An open memo to CEO’s
Your employees’ productivity sucks. The employees’ morale sucks. The bigger your company, the more it sucks and the more millions of dollars you are wasting each and every single day.
You know their productivity and morale sucks. HR shows you the charts. You have special committees “looking into it”. You have huge budgets allocated to team morale events and the annual picnic. And still their productivity and morale sucks.
But the solution is simple, really. It’s called the NENM Zone.
9 – noon: The NENM Zone
Look, the solution is very easy, Mister CEO. You must declare the time before 12 noon a NENM Zone: “No Email No Meetings”. That’s right. From 9 am – noon the company policy should be to let people put their heads down and actually get work done. Give them three straight uninterrupted hours to think, be innovative and get into a state of complete immersion with their work.
From 9-noon, the only communication allowed is via phone and only for urgent items. People may even build stronger relationships if they actually talked through problems instead of trying to solve complex problems through email.
Let them fritter their afternoons away on email and meetings. At least they got some work done.
A great side-benefit? People can drop their kids off at school and work from home in the morning. And they can drive into work at 11:30 am and beat the traffic jams. If you have one of those big Fortune 500 companies, Mister CEO, you might even solve the problem of traffic jams for everyone else.
Why the NENM Zone will improve morale and productivity
One way to unleash creativity, as well as happiness, is to get into a state of “Flow”. This is a state of being completely immersed in a task, so that time flies by and you become unaware of yourself. Software developers can often happily type out code for hours and hours, working through meals, because they have gotten into a state of Flow.
The NENM Zone works because no-one in your company is giving your staff time to get into a state of Flow. Here’s a typical staffer’s calendar.
Do you see what your people are doing all day? The are in meetings. And not just one long productive meeting, but several short meetings scattered randomly throughout the day and the week. And do you know what they do when they aren’t in meetings?
Email! You see that empty space between the meetings? When a meeting ends, that’s when your employees answer email (the email they didn’t answer during the meeting). They probably get 100-200 emails a day. And do you know what they do when they aren’t answering email?
They are working on their PowerPoint decks! That’s right. You can’t have a meeting without a PowerPoint deck.
So when does the actual WORK happen? The actual strategic thinking and innovation? It happens late at night, when the email flood ends and your employees are supposed to be spending time with their families.
Are they getting into a state of blissful and creative Flow? No, they aren’t. Why aren’t they? Because 100% of their hours are available for interruption.
The Answer is So Simple
Your staffers need someone to take charge and make their offices a place where they can be both motivated and innovative. You want that too, don’t you? It’s very simple. Email all your employees and say “New policy: 9 am – noon is our NENM Zone”.
Try it with one team and see if it improves morale and creativity. Then expand it across an entire division or entire company. You may start a trend that has a profound impact on innovation and competitiveness.
See “The Tyranny of Email” manifesto by Ole Eichhorn for a software engineer’s take on low productivity caused by email and meetings.
Posted by brucegab 
