John Jonas and his team share fixes for when organizations run on autopilot: small bonuses, clearer roles, informal hangouts to build trust, letting QA catch mistakes, and a supportive culture. He says there's no single solution and promises concrete steps next episode.
Chapters
Why your OFS sometimes work mindlessly and solutions to it my previous 5 episodes have been about the problem. What causes your OFS to sometimes work mindlessly? Today is about solutions. So when I asked my team about this, I just sought to understand the problem, like what is causing this. I didn't ask them for solutions or ways to fix it. And yet a lot of them offered their ideas on how to solve this problem. Now a bunch of their solutions have to do with decreasing the power distance index. Reducing fear is baked into almost every solution of theirs. And then most of these things also create more of a family feeling. It's really interesting to look at after I categorized how the fears or how things cause this and then their solutions and how they kind of addressed the different problems. So let me read these. These are direct quotes from my ofs and and how they suggested we can solve this problem. So first acknowledgement for their great work to level up their self worth pride, but not overdoing it. A simple gift matters. It could be anything. Food or coffee mugs will also mean a lot, he says. Sometimes when I worked in an office, I'd put 500 pesos discreetly on their desk, telling them only if they asked. Santa had come early. To those who put on a wonderful job, 500 pesos is about $10. And he would just leave $10 to someone to say good job, you're doing a great job. Next I think you already did this before, but maybe giving rewards to people who contributed more than their expected role responsibilities, either cash or non cash experiential rewards. So this is from someone else suggesting the same thing. And along with this I want to point out that these weren't planned things for them. These weren't planned part like planned in rewards. It was a bonus for no reason. That really helped with increasing motivation. Next Sometimes work may get boring, but if people see dynamics on their job, maybe that will motivate them to think slash work better. Next My main point is that incentives in the workplace help employees feel that their extra contribution is valued. There it is again from someone else. Next quote Filipinos need more understanding on their job roles. What's the scope, oversight and responsibilities. So this one has to do with both power, power distance index and fear. They just want to understand the whole thing. Next quote so most Filipinos love to talk, chat and even gossip about a lot of things not related to work. That keeps most of us happy and have fun while working on a task. It also helps lose the edge and stress. Usually in the vernacular, but sometimes it Also works in English. It's important to have a sense of humor and remain respected. There's family culture in that. And decreasing the power distance index as you talk to each other. Next, getting a little bit personal, but not going to the extent that we tell them what they'll need to do and how to go on with their lives. Empathy is greatly appreciated. Next, talk about food, experiences and dreams. If they open about their love lives, just go with it and don't judge. Just give them support and suggestions to resolve things. So a lot of quotes about talking with them like, hey, how is life going? How's your sister? How's it going? Are you dating? Or. All of these things will go a long ways in creating the culture that you want and in decreasing power distance index and probably in decreasing their fear towards you as their boss. Next, quality assurance is important, but what makes QA work is there are designated people in charge to call out mistakes. When we know we are allowed to call out mistakes or no specific people are allowed to, it's fine. We respect the law. For some reason, I always understood that team member checks my work. She makes me fix my edits. I never took that personally. I just thought that's how it was. I don't know how you trained her, but she's straightforward. She's the best example of how it's not cultural. She's not afraid to correct me well, so actually I'm going to correct him on this. She wasn't always like that. She started being that way when she got put in charge of this process that he works in. So she's willing to correct and call out mistakes and tell him where he's wrong. And he's saying, oh, that's not a cultural thing, but it actually really kind of is a cultural thing. She didn't do that until she was given the responsibility to do that. So there's a lot going on in these solutions. It's unlikely that any one of them is going to solve all of your problems. However, I've done a bunch of these things and they've definitely helped solve the problem. Like, giving bonuses is really, really effective at this. Having conversations with them will change things over time. And I'm not telling you what's going to solve your problem, but I can tell you what they've suggested and what I've done. So in the next episode, I'm going to talk about specific things that I have done to help decrease the mindless work and help increase productivity and quality in my business.
