The Easy Button Lie

by Kelly Nelsen

 

I truly wish that I could just press a button and, “Voila!” everything would be in order, the business would be taken care of, everyone would be perfectly motivated and productive, and I would be instantly transported to a warm, breezy beach where I was sipping an umbrella-garnished drink while listening to the seagulls calling overhead.  If I see one of those easy buttons, I can’t help myself – I’m inexorably drawn to pressing it in the hopes that this time, it will work.

But we all know that life just ain’t easy -- Adam and Eve had to mess it all up.  I hope they’re happy.  Because life is so doggone hard, we continually search for ways to make it easier.  If you think about it, nearly all of our inventions have something to do with that – cars, the printing press, remote controls, microwaves, computers, electricity, fast food, the wheel, shovels – I challenge you to think of an invention that wasn’t intended to make something easier.

Sometimes, though, we go a bit too far.  In the pursuit of making something easier, we actually make it harder.  Take computers, for example.  Yep, the words get put onto the paper much more quickly, but what happens when your computer crashes?  And what about all the stuff computers need to make them work?  Intricate internal workings that I can’t even begin to name, electricity, printers, internet access, a phone or DSL line…the list goes on.  Wasn’t a piece of paper and a pencil easier, for heaven’s sake?

The same can be said for many of the systems and processes in a company.  We try to press an easy button to manage our employees, thinking that if we can just fill out a form at the end of the year, that oughtta do it.  Feedback given, reward given (or not), and onto the next year we go.  We’ve even gone so far as to automate these forms with computerized programs that fill them out for you, complete with the option of making the language a little more positive or a little more negative with the click of an easy button.

Do you really think that human beings are that simple? 

We’re not machines – we’re high-maintenance pieces of uniquely individual art that continually evolve and change and look different than we did last year – if not on the outside, most certainly on the inside.  How can we hope against hope that a simple performance appraisal at the end of the year will do anything significant to change the direction of our people or our business?

No, life ain’t easy, and running an organization ain’t easy, either.  So stop buying into the lies that say that you can make the important stuff easy.  It never is, and it never will be.  Employees, just like your business, need ongoing maintenance.  And you at the top must lead this charge.  When you embrace this truth, you’ll be on your way to making your business successful. 

Or you can keep on pressing that easy button to see if it might just work one day.

For more information about managing and maintaining the performance of your organization and your employees, go to www.keyneinsight.com.