at a Time at workTony Schwartz asks in a recent post The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time at Harvard Business Review, why is it that between 25 and 50 percent of people report feeling overwhelmed or burned out at work? The author suggests that it’s not just the number of hours we’re working. He says we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time.

Wherever we go, our work follows usIn the article he argues that we’ve lost stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Mr. Schwartz believes that technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It’s like an itch we can’t resist scratching, even though scratching invariably makes it worse.

Not Helping

Mr. Schwartz points out that “time savers” don’t save time. He argues that answering emails during conference calls; eating lunch at your desk or make calling or sending texts while driving are not helping you be more productive.

sending texts while driving are not helping you be more productive.The biggest cost, assuming you don’t crash, is to your productivity. You productivity crashes because you are splitting your attention. You are partly engaged in multiple activities but rarely fully engaged in any one. The author explains this impacts your productivity when you switch away from a primary task to do something else. By switching between tasks you’re increasing the time it takes to finish that task by 25%.

The HBR article warns that if you’re always doing something, you’re relentlessly burning down your available reservoir of energy over the course of every day, so you have less available with every passing hour.

Increase focus at work

Mr. Schwartz suggests three policies for managers to increase focus:

Maintain meeting discipline1. Maintain meeting discipline. Schedule meetings for 45 minutes, and not an hour or longer, so participants can stay focused, take time afterward to reflect on what’s been discussed, and recover before the next obligation. Start all meetings at a precise time, end at a precise time, and insist that all digital devices be turned off throughout the meeting.

2. Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day. It forces your people into reactive mode, fractures their attention, and makes it difficult for them to sustain attention on their priorities. Let them turn off their email at certain times. If it’s urgent, you can call them — but that won’t happen very often.

Encourage renewal3. Encourage renewal. Create at least one time during the day when you urge your people to stop working and take a break. Offer a mid afternoon class in yoga, or meditation, organize a group walk or workout, or consider creating a renewal room where people can relax, or take a nap.

Steps to take

The blog says that people have to set their own boundaries:

1. Do the most important thing first in the morning, preferably without interruption, for 60 to 90 minutes, with a clear start and stop time. If possible, work in a private space during this period, or with sound-reducing earphones. Finally, resist every impulse to distraction, knowing that you have a designated stopping point. The more absorbed you can get, the more productive you’ll be. When you’re done, take at least a few minutes to renew.

scheduled times to think2. Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long-term, creatively, or strategically. If you don’t, you’ll constantly succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. Also, find a different environment to do this activity — preferably one that’s relaxed and conducive to open-ended thinking.

3. Take real and regular vacations. Real means that when you’re off, you’re truly disconnecting from work. Regular means several times a year if possible, even if some are only two or three days added to a weekend. The research strongly suggests that you’ll be far healthier if you take all of your vacation time, and more productive overall.

Stop multitaskingA single principle lies at the heart of all these suggestions. The author concludes that when you’re engaged at work, fully engage, for defined periods of time. When you’re renewing, truly renew. Stop living your life in the gray zone.

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My personal experience reinforces the authors conclusions. My experience has been that I was able to get 2x the work done on a single telecommute day, than when I am at the office. Now that I have to be on-site everyday, my work output has decreased because I can’t work without interruption for any period of time.

I have found that you can’t focus on anything when you’re moving 90 mph and you can’t stop to take a breath. Maybe someday I will get an office and see the magic of doing one thing at a time.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him at LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| August 21, 2012
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5 Steps to Reinvent Your Personal Brand

5 Steps to Reinvent Your Personal BrandDorie Clark of Clark Strategic Communications, recently posted an excellent article, How to Reinvent Your Personal Brand on the Harvard Business Review blog, The post offers a plan to follow if you want to reinvent yourself. I am on my third career iteration from teacher to techie to manager (I didn’t say it was for the better).

embrace your new brandIt happens all the time. Your path may make perfect sense to you, but how can you convince others to embrace your new brand, and take you seriously? Ms. Clark explains five steps to reinventing yourself for the business marketplace.

1. What’s Your Destination? The author says you need to develop a detailed understanding of where you want to go, and the knowledge and skills necessary to get there. If you’ve been a techie for the past decade, you may understand every new marketing toy out there, from Facebook (FB) to Foursquare. But can you effectively convey that knowledge to a non-technical audience? Learning the skills you need will help you gain the confidence necessary to start identifying (and publicizing) yourself in your new identity.

Your Unique Selling Proposition2. Leverage Your Points of Difference. In marketing, it’s called a USP, a “Unique Selling Proposition.” What makes you different from anyone else? That’s what people will remember, and you can use it to your advantage according to the article.

3. Develop a Narrative. Ms. Clark says it’s human nature to have many interests, to seek new experiences, and to want to develop new skills over the course of your life. Unfortunately, that makes you a dilettante. It’s unfair, but to protect your brand you need to develop a coherent narrative. This narrative should explain to people, in a nice, simple way so they can’t miss it, exactly how your past fits into the present. It’s like a job interview, you’re turning what could be perceived as a weakness into a compelling strength that people can remember (he’s got a different take on the industry because he has knowledge most other people don’t).

