Are You Becoming a “Productive” Moron?
Imagine, 1-2 years from now, that a new kind of employee has emerged in your place of work.
He’s seen as effective by executives and managers alike, and is famous for the speed at which he returns email.
In fact, the new email tracking software that the company has in place then, shows that he has the best average email response rate — he replies to email, on average, a mere “5.73 minutes after receipt.”
The numbers also show that he’s able to respond at all hours of the night, on weekends, when he’s on vacation or on holidays, and while he’s supposed to be sleeping.
He’s the kind of guy who regularly drops everything to help out an executive with any request they might have. He’s learned that success breeds success. As his reputation grows as the go-to guy, more executives call him out of the blue to get his help.
He’s known to carry his smartphone to the unlikeliest of places, some of which are “un-hygienic,” but hey… he works hard for his number one ranking.
He’s regularly held up as a model for others, and employees whose email response rate is much worse are often sent to him for coaching.
They all have the same complaint, however.
When they try to talk with him it’s hard to get his undivided attention.
He interrupts their coaching sessions by checking his email. As text messages come into his smartphone he responds to them immediately, and there’s not a phone call that can ever roll over to his voicemail. He answers lots of messages in the moment, or close to it, and that by itself generates lots of new messages from the recipients.
They are never able to get any good advice from the guy in the two minutes they have with him between interruptions. In fact, it seems as if he’s always looking for something more exciting than the conversation or meeting he’s in, making people wonder if he’d not alternately suffering and benefiting from ADD.
He’s actually a moron. But he’s a quite a productive one.
It all started when his boss gave him his first Blackberry, after observing that he was piss poor at managing his own time. He would sit down for hours waiting for something to do, but he didn’t have the ability to actually start anything useful on his own. Nor could he take on projects that were too long, or complex.
What he could do quite well, however, was to respond to email, so giving him a smartphone seemed to be a good decision, especially when he replied to his first midnight email within minutes one Sunday morning, quite unnecessarily… This only confirmed to some that he wasn’t that smart.
What his boss didn’t anticipate was that the no-too-smart employee would be held up as a role model, while demonstrating behaviours that used to be seen by most as counter-productive. In the rush for quick results, the company became one that punished its good workers and rewarded the morons.
If this isn’t happening in your company, be warned, because the most recent research indicates that it’s coming faster than the speed of a hot email.
A recent article in the New York Times on recent research by Intercall, noted that 30% of workers in the U.S. who use technology to do their jobs feel the need to stay connected to work 24/7, even during weekends, breaks and holidays. One in two workers also say that taking time off is becoming increasingly challenging.
Today, 25% of workers think that their supervisors expect them to be online and connected to work after hours and that their job security depends on this. Almost 15% of respondents say that they plan to attend at least one work-related call or web meeting during their next vacation and 17% say that it is frowned upon if they don’t connect to work during their vacations.
I’d like to make a bet.
Without the active intervention of management in your company, these numbers are only going to get worse. They are fuelled by fears and anxieties that have increased during this recession, and technology has allowed bad habits to spread across companies like wildfire.
Turning the ship around is no easy task.
After all, where does the accountability for “worker productivity” lie in most companies? Is it with line managers? The CEO? The CFO? Someone in Human Resources?
It’s one of those issues that’s likely to continue to fall through the cracks, and anyone who does try to change it is faced with the fact that they’ll need the consensus of a number of executives and managers in order to turn things around. In other words, there will have to be public, broad agreement to not send or reply to emails, IM’s and text messages after 12am and before 6am.
Until that happens, more workers will feel like they need to connect to work 24/7, and more managers will make employees feel as if they need to be online and connected after hours, and even more will believe that their job security relies on adopting behaviors modeled by the productive moron.
In the meantime, corporate productivity will continue to suffer as more employees are given smartphones, and bad habits become defacto operating standards.
Who in your company will stand up and say “we’ve ALL had enough, and we’re not going to take this anymore?”
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Francis Wade
I own a management consulting firm in Florida, and recently moved to live in Jamaica. Shortly after arriving, I began to study time management techniques when I found that my old system didn't work. I eventually coined the term "Time Management 2.0" for people who are continuously upgrading their own, custom approaches. Find out more about Time Management 2.0 and the MyTimeDesign training.
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Comments
jeff_r says on May 20th, 2010 at 9:52 am
If the idea is that corporations are getting more and more out of their employees for the same pay while increasing stress and reducing downtime for their personnel, I can agree that this is a bad thing for the life-work balance of employees and will take a real and impactful human toll. And I think it’s logical to assume that this human toll will at some point have a real backlash effect on the companies that create this kind of stress for their employees.
Where the article veers wildly off course is the idea that employees who are more available, more responsive, more connected and more committed to their work life are “morons” – at least from the perspective of the companies they work for.
An argument could be made that a person who allows themselves to be “used” in this way are making a poor life choice (“moronic” may be a bit strong if the person enjoys this work style and the rewards it brings – either material or psychic). But from the company’s perspective, it is anything but moronic.
Some good thoughts, but laced together with poor reasoning.
Freelancer Dave says on May 20th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Sadly, I feel like this kind of behavior and expectations will continue as long as the job market exists as it does. Businesses have their pick of candidates due to the high unemployment, so they can dictate what they expect from their workers. People, being desperate to maintain gainful employment, will do whatever it takes to keep their job.
Francis Wade says on May 20th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
I hate to agree, but it appears that way… I am looking HARD to find companies that are putting in place policies to reverse this steady trend, but am only finding anecdotal evidence.
