Episode Details

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Our High performance teams series has reached part 17 and today we look at part 2 of our pillar on Tools, namely Hardware and Collateral.

Last week we spoke about Scoreboards and Metrics and how you need to measure what you want to manage if you want to understand what success looks like in your business, and keep pushing the dial on performance.

But today, we explore the hardware and collateral that your people have at their disposal to do their jobs. This includes their phones, computers, tools, machinery, equipment, sales, brochures, sales decks, business cards, all this kind of equipment.

In this episode, I outline:

• What goes wrong culturally when you have the wrong hardware and collateral;
• How to know how much to invest in this, given it is often a capital expense and requires a return;
• How Scoreboards and Metrics are intrinsically linked to Hardware and Collateral;
• How to use Hardware and Collateral to create a happy workplace.

What goes wrong when you don't have the right tools?

In most organisations, people are often blaming their performance on their hardware or their collateral. The problem comes if you create a situation where their hardware gives them an out, it will allow them to take the victim mentality and puts you in a difficult position.

So take some careful consideration, because the challenge is that you can often find yourself sitting there thinking, "Maybe I need to invest a lot more in hardware because it's a hardware issue; people don't have the right equipment to do their job."

But in reality, the hardware and equipment is fine; it's the culture or the attitude that your people have. This is when it becomes really hard to work out what the root cause is, because you don't want to under-invest and you certainly don't want to over-invest either!

What happens when your team has the correct equipment?

The right equipment can make a person feel 10-foot tall and bulletproof in doing their job. They can really feel supported. They can feel like they're a valuable member of the team. It gives them confidence.

Some equipment can be game-changing for effectiveness: you can reduce long turnaround times or service delivery, or save time on operational processes.

However, it's not all roses. What can happen is that over time, workers get complacent and having the right tools could lead to social loafing, so you've got to be a little bit careful. You don't want to let them get lazy and make the equipment do all the work. So, it's really about striking the correct balance.

How Metrics and Hardware are aligned

I want to tell you a quick story about where this can go wrong when you under-invest. This is a somewhat extreme example, but it's worth it to make a point. Quite a few years ago, I was working with an organisation that sent teams right out into the desert to do particular jobs. What happened was these teams would go out for about two to three weeks at a time. They'd be in a camp, working on a particular job and they'd move around a bit doing this particular work. These are frontline professionals that did their work, but they were under fairly extreme pressure to hit time and cost targets.

So, in order to achieve the outcome, what one or two of the project leaders ended up doing was, in their costings for the job, they would put in that they were going to have a portaloo and shower facility on site. Perfectly reasonable. But...they never actually bought it, so the project actually would come in under budget and look good! This is a perfect example of when a metric can drive poor behaviour.

The project managers were actually treating their people like animals and in turn, they