How well your people perform depends on the extent of freedom they have from barriers that creep into even the best of groups and organizations. The most common of these roadblocks arise from the way you conduct your business and manage your organization. All these barriers can be broadly categorized as falling into one of two types:
- lack of capability and resources
- lack of willingness to perform.
Lack of capability and resources
This barrier comes into play when your people say things like "I can’t." The most obvious reason for this is not having the skills and knowledge to perform. Clearly, appropriate investment in learning is required.
However, even with the implementation of an effective training program, this issue may still persist because of several reasons. Your people may struggle with finding the time to attend the training, and even when they do, the learning may not last for long as they start forgetting the content with time.
According to studies by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Center for Creative Leadership, formal training accounts for only 10 percent of learning. The remaining chunk occurs on the job and via interaction with co-workers. If your organizational processes are not aligned to support and facilitate this type of learning, your people aren't learning to their full potential—learning which can impact the products and services they provide to your clients and customers. Make sure that your people have quick and easy access to whatever reference information they might need to perform their job.
A less obvious cause of this barrier is the organizational environment. Larger organizations are well known for the bureaucracy that finds its way into work, but even small businesses may make the mistake of curbing efficiency and productivity through policies and procedures which drain valuable time and energy.
A common example of this is imposing a new technology on them without considering their needs and concerns. Overwhelming your people with too many priorities at once inhibits their focus to separate the trivial from non-trivial. Make sure you're having continuous conversations with your people on what's working well and what's not.
Lack of willingness to perform
This barrier comes into play when your people say things like "I won’t." They are either having a hard time recognizing the opportunity, valuing the task, or being engaged in and motivated to perform their jobs. This organizational misalignment happens in absence of clarity and consistency in goals, scope, and incentives.
According to the International Society for Performance Improvement, 41% percent of high-performance organizations list conflicting goals and objectives as a primary barrier to organizational performance. Organizational mission, vision, values, and strategy may be absent, conflicting, or poorly communicated.
For many organizations, asking a manager about the job responsibilities of an individual in their team and asking the same question to that individual produces dramatically different answers. In extreme cases, these barriers may also cause your people to think they may be punished for doing something beneficial to the business.
An example of this is a sales person hesitating to make a commitment to something which may or may not violate a company policy. Don't let this happen.
People who constantly feel they are pushing against the tide are more likely to perform worse than people who view their organization as a smooth, well-oiled engine and who have everything they need to perform to their full potential.
