WAYS TO CREATE A CULTURE OF DISCIPLINED PEOPLE
Posted on November 15, 2012 by Randy Esguerra, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.
Is discipline the backbone of productivity? Then this says how you get it
Bawal magtapon ng basura dito
Bawal umihi ditto… Aso ka ba?
Bawal tumawid, nakamamatay.
Bawal tumawid, may namatay na dito.
Employees must fill out their Trip Tickets before going on field work
Leave forms must be completed upon returning to work.
The official work schedule is 8am, not 8:10, not 8:30!
Ok, this is quite a daunting question to ask, how do you create a culture of disciplined people? A culture that is so ingrained in them that they ignored the obvious lack of such outside the office walls? A culture that is not influenced by the bureaucracy, corruption and red tape seen almost everywhere else.
Let me be completely honest, it is possible but requires YOUR fullest attention and effort.
Case in point, I always ask the question why does bad service exist after so many years of awareness and efforts on customer delight, management, relations, systems etc?
Simple. Because the companies that give bad service have leaders who allow it.
So back to my premise. Here are several ways you can begin developing a culture of disciplined people:
1) PUT DISCIPLINE IN THE STRUCTURE – Sure you have your codes of conduct, manuals and what have you’s but that just emphasizes the misconception that discipline is all about punishment. You make a mistake, this is what you get. That pretty much sums up how every other company is right now.
Ask yourself this question: How important is discipline in the whole scheme of things in your company? Then amongst everything else that is a priority where does discipline stack up in the rankings? Lastly, how can a disciplined bunch affect productivity? Do you operate a production line or an art gallery?
Once you’ve got that out of the way give the essential actions related to discipline (punctuality, error free, complete reports) a heavy weight in the job description and eventually performance evaluations. This is what Stephen Covey noted as the difference between what is Wildly Important versus Pretty Important.
If it matters a lot, make sure everyone knows it’s the standard of performance.
2) REWARD THE RESULTS – The byword for quite a while in raising performance was “what gets measured gets done”. Cute, for a while. But then the entire measurement and statistical hoopla became too Greek for the normal hard hat to understand all the more implement. So the evolution of measurement were rewards.
“what gets measured gets done, but what gets rewarded gets done repeatedly”
One of the best ways to create buy in for people is to show them the positive results of our disciplined action then only do they jump in.
3) KEEP THE RIGHT CATS IN THE BIN – Discipline, eventually is all about people not policies. Policies were created for people (customers, shareholders) not for the sake of policymaking itself. Hence to rid yourself of the Aspirin of people problems you might as well decide who is on the boat and who is not. If you say it costs more to hire and train a new guy well let me tell you it hell costs a lot more to keep the wrong guy and pray that he finds baby Jesus in his life.
In his book “Good To Great” Jim Collins shows that with the right people in the right seats the bus can change its direction with little or no adverse effects.
Wilfred Pareto would tell you the same thing but I’m telling it to you already in English.
4) MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO – as a leader, are you a disciplined person yourself? Do you come to work on time, wear the company ID (no matter how silly it looks) or submit the Official Business reports on time?
Our people can only be as good as its leaders (I admit, we’re in pretty deep crap) but that doesn’t mean we can be disciplined fathers, managers or teachers. Do not leave any room for question.
So maybe all the 4 points have a certain degree of difficulty in them but the crux of all achievement is adversity. Try and fail, try and fail, ready, FIRE, aim! Give it time. Organizational development comes from its root: organic. It takes time and effort, but don’t forget the third most important element; if discipline is important in your organization then allocate a majority of your resources on it and the results will eventually unravel on its own.
