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BILL MURPHEY, from page 9

This game of defiance lasted for about two weeks until the department manager’s boss called her into his office and taught her about the inverse relationship between arbitrary rules and productivity. ❚ ❚ Set them free. Holding your employees captive in the office until some magical point in time does not make them want to produce better results. There will be times when you need to put in 14-16 hour days to get a job done, but most days shouldn’t be that way, so don’t needlessly burn out your employees. “Just because your office is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. doesn’t mean everyone needs to be there the entire time. As long as someone is available to handle calls from clients, you’ve got it covered. It’s okay to have flexible schedules.” I once had a boss whose office was two time zones behind mine. He expected me to be in my office until he left at the end of the day “just in case he needed to reach me.” I was supposed to wait for his call (that may never come) until after 7 p.m. I somewhat sarcastically reminded him that there was this really cool invention created by Motorola decades ago, called the cellular telephone. And I didn’t need to be in my office to use it! Since I was 2,786 miles away from him, he really had no idea if I was in my office or not. Surprisingly, he pushed back on my suggestion that he call me on my cell phone and not my office line. Eventually, he relented and began calling my cell phone whenever he couldn’t reach me in my office. ❚ ❚ Unhook the tether. Provide your employ- ees with a cell phone. According to Zweig Group’s 2016 Cell Phone & Mobile Devices Survey , 96.5 percent of respondents stated they use a cell phone for work-related busi- ness, yet less than 15 percent of partners and principals and only 10 percent of project managers are provided one by their firm. Don’t think you have any arbitrary rules? Ask your employees. They’ll tell you exactly what those “unwritten” rules are and which ones need to go away. BILL MURPHEY is Zweig Group’s director of education. Contact him at bmurphey@zweiggroup. com.

after the boss went home. If your boss left at 6 p.m., you left at 6:15. When you left at 6:15, those under you left at 6:30. And so on. The idea was that “you never know when the boss might need something.” Crazy! The same went for the morning. If the boss normally showed up at 7 a.m., you showed up at 6:30 to prepare for the questions he may have when he arrived. Likewise, those working for you showed up at 6 to be ready for your questions. Utter insanity. All of this meant that if you were at the bottom of the ladder, your day began before 6 a.m. and ended sometime after 6:30 p.m. It’s hard to motivate younger professionals when they’re caught in an accordion time trap. ❚ ❚ “Normal” hours for your business need not be restrictive. Just because your of- fice is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. doesn’t mean everyone needs to be there the entire time. As long as someone is available to handle calls from clients, you’ve got it cov- ered. It’s okay to have flexible schedules. ❚ ❚ Try to understand what your employees do to support you. You may be surprised at the things they will do to keep you look- ing good. In another office, I watched a department manager direct her salaried employees to remain at their desks until 5:30 p.m. every day. She thought they had been leaving too early each day. In reality, her team members worked hard every day and they were exhausted by the end of the normal business day. “Holding your employees captive in the office until some magical point in time does not make them want to produce better results.” So these outstanding engineers and project managers did what others might do when pushed too hard under arbitrary rules. They rebelled. At 5 p.m., when people from the other departments were heading home, they put away their work and sat there. Some stared at the walls of their cubicles. Others read books. The lucky ones with windows simply stared out of them until 5:30. At exactly 5:30, they left the office.

A FOR EXPERIENCED PROJECT MANAGERS. Advanced Project Management Workshop is a one-day seminar that was specifically developed to help higher-level design WORKSHOP DESIGNED and technical professionals in architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental firms develop the advanced leadership and management skills to better lead projects and clients. The one-day agenda covers seven critical areas of project management from the unique perspective of architecture, engineering, and environmental consulting firms, and is presented in tutorial and case study workshop sessions. Attendees will leave the Advanced Project Management Workshop seminar knowing how to manage soft skills associated with project managers, including: ❚ ❚ Profitability ❚ ❚ Developing and managing project scope ❚ ❚ Budgeting and monitoring ❚ ❚ Administrative activities ❚ ❚ Project notebooks and project management manuals ❚ ❚ Managing quality and risk ❚ ❚ Project closeout Led by Howard Birnberg, Advanced Project Management Workshop offers specific examples based on real-life construction industry experience by a long-time industry consultant, trained as an architect. Attendees of the Advanced Project Management Workshop can earn six PDH/CEUs. Zweig Group seminars are eligible for Professional Development Hours credits and Continuing Education Units. All attendees receive a certificate of completion indicating the number of hours earned during each seminar. To sign up or for more information, visit zweiggroup.com/seminars/ or call 800.466.6275.

THE ZWEIG LETTER August 29, 2016, ISSUE 1166

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