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Strategy: 8 Ways To Get Work Done Faster…Polled a Group of More than 1,600 leaders, 81% Felt They are Often Expected to Move Faster & Do More

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John Maynard Keyes, a famous economist in the 1930’s, predicted that his grandchildren would have a three-hour workday. Sadly, it did not happen–In fact, we now have the reverse! Organizations are looking for ways to do more with less, the population is aging, and the pace of work is increasing.

Cross Training

When Zenger Folkman polled a group of more than 1,600 leaders, 81% felt they are often expected to move faster and do more. In the chart below you can see the perceived number of “hurry up” messages executives receive every year. A Harvard Business Review study found that in the 1970’s executives received about 1,000 messages per year. If you contrast that with the 30,000 messages executives received in the 2010’s, you can see the expectations emerging through more than 120 messages per workday. Clearly there is a great need for speed in today’s workplace.

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As organizations look at competition and shorting deadlines there is a great need for increased speed. In our survey we asked respondents the impact of increased speed. When we looked at the data we examined the differences by position (e.g., Top, Senior, Middle and Supervisors).

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While the majority of each group realized the value of increased speed, Top Management saw the need more clearly with 79% agreeing with the statement.

Assessing Your Speed
We created a self-assessment to evaluate an individual’s pace. We have found that the assessment provides a valid estimate of an individual’s pace. The self-assessment results are positively correlated with the feedback from others on pace (.50 Pearson Correlation) and with an activity assessment (.51 Pearson Correlation). From the data that we have gathered we are understanding that the pace individuals keep tends to increase with age. The graph below shows gender differences by age and it is evident that while females start their work life with a faster pace males tend to overtake them in their 40’s. Note that as people age the pace tends to slow down.

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Breaking the pace assessment results out by position revels that top management tend to have the fastest pace scoring at the 60th percentile and individual contributors a much slower pace scoring at the 40thpercentile.

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To get a better sense of your individual pace click here and take the self-assessment. The Pace Assessment measures a leader’s ability to spot problems or trends early, to respond to problems quickly, and to swiftly make needed changes. From this assessment I learned some very interesting things about the power of speed:

  • Leaders in the top speed quartile were rated as much more effective leaders.
  • Leaders in the top speed quartile had direct reports who were more engaged.
  • Leadership who exhibit the combination of doing things and doing things right rank in the 96% percentile for being extraordinary leaders.

How do I increase my pace without becoming frantic?

Now that I’ve established the important of speed I want to be clear: I am not encouraging you to run around your office and make people uncomfortable. One of my greatest findings as a behavioral statistician was the use of companion competencies. When bosses tell employees to improve, they will typically seek linear ways to become better. For example, to improve your interpersonal skills you may try to talk more, read a book on the subject, or attend a class. But I have found that every competency is statistically correlated with companion competencies that help to improve people in a “non-linear” way. By looking at the leaders who are in the 90th percentile of effectiveness I’m able to examine the behaviors that got them there. To increase speed, I have found eight companion behaviors that will help individuals improve their ability to anticipate problems, address issues, and move forward quickly. Here they are:

  1. Be Innovative. The old system may not be the most efficient. Take the time to see if the answer involves developing something new.
  2. Be strategic. Understanding the vision and strategy are not just key components to doing things fast, but doing them right.
  3. Be courageous. Leaders who are fast don’t waste time worrying or mulling over choices. There make decisions quickly and stand by them.
  4. Be focused on stretch goals. Stretch goals push people to accomplish more than they thought they could.
  5. Be a powerful communicator. People can move faster when they are absolutely clear about their instructions.
  6. Be externally focused. This perspective increases speed because leaders become aware of competition, recognize other organizations are creating competitive advantage, and see how their products and services compare.
  7. Be diligent. Leaders who are fast take initiative and get the job done.
  8. Be smart. Having deep expertise make everything move faster! If you know how to do the job it is much easier to get it done.

These non-linear behaviors are the keys to building strengths. The good news is that you don’t have to be good at all of these to increase your pace. In fact, you only need to be good at one or two of these abilities to get better. Ask yourself which companion behavior, if done well, would help me be the most successful in my current job? Which behavior do I have the most passion to grow?

To see where you currently stand, take our Pace Assessment and then make a plan to increase your own working speed.

Forbes.com | March 23, 2015 | Joseph Folkman