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Assume Nothing - It's Probably Not as Good as it Seems
First Impressions
Whether you're newly-elected or have just been appointed to a senior management position, you're inheriting an efficient and smoothly running organization. Each and every operation is well-documented, and procedures and policies have been adopted and implemented so all employees understand their roles and perform their duties with expertise, courtesy, and efficiency. You can sleep well at night knowing that your agency is in good hands.
Yeah, right.
Even in the best organizations, improvements may be needed, and some may have already been brought to your attention before your first day on the job. Or, it actually may appear that everything is running smoothly and efficiently. Either way, you and the staff will benefit by taking the time to systematically deal with whatever deficiencies exist in a way that will have lasting dividends for the organization, its employees, and the public.
Up-to-date procedures are valuable for employee performance review as well. Poor employee performance may be the result of good employees following outdated procedures.
Here are some methods you may want to consider to improve the performance of your organization.
Don't Follow the "If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It" Rule
It's a clever catch phrase and can bring a chuckle when delivered in the right context, but don't use it as a guiding management principle.
Procedures can evolve in mature organizations that allow processes to run quite smoothly in the absence of any formal, documented procedural policy. On the other hand, the procedures actually being followed may bear absolutely no resemblance to what may have been written down at some time in the past. When the system is put under stress - whether from rapid growth, a major annexation, or from severe budget reductions such as those brought about by the current economic recession - it is bound to fail. Making the assumption that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" can present you with a nasty surprise.
Employees may have established a pattern of work flow where each employee performs his task and passes the work product on to the next person, without fully understanding the whole process and how his contribution fits in. Adding new people to the chain, physically moving them to another room or building, or taking one or more individuals out of the process can drastically upset a process that was assumed to be working fine. Without a well-documented, procedural policy in place that reflects what's actually being done and why, you and your staff won't know what's wrong until it breaks down.
For example, in one small city, a major annexation resulted in several new positions being created in the finance department, which also supported the city's utilities. Employees were reassigned and others were physically relocated. After several months, a stack of unprocessed forms for creating new pages in the water meter reading books was discovered. Several new accounts had gone unbilled because the new pages hadn't been inserted in the meter reader's books. The person who took in the information had dutifully filled out the forms and put them in the usual place, but due to the staff changes and physical rearrangement, that's where they stopped. It wasn't until the meter reader noticed there were occupied places that didn't seem to be in his books and went to the office to ask about the discrepancies, did the people involved recognize the system had broken down. Understanding what they were actually doing and having a written procedure, beyond just "fill this out and put it here," would have avoided this near-miss of embarrassment and lost revenue.
Another characteristic of human institutions (bureaucracies) is that what may start out as a simple policy or procedure can accrete layers of complexity (somewhat like an onion) in response to various challenges or occurrences. Sometimes these are necessary adaptations to respond to changes in the needs or demands of the citizenry, or to changes in the regulatory, legal, or political environment. At other times, these added "work arounds" and steps in a process are simply responding to onetime events or anomalies, yet they become a permanent part of the process "in case it happens again." The added inefficiency far outweighs the need for the "just in case" step to be added to the process.
Whether evolution has been necessary or not, a thorough review can separate the necessary elements of the process from the superfluous and ensure that what is being done is efficient and effective.
Analyze
Begin by making a thorough analysis of the process you want to review. Resist the temptation to conclude that you know what's wrong and impose an immediate fix. Often there are details that aren't readily apparent and need to be considered to avoid other unintended consequences by acting abruptly. On the other hand, you have to consider that you do have to keep things running, so you may have to put on a band-aid until a more detailed diagnosis can reveal any systemic problems that need more in depth attention.
Observe
The first step in your analysis should simply be to observe what's going on - who does what and what do they do. Spend enough time with the people doing the work so you can see what steps are involved in the tasks they do, who they interact with, and what they work with.
Question
Ask questions of the staff about their reporting relationships, what happens to their work product after they've finished with it, and what they understand about why they do it. This can be done in a casual, non-threatening way that demonstrates interest in the staff and their work environment, yet also yields the kind of candid insights you need to develop appropriate procedures. You may also need to conduct more structured interviews with key staff in the process you're examining in order to complete the picture.
Involve
Before you simply take all you've learned, draft a new policy, and tell everyone what to do, ask for input from those who will be responsible for carrying out the new policy. Present what you've learned from your observations and questions, and ask if you've missed anything. People welcome the chance to offer suggestions for improvements. A valuable method to employ that involves all the participants in the process under review is to break the process down into each individual step, write them on small pieces of paper (Post It Notes™ are good for this), and stick them on the wall. Everyone can get involved here, since you want to make sure each discrete action is identified. Each note should represent only one step. Your wall becomes a giant flow chart. Bottlenecks, duplication of effort, and obstacles start to show. Missing links become apparent and steps that add little or no value to the end product are also revealed. Depending on the size of the group, you can involve everyone to start streamlining the process, if necessary, or delegate it to a subgroup, or take it on yourself.
At this point, you've documented what you're doing, and it's time to write it down in policy and procedure. There are many formats for this. There are some examples on the MRSC website at http://www.mrsc.org/policyprocedures/policyprocedures.aspx. The exact form or style of the written procedure is less important than making sure it represents what you need and what you want to be doing in direct and understandable language.
Change
When you're ready to institute the change in procedure, take time to fully inform the staff. Remind them of the help they provided in making it possible, and empower them to speak up if they discover during the implementation process that it isn't working as intended. Adjust the procedure as needed, and be sure to revise the written documentation to reflect the adjustment.
Review
Finally, set up a periodic review to determine if further adjustments are needed. As circumstances change, people will naturally adapt the routine they follow in response. Before long, the actual tasks being performed will no longer conform to the policy and procedure you've established. (Remember the onion.) Regular review is essential in determining whether corrective action needs to be taken regarding staff performance, or whether the elements of the work have changed so that written procedures need revision once again.
Remember to stay vigilant. Don't assume everything is fine - it may not be as good as it seems.
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