Disruptive Thinkers

We all know them, those types who just, can't, hold, it, in!

You know, the people that go to meetings and to hell with the agenda, they've got something to say and they'll hijack the entire meeting to get their point across.

We have all worked with these people from time to time, heck I've BEEN that person from time to time! And as much as everyone groans when they see that So-and-so the loud mouth has been invited to a meeting, I'm here to tell you that these people can actually be incredibly useful, if you approach them in the right way.

I call them Disruptive Thinkers, they are usually very passionate about what they do, often quite knowledgeable, and best of all, are prepared to share their thoughts on what's not working and how it can be fixed. Their brains operate differently to other people's and the way they think about issues can be viewed as disruptive. For them challenging the status quo IS the status quo.

BUT you need to work with them in order to get the best out of the relationship.

Firstly you need a strong Chairperson, in any meeting with a Disruptive Thinker you can anticipate when they might want to take the floor, and thus prepared you can allocate time for this to happen and politely shut it down when it's gone on too long.

"Thanks for that, I appreciate your input, now if we could just hear from some others at the table", is one way to keep things in a box.

I often promise to take that discussion thread offline and meet up with the DT later on and then make sure I do.

Another tactic is to invite the DT to form a sub-committee so they and some others can work on his particular hobby horse.

One thing I have found from the DT's of this world is that when asked to contribute, the good ones will do so readily, almost always reading and providing feedback on documentation in a prompt fashion, be willing to brainstorm solutions and the like.

They also like being leveled with, you can say "This project is a bit of a shermozzle but the CEO is pushing it through before the end of Fin Year", they'll usually appreciate your candor and will modify their input accordingly and swing into "Lets get this thing sorted quick" mode. Because paradoxically DT's are actually good team players. 

The worst thing you can do with a DT is to sideline them because they are too much like hard work, that will only make them fester and spread their dissatisfaction more widely. It's much better to grit your teeth and engages them so they can walk around the office saying "This thing is terrible but Ricky and I are working on a solution." than have them say "This thing is terrible and no body listens to me, so it's only going to get worse.".

Anyway if you have any disruptive thinkers in your midst, I encourage you to seek them out, engages them, you'll find the rewards will be much greater than the effort.

It's about people!

Do you know what the average stay is for a person after they have asked for and then received a raise?...

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...Six weeks...

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...I'll say that again

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.... Six. Weeks!

I wish I could cite the source for this research but I can't, I stumbled across it half way through one of those ABC News 24 Big Ideas seminars and I found myself so completely lost in the content that in no time it was over and I had no idea who was speaking. Subsequent visits to the Big Ideas website were unhelpful in my quest.

The crux of that gem of information is of course NOT that there's no point offering people more money, which of course you should do, especially if those people are me. But at the point where somebody is finally saying "I need more money or I'm going" they have progressed so far beyond the point of money being the key driver for their level of satisfaction, they will also at that point have a gazillion job applications out in the market place as well so it's no surprise that they had an offer come in about the same time as their raise. 

No the point made by my anonymous teacher was that human beings are pretty universal in our drivers and money is not always the key motivator.

Another bit of research cited was that of workers in a developing community, some were offered BIG extra financial incentives to improve productivity and some were offered small ones. I think I am remembering correctly that the small incentive actually out performed the big one. Now that is not to say you should never give people big pay rises, especially if those people are me... but that again to further illustrate that money is not the key driver.

So what is.

The Clever Dude that was talking said it was two things:

1. Self determination and
2. Mastery of skills

These are the golden tickets to to employee satisfaction and greater overall gains for your business.

When people feel they have a level of autonomy, of control over their own destiny, they will take that on. They'll care more, they will feel more satisfied, they will OWN their successes and failures. Within my own team I am constantly doing this, my gang basically know the boundaries of the playground they work within and how much self-determination they have within it. It means that sometimes, many times, their execution of marketing campaigns differs slightly to how I would do it. I do not stop this. I encourage it. For example I have one staff members who has a long history in press, her campaigns usually have a greater press spend than my campaigns would, BUT precisely because of her knowledge they are usually more informed press spends. The net gain or loss to the campaign is practically impossible to measure, I just smile when I see her campaigns and think "Oh of course the press spend is higher". (Although she will now twig when she reads this blog!)

More tellingly however is what happens when people are denied self determination, care and attention to detail goes out the window, satisfaction levels sink and efficiency goes into the toilet as everybody queues up outside the manager's door to have even the smallest of details ticked off. 

Then there's mastery of skills, people spends hours and hours of their spare time learning to play the guitar, many badly, and never is there any sense of future financial gain in this. The satisfaction gained form mastering a skill is innate. You can see it in chimps, the hours they spend learning a new dig the termite out with a simple stick tool trick, the pay off is not just in the food (termites - yum!) but you can see the pleasure on their faces in the "YES I've got it" moment.

So WHY OH WHY does every organisation automatically cut spending in hard times? Mine did. And I bet yours did too.

Giving people scope within their role to master their skills, time to play with new tools, time to hone their writing, design skills, or play with Instagram whilst assessing its use for your business is immensely satisfying to them and comes back to your business in spades. 

When I'm asked by my team if they can purchase certain tools (software, camera equipment etc) if the cost is in the hundreds, I'm a walking yes factory. Seriously if they are keen enough to achieve whatever it is that thing will achieve why on Earth would I say no? it can only be to mine and the company's benefit in the end. (OH yeah Managers - empowering your staff to do good work makes you look better - remember this!! YOU get kudos for doing not much, it's a win-win!!)

Clever Dude had countless examples, you know places like Google that give staff X% of free time at work to work on random fun projects of their own determination. Those policies are the ultimate expression of both major points he was making. Sometimes these play moments end up making for the company major new product innovations that never would have happened under a more task-oriented work environment.

But we as managers can start more simply, with our attitudes, policies and procedures, by fighting for our training budgets and although I haven't covered it here, of course positive feedback when staff have done well, and constructive feedback when things need to be worked on (There's NEVER any need at that point to say 'BAD staff member BAD', people are bright, if they have ownership, which they will have because you will now give it to them - right? right?, they'll own that error and guaranteed it won't happen again because they care)

Well that's it for today and if you saw the speech I'm remembering or reckon you know the dude I'm talking about PLEASE shoot me Clever Dude's real name I'd love to read ALL of his stuff!