Hey all!

I just finished reading High Output Management by Andrew Grove, former Chairman and CEO of Intel. There were a bunch of good take aways from the book – it gets a little advanced; but I thought I’d simplify some of my takeaway's into a simple mental model for managing anyone.

For a bit of fun, I’ve written this article in the inverse. In other words, DO THESE THINGS if you DON’T WANT PEOPLE DOING WHAT YOU WANT. It’s super simple, obvious, and a little bit fun. Hope you find some nuggets!

The Three Best Ways To GUARANTEE People Don’t Do What You Want

1. Don’t tell them.

It sounds so simple, but if you absolutely want to guarantee people don’t do what you want, then the absolute first thing you should do is NOT tell them what you want done. Make sure you never communicate any EXPECTATIONS. And if you do by chance mention what you want done, make sure you:

Say it in passing,

Don’t write it down,
Don’t repeat it,
Don’t ask them about it frequently.

Just make sure it’s only mentioned as a line item on a quarterly catchup or something. One line item on an annual report would be better if you can – think about how effective this would be at getting them to not do what you want. I mean, versus asking them about the thing twice a day, every day – that would for sure be communicating expectations clearly. Make sure it’s just a line item on the annual report. In fact, don’t even give them the metric to track – that’d be great.

2. Make sure they don’t know how to do it.

Again, simple obvious stuff! Make sure they don’t know how to do the thing!

Don’t train them around what you want done in general,
Don’t tell them how they should prioritize their time so they can get it done given their workload,

Don’t specifically tell them how you like it done, ya know? Because everyone has preferences. It’d be great they don’t know how YOU want it done!

3. Make sure they’re as unmotivated as humanly possible!

Ideally, it would be great if you could motivate and incentivise them to NOT do it! But for sure here’s a helpful list of things to ensure you’re not doing.

Don’t pay them,
Make it as meaningless as possible,
Don’t praise them,
Don’t tell them WHY they’re doing it and WHY it’s important,
Definitely don’t tell them how benefits others,

And for god’s sake… DO NOT TELL THEM HOW IT HELPS THEMSELVES!

There you have it! What do you think? I think with these three simple questions to ask yourself next time reviewing someone’s amazing performance, you’ll definitely be able to change behaviour and get them doing a terrible job as soon as possible!

And if by some chance you ARE doing all these things, and they’re still performing their tasks excellently, then perhaps we should start performance managing them out of the business as soon as possible. It doesn’t seem like a good fit!

Cheat Sheet

Ok ok – for the lazy, here’s a quick cheat sheet for next time. Ask yourself these questions next time when someone’s not doing what you want it.

Knowledge

Do they know what I want them to do?
Have I recorded/written it down somewhere?
Do I tell them about it frequently enough?

Expectations

Have I trained them on the task?
Have I taught them how to prioritise this task in with the rest of their workload?
Have I told them specifically how I need it done?

Motivation

Are they incentivized to do this task?
Am I praising them for doing the task day-in-day-out?

Note** A lot of jobs/tasks eventually feel like digging a hole and then filling it in at the end of the day just to come back in and do it all over again tomorrow. They haven’t seen that after they were done digging the hole, customer service, management, finance, customer success, etc all played a role to install new electrical tunnels and filled the whole in overnight. All they see is that same damn hole in need of digging again. Acknowledge their good work!

Have I communicated why their doing the thing and why it’s important?

Eg. Do they know that by filling in customer notes, it saves Bec from Accounting 30minutes when it’d only take them 2min to do at the end of a call?

Are they aware doing this task HELPS THEM IN SOME WAY?

Is it linked to praise? Better lead allocation? A bonus (individual or team)? Aligns with their personal values in doing good work and helping others…

In all sincerity, before we come to pass judgement on an employees performance, it’s only fair and just (never mind good for the bottom line), that we ask ourselves these questions – ensure we’ve answered them, and reinforced adequately.

Business is a doing thing, it’s constant and iterative. And as Einstein said, “Never memorize what you can look up in books.” So it stands to reason that keeping mental models like this in your toolbox to refer to time and again is helpful.