In most organisations, you will be given too many staff, easily more than necessary to achieve the minimum level of productivity required. Of course most people tend to feel they have too few. This is because they are trying to achieve things which have no purpose – they are in excess of the minimum – but which are nonetheless time consuming. “How can I meet my targets without more people?” they cry. Wrong question. “How get I get my targets measured in such a way that I can achieve them whilst keeping my key staff no more than 80% busy?” is the right question. To answer that, you either have to re-validate how your targets will be measured as described in the previous section, or discard targets which are irrelevant or more likely, not going to be noticed or measured.
Another possibility is to look carefully at your responsibilities. How many of them is it just assumed you will carry out, without checking (unless you visibly screw up)? Of course you can’t just cease to perform the baggage tasks unilaterally. You have at least three options.
One (the most difficult usually): increase the perceived status of the particular baggage task. For example a routine reporting task should have a senior executive’s name added to the distribution list. There is no need to actually distribute the report in question to them, although if you do make sure it is filtered out before they get it by one of their own Minions, since you certainly do not want them actually taking an interest in that area. Then offer the now higher status role to a colleague keen on indiscriminate empire building. “We decided to work together to optimise the distribution of our duties”.
Two: simply unload the task to an aspiring junior in another department without consulting his or her manager. Most companies are full of aspiring juniors who will gladly take on additional duties because they believe it will help them get ahead themselves. Frequently this is actually true, although it is not so much the indiscriminate accumulation of responsibilities as the accidental acquisition of the occasional gem thereby which actually results in the junior’s advancement.
Three: reallocate tasks within your own team. Overload one area to free up others. Specialists are good for overloading, as they will tend to just carry on performing the additional work. Minions or Inferiors are also suitable, as they will simply accommodate the additional burden by performing everything else at a slightly reduced level. As this will normally just trim off excess fat by automatic selection, all should be well.
Who should you free up by this method? Extensions and Loyalists. Extensions because they will then be able to take on desirable tasks on your behalf, Loyalists to act in an even more important role: that of Spy.
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