Water finds its way to the ocean…and your best workers are designated by the actions of the troops. If you want to see who is really valuable within your organization, watch how the work flows when it is up to the individuals to flow the work within your company. They flow the work to the best workers. In fact, if you are not careful, some of your workers will have nothing to do, while others will be buried under an avalanche of work. No one means for it to happen, but it happens. For example, if you have someone who is great at proofing letters and another who is good but sometimes misses a word here or there, the work will flow in disproportion to the better of the two. If you are not doing your job as the leader, the better worker will become stressed from the heavy workload. Those on your staff adore the “great ones” because they are so conscientious and flawless about how they do their job. Quality will not slip immediately because they are so good. But they will slowly drive themselves to extreme stress unless you step in and assign certain work so it doesn’t just flow by those who benefit most from having the work performed correctly first. Sometimes, however, the difference in performance is not comparing great to good. Sometimes it can be comparing great to weak. Jack Welch, of GE fame, believes leaders should fire the bottom 10% of their workforce each year because you acquire a percentage of workers who are not up to your standards. If you do subscribe to Jack’s theory, watching how the work flows naturally, or more accurately doesn’t flow, within your organization can provide insights to who should stay and who should go, or be reviewed with more scrutiny.
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