I’d love to hear about some enlightened companies… there must be a CEO here or there that has seen the light… and refuses to take his/her Blackberry to the toilet (unlike the 75% of us who think it’s OK…) LOL
Jim says on May 20th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
I love your opening about the productive moron. Spot-on. Unfortunately, I don’t see how the trend can be reversed especially in time critical enviornments such as IT where servers CAN’T be down for more than a few minutes. With migrations after hours and stuff always breaking at the worst possible times I don’t see how this ship can be turned around (at least for the IT folk). Same is true for people like doctors or surgeons and other similar professons. And if they have to work 24/7 you can bet they will expect others too. The culture is shifting I’m afraid. The benefit though is these technologies also allow you to work on the go so you aren’t constrained to an office for 8 straight hours. I guess there will always be a trade off.
maverick says on May 20th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
I think some do love stuff they do. Some do technical help, and do other work(real work) as well, because that keeps their engine working on something trivial but engaging. That doesn’t mean they are morons. May be you never learned about passion. May be some are pushing it doing it 24/7, but some wouldn’t mind doing it 24/6, coz that’s fun.
You would not call Steve Jobs moron(would you?) because he sends replies to customers while he is at his work?
PS: Don’t come at me saying, I am that “productive” moron. I am not.
Francis Wade says on May 20th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
@jim — funny — I wrote an article on my blog a while ago talking about how we are ALL becoming surgeons – “on call 24/7!” I just read an article talking about email addiction and self-esteem… The “I am so important” syndrome that causes many to whip out their smartphones over BBQ pits, in churches and in malls.
I have been wondering where corporate HR is in all this…?
Also… what will the backlash to this trend look like????
Audrey says on May 20th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Great post. You moved to Jamaica; I am jealous :-(
Tell my people mi seh whapen :-)
Francis Wade says on May 20th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Here is an example of a company that has put in place policies to reverse the dominant trend: http://blogs.bnet.com/harvard/.....rd/?p=6970
Petteri - Happiness Hunters says on May 20th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
One of the biggest mistakes in most company environments is that people confuse doing lots of things with being productive!
I really don’t think that it is productive to do lots of irrelevant tasks all the time, just to show the boss that you are busy and active. That’s just stupid, but that’s also how it is in many companies.
I am not dumb enough to participate that circus – I’d rather earn less and be my own boss. When you work for yourself, you can work for two or three hours a day, focus on the tasks with the biggest impact for your long-term goals and get a lot more things done per day than those who spend 24/7 replying to useless emails.
Sourav Ghosh says on May 20th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Great work Francis. You kicked those rat race runners with your killer title.Lol! In my last three years of journey I have seen many people want to be number 1, but what they couldn’t understand that there is only one position for number 1, and no matter how hard they work, only one of them is going to win. Why don’t they rather try to be the first rate version of their best self? I am curious about another thing. These people who are running the rat race of climbing the corporate ladder, must have sacrificed their personal life and family for profession. Can they be really happy if they get the promotion/position they desire at work? Or they will feel void from inside?
Thomas Grisell says on May 21st, 2010 at 10:13 am
When you’ve been around as long as I have, you see the paradox. The prediction was; when the computer was a calculator with a crank, that the work week would be shortened to four days.Due to this developing labor saving technology.
Darcy Eikenberg says on May 21st, 2010 at 2:43 pm
I give a keynote talk to communication, marketing and PR professionals called “Communicating Your Value (While You’re Communicating Everything Else.” One of my tips that always gets attention is the suggestion to “Click Less” (sometimes called “how to use your Blackberry without it using you.”). We don’t have to wait for our companies to ban electronic communication between certain times–especially since for some, that might be their productive time!! We just have to create our own rules, communicate them to others, and stick to them. The clients and teams I’ve coached to do this are amazed at how much they’d been overestimating everyone else’s expectations on speedy response and “being on’–and they start to get a whole lot more done when they take the time to turn the tools off!
Mohd.saidely says on May 21st, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Francis,this is an interesting article indeed
i hope those HR ppl learn something here, while of course it coming more of cultural thing as said above, i’m pessimist
@Darcy, way to go :)
Francis Wade says on May 21st, 2010 at 9:47 pm
@Mohd, all — if you ever see an article in the HR field that speaks to this topic — plz let me know. I’m eager to start a conversation!
Francis Wade says on May 21st, 2010 at 9:53 pm
@Darcy — it’s becoming the new frustration –”they haven’t returned my email yet!” — assuming that the recipient has a smartphone.
Hmm…
Nelfra says on May 23rd, 2010 at 11:15 pm
To those who want to be productive,
I greatly recommend the work of Tim Ferris “Four Hour Work Week” for your reading. =)
Ron Valarida says on May 25th, 2010 at 10:55 am
If the employee that is replying at all hours of the day, night, vacations etc, is a non exempt employee and you do not pay them for the time, you are in violation of the FLSA. One thing that most managers do not remember is that any time an employee does ANY kind of work, they MUST be paid. If you even ask an employee a question on their lunch hour you MUST pay them for the entire lunch hour. Crazy? yes, the law, yes. Once your company receives an FLSA audit, all those late night texts, e-mails, calls to non exempts will stop. The fines for violations can be quite steep to say the least.
Francis Wade says on May 27th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
@Ron — thanks for this- I hadn’t considered this at all.
Francis Wade says on June 20th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
When I wrote this article I imagined that someday someone would find a way to measure “email response time.”
Little did I know that there is software already out there that is doing this already — one example that I am testing is ClearContext.
I wonder if there’ll be a corporate version that allows or central control — so far I have only tested a personal version.