Reintroduce Yourself4. Reintroduce Yourself. The majority of people, regrettably, aren’t paying much attention to you the author says. That means their perceptions are probably a few years out of date, and it’s not their fault. With hundreds (or thousands) of Facebook friends and vague social connections, we can’t expect everyone to remember all the details of our lives. So we have to strategically re-educate our friends and acquaintances, because, especially if we’re launching a new business venture, they’re going to be our buyers and recommenders. That means a concerted effort to phone or email everyone on your list, individually, to let them know about your new direction and, where appropriate, ask for their help, advice, or business. (Blast emails are a start, but too often go unread.)

5. Prove Your Worth. Ms. Clarks says there’s a difference between knowing that you’ve launched a new business and trusting that you’ll do a good job. She explains that she may like you a lot, but unless she sees proof of your skills, she may hesitate to put her reputation on the line by sending you referrals. That’s where blogs, podcasts, videocasts, and other forms of social media come in. It’s critical to let potential customers see what you’re about and test drive your approach before they make a large commitment.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| December 6, 2011
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How to Use the Last 5 Minutes of Your Work Day

How to Use the Last Five Minutes of Your Work DayPeter Bregman a strategic advisor to CEOs and their leadership teams wrote in the Harvard Business Review that most of us get smarter as we get older. But somehow, despite that, we often make the same mistakes ay home and work. On the flip side, but no less comforting, we often do many things right and then fail to repeat them. He believes it’s because we rarely take the time to pause, breathe, and think about what’s working and what’s not.

think about what's working and what's notMr. Breman says that people should look at their past behavior, figure out what worked, and repeat it while admitting honestly what didn’t and change it. He theorizes that if a person can do that well, everything else takes care of itself. That’s how people become life-long learners.

Five minutes to become a life-long learner

The article says it only takes about five minutes to become a life-long learner. Life-long learners take a brief pause at the end of the day to consider what worked and what didn’t.

before leaving the officeMr. Bregman proposes that every day, before leaving the office, save a few minutes to think about what just happened. Look at your calendar and compare what actually happened, the meetings you attended, the work you got done, the conversations you had, the people with whom you interacted, even the breaks you took, with your plan for what you wanted to have happened. Then ask yourself three sets of questions:

  • How did the day go? What success did I experience? What challenges did I endure?
  • What did I learn today? About myself? About others? What do I plan to do — differently or the same — tomorrow?
  • Who did I interact with? Anyone, I need to update? Thank? Ask a question? Share feedback?

Maintaining and growing relationships

This last set of questions is invaluable in terms of maintaining and growing relationships. It takes just a few short minutes to shoot off an email — or three — to share your appreciation for a kindness someone extended, to ask someone a question, or to keep someone in the loop on a project.

If we don’t pause to think about it, we are apt to overlook these kinds of communications. And we often do. But in a world where we depend on others to achieve anything in life, they are essential.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| April 20, 2011
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GM Saves Energy Through Smart IT

Andrew Winston at the Harvard Business Review writes that opportunities for improving energy efficiency and saving real money are everywhere. The proverbial low-hanging fruit are actually, in the words of energy guru Amory Lovins, fruit on the ground. GM (GM) recently announced a new way to find easy pickings, a shockingly straightforward change in how it runs its manufacturing plants. The Detroit-based auto giant is saving $3 million annually in energy costs across 10 plants by shutting down equipment when it’s not needed.

General MotorsMr. Winston says the man in charge of the program is Mike Durak, the Global Program Manager, IT. According to the article, GM is using General Electric (GE) Proficy Software to automate the shutdown and restart of its equipment. It started simply enough, GM set the lighting in one plant to synch up with the conveyor. When the manufacturing line stopped, for breaks or between shifts, the lighting would shut off. Seeing the quick payback, the managers added all energy-using systems to this automated network, from heating and cooling systems to pumps and compressed air units. The investment in connecting an entire plant is paying back through energy savings alone in just 6 months.

HBR says that previously GM shutdowns equipment multiple times a day with a combination of manual shutdowns and unconnected, or “dumb”, automation. Basically, energy use would gradually ramp down after production stopped as equipment was shut off, and then it would ramp back up before the next shift. “Energy use was in a ‘V-shape’,” Mr. Durak said, “and now it’s more like a U.” (The author says, the difference between a V-shape and a U-shape is what’s saved).

EnergyMr. Winston calls these sudden wins “headslappers” because they’re so obvious…in retrospect. The reasons we miss these easy wins are varied — from inertia to not being incentivized to find them to the classic problem of always addressing what’s urgent (something broken or a new process) over what’s important (getting leaner). Or perhaps a simple, cheap technological fix was not available until recently. In GM’s case, the big change is economically networking a whole range of equipment that wasn’t connected before. So with the new systems in place, managers can use the GE software to monitor and control the plant to a much finer degree.

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Maybe GM is getting smarter; they are figuring out what a “smarter” factory looks like. the Chevy Volt seems to be a “smarter” car.

What do you think?

What is your organization doing to get smarter?

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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