Exceeding expectations: Embracing the eight Es

A brand new year is ahead of us. As usual, people tend to have New Year resolutions. My suggestion is to go beyond resolutions, to have specific reinforcements. Prosperity through productivity can only be possible with such individual contribution well linked to institutionalised initiatives. Today’s column will look into the intricacies and insights of such initiatives.

Expectations galore

We live in an era of high expectations. This is with regard to the diverse roles we play, in doing justice for each one of them. With the increase work load, a manger might tilt more towards office-front and the family-front tends to suffer.

The key word is balance. It is a difficult yet possible balance. I would compare it to a tripod. For the tripod to be stable, all three arms have to be properly balanced. It is the three key fronts of our lives, work, family and society. Some may call it work-life balance, but I see a misnomer in that terminology. Life is much larger and it encompasses work, family and society.

What we require is a well-balanced approach in our life in doing justice to all three aspects. My learning partners (students) have an additional challenge in the society front. That is the learning dimension coming into the scene. For them, it is work, family, learn and society balance. All fronts will have heavy expectations, perhaps concurrently.

I remember an instant when I was doing my MBA. My daughter was terribly sick and was in the hospital, an exam was just forthcoming, and there was a project deadline looming large at my workplace. When all fronts lead to a peak, you have to demonstrate real managerial competencies in balancing expectations. Once again, let me reiterate, it is difficult but possible.

Embracing the eight Es

In order to exceed expectations, you need to work on multiple yet interconnected aspects. Let me propose eight Es. They are not rocket science. Perhaps they might be too obvious and we tend to neglect.

It is worthwhile to look back how we practiced these eight Es last year and how best we could reinforce them in the New Year. These eight Es simply refer to being efficient, effective, energetic, engaged, enabled, enterprising, empathic and ethical. Let’s try to relate them to ourselves.

Being Efficient

This is the easiest, yet most neglected aspect in our lives. We go round and round the Mulberry bush without doing things smart. As Peter Drucker puts it, it is all about “doing things right”. Essentially, it focuses on processes. The call is to ensure that we achieve results within the least possible time with optimum use of resources. It requires planning, prioritising and practicing consistently.

This was one area that was clearly highlighted in the competitiveness rankings, where Sri Lanka is low on labour efficiency. Thus, it is a clarion call to focus on efficiency enhancement in workplaces in order to stay competitive.

The starting point is to be efficient as an individual. Converting one’s ‘to-do’ list to a ‘will-do’ list can be an attitudinal breakthrough. Removing clutter from the mind is more important than doing so with one’s desk. The readily available literature on “first things first” in prioritising one’s work with respect to urgency and importance can be of immense help in this aspect.

Being Effective

Effectiveness is all about results. It is goal-related. One can well be efficient without being effective. The famous story of climbing a ladder kept against a wrong wall, as fast as possible is a case in point.

As Drucker says, it is “doing right things”. In combining both efficiency and effectiveness, it is a case of “doing right things right”. This is essentially being productive. Identifying a right set of objectives and delivering them with efficient use of resources.

Being Energetic

This again is a call for balance. It is all about mind-body balance. Taking care of your physical front with sound health and fitness is of utmost importance. Our body is the vehicle that takes us through the journey of life. We diligently do the servicing of our vehicles but grossly neglect the “preventive maintenance” of our body.

It might be late once the truth of one’s hidden illnesses unfolds. I will not dwell too much on this front as we had been talking about in many of my previous columns.

Being Engaged

This highlights the need to have physical, mental and emotional contribution towards a task by an individual. One key requirement is focus. It requires concentrated attention, with association and involvement of the task at hand. It is a call for whole-hearted participation on whatever one does.

The wide array of topics we covered on employee engagement offers much deeper insights on this vital aspect.

Being Enabled

Here is a different case. What you need from your organisation and the need for you to ensure it is happening. Right set of tasks and the required authority is essential. Without enablement by the institution, and individual may become a mere messenger than a manager.

The subtle aspect here is to be conscious and vigilant in ensuring that one is sufficiently enabled to execute the required tasks. Sorting it out upfront is far more advisable rather than complaining at the end as an excuse for poor performance.

Being Enterprising

This is becoming increasingly important in order to confidently face sky-rocketing competition. It invites one to be creative, and innovative, in moving from organisational-dependence to self-reliance.

You may still continue as an employee but still can demonstrate entrepreneurial skills in becoming an “intrepreneur” within your institute. It is also about challenging the “status quo” and also demonstrating the “out-of-the box” thinking.

Being Empathic

The key word here is empathy. Empathy is different to sympathy. Sympathy is being sorry and sad towards someone. Empathy is the capacity to understand the other person. It is a matter of getting into “other’s shoes” and seeing the world from the other’s point of view. Many disputes ranging from individual clashes to industrial disputes can be a result of not having empathy. There are two sides to a coin, and one should avoid one-sided decisions.

Connecting empathy and listening results in listening with care. When you engage in empathic listening, you seek to understand the speaker’s message in the broad context of his/her experience. Take an example of you as a manager scolding a factory worker coming late to work. That worker might be a mother of two, getting up early morning to cook, to wash the ailing mother, and prepare the children to send to schools and to take a cup of tea to the husband who is still asleep. Empathy does not mean being lenient, but to be better at knowing the other side of the story.

Being Ethical

This is the most subtle aspect of all. Hence, let’s dwell on it with details. The numerous stories we heard ranging from the global credit crunch to Golden Key chaos, call for the need of ethicality. It is not achieving short-term gains “either by hook or by crook” but something much deeper, grounded on solid principles.

Ethics is difficult to define in a precise way. In a general sense, ethics is the code of moral principles and values that governs the behaviours of a person or a group with respect to what is right or what is wrong. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” stipulates the golden rule of ethics.

Focusing more on business ethics, it is the capacity to reflect on values in the corporate decision making process, to determine how these values and decisions affect various stakeholder groups, and to establish how managers can use these observations in a day-to-day company management.

A code of ethics is a formal statement that acts as a guide for making decisions and acting within an organisation. Richard Daft, a well known management author speaks of a four–way test, which is globally advocated by Rotary International.

Is the decision truthful?

Is it fair to all concerned?

Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

Will it build goodwill and better friendships?

The answer should be “yes” to all above questions, in order the decision to be ethical. The reality of being ethical is that the response should always be “digital”. Either you are ethical or unethical, and there is no half way.

From eight Es

to excellence

Excellence is all about being exceptionally good. When applied to enterprises, it involves exceptional achievements in a consistent manner. It was 28 years ago that Tom Peters and Robert Waterman wrote the bestselling book, ‘In Search of Excellence’. As Peters and Waterman reflected in 2001 to mark the 20th anniversary of their seminal work, it was all about organisation and people. How best to utilise people to achieve organisational objectives.

The dawn of 2012 offers us another opportunity to have a fresh look at our lives. Embracing the eight Es will ensure the exceeding of expectations, leading to excellence. May 2012 be a year of excellence for you as an individual, an interactive team member and an institutional employee.

(Dr. Ajantha Dharmasiri is a learner, teacher, trainer, researcher, writer and a thinker in the areas of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour. He can be reached on [email protected].)