Three Ways Managers Can Make Teams More Productive

Forbes

5 hours ago

Signaling when you're being productive or available for interruptions like a stoplight can help ... More teams. (Photo by Adrian Sherratt/Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty Images)
Work today is full of interruptions. The constant influx of emails, notifications, and questions from co-workers can slow individual progress and create a sense of frustration. After all, most people want to feel productive and work toward crossing off important goals from their to-do list.
But productivity is more than a one-person show: it's a team effort. Recognizing this can help managers to make their teams more productive.
1. Signal Team Member Availability
One solution is to let team members know when they should avoid interrupting people, so that focus time is protected. To accomplish this, a team of researchers at the University of Zurich developed the 'FlowLight,' a tool that detects when a worker is focused and signals availability for interactions to others. First, the tool measures whether workers are in a state of 'flow,' detecting this through computer activity like keyboard and mouse usage. Then, the tool signals via a lightbulb mounted nearby whether now is a good time for interruptions. Like a traffic light, red signals that a person should not be interrupted as they're in the midst of deep work, while green means go ahead.
Testing out the FlowLight in a field study of 449 workers across 12 different countries, the researchers found that FlowLight reduced interruptions at work by 46%, allowing workers to focus their energy on individual goals at opportune moments. Given that recovery from a single interruption takes on average 23 minutes and 15 seconds, this amounts to a lot of time saved each workday.
Likewise, making it clear in schedules when people are available for interacting with others versus in focus time can help. The same researchers also developed a tool that encourages team members to designate time in these categories in their workday, and then displays this information to co-workers in a digital schedule. Testing this tool with 48 participants over 6 weeks, the tool helped workers to align their schedules so that teams could plan around rhythms of focus time and interaction time. This led workers to experience fewer interruptions during focused work, with 88% agreeing at the end of the study that they could focus well on their work when needed. Coordinating schedules made work less stressful and improved teamwork because workers no longer feared being interrupted at critical moments and were still able to answer co-workers in a timely manner.
Taken together, both of these research projects show that signaling to your team members when you're being individually productive and when you're available for helping others can be one way to get the team on board so that by working together, you minimize the cost of interruptions.
2. Change Mindsets About Being Productive
Of course, it's not possible to avoid all interruptions, even when team members have the best of intentions. What can be done to help people cope with frustration when interruptions do interfere with work?
Research led by Professor Thomas Fritz and co-authored with me, Alexander Lill, and Dr. André Meyer from the University of Zurich and Professor Gail Murphy from the University of British Columbia suggests reflecting on one question can make an impact: 'How can your team help you to be more productive?'
Answering this question can boost employees' feelings of productivity at work.
After all, the team members we work with are far more than a cause of interruptions that stall our productivity at work. Team members also support us in being productive and progressing toward our own goals, whether by giving feedback on a new idea, talking through a roadblock we've hit, or providing a mood boost by engaging in small talk near the coffee machine.
But as we go about our work each day, we might underrecognize the role that our team members play in supporting our own productivity. Becoming more aware of this could help people to reconsider their mindsets about how teamwork impacts productivity – and even boost productivity. This idea draws on research on mindsets, which suggests that calling attention to a sometimes overlooked truth - in this case, that team members can support us in being productive - can be constructive, changing how people respond to frustrations and challenges.
To test this idea, we conducted an experiment at a large multinational company where we asked 48 employees in different teams to report their feelings of productivity at the end of each workday over nine weeks. A few weeks into the study, team members received an additional reflection exercise which asked them to reflect on the question 'How did your team help you to be productive today?' This question encouraged workers to recognize that the team can help their productivity. Results showed that this reflection exercise increased workers' individual feelings of productivity, with team members reporting up to an 8.8% gain.
3. Build Productive Reflection into the Workday
Team members described how the reflection exercise created a 'higher awareness of what everybody is doing for the team' and made them more 'grateful for all the help and assistance that [they] have received for [their] tasks.' Additionally, individuals began to reevaluate their own contributions and behavior at work, saying that the daily reflections made them more aware that 'if I'm helping the team, then that is being productive, and I need to be a little less, maybe harsh on myself by not judging myself as being unproductive when I'm actually not.'
However, for teams with low initial levels of cohesion, the exercise backfired and undermined team cohesion as well as feelings of productivity. Team leaders should thus focus on establishing team cohesion and only then use reflection exercises to solidify and further improve productivity.
How can leaders act on these insights? They can take steps to create space for reflection during the workday. Dr. Meyer described the value of reflection in an interview with me: 'Our studies show that reflection helps shift focus from daily frustration to personal growth, empowering individuals to improve with each iteration.'
Reflection exercises can become part of the daily routine, such as being built into an 'emotional commute' when transitioning out of work as employees complete reflection exercises while logging off and setting their goals for the next day.
Through steps like reflection, leaders can help employees reconsider being productive as not a solo act, but a multiplayer game.