When I was a little girl my father would ask me what I thought to be very strange mind bending questions. Once asked, they would send me off on a never ending search for answers. One of his favorites that always stuck with me was…

"If a camel is carrying a bag of feathers and he's carrying as many feathers as he can, can the camel carry one more feather?"

Strange question, right? At six years old I exclaimed, "sure why not, it's just a feather". My father would simply shake his head—no. It wasn't until years later that I realized I had been misapplying the principle. I had set up the problem all wrong.

Logic told me that feathers didn't weigh much, so the weight of one more feather would be insignificant. I only thought about the weight of the feather and not the capacity of the camel.

This is what we do in the workplace. We overlook people as a critical part of the performance equation. When demand is high we raise expectations, giving them more work to do and think little about whether they have everything that they need to do it.

Everyone carries different loads. And, no matter the job or the level of responsibility, we are all limited by our individual capacity. Combined our abilities represent the full capacity of the organization.

How much extra weight are your people carrying? Is is possible for them to take on one more project, work late into the evening, or keep working themselves in circles?

There are limits to everything and at some point even one single feather is too much too carry. It is important that everyone in the organization carry their own weight, but there are more effective ways to increase organizational performance. So, if you want the best performance from the camel, watch how you stack the load.

What are you doing to lighten the load? How are you going to grow their capacity?

If you really want to move further faster, you need to grow the capacity of your employees. Rather than continuing to pile on, maybe you should look for ways to share the load.

The capacity of your people is dependent on your ability to:

   1. Lead the way with a clear vision, purpose and map of where you’re headed and how you expect to get there. Commitment starts at the top, but needs to flow down and through every level of management and across every business unit to create a culture of trust, respect and accountability.
   2. Communicate strategy, clear job expectations, and measures of success to employees. Provide them with timely and appropriate feedback about their performance.
   3. Support performance by creating and aligning systems, processes and policies. Provide tools needed for better productivity and access to a wide variety of quality resources and people.
   4. Honor their contributions, dedication, hard work, long hours and efforts with fair reward, recognition, incentives, and compensation. Appreciation goes a long way toward building relationships and bridges between the needs of the business, customers and the spirit of employees.
   5. Connect the line from strategy to jobs; from systems to performance; from performance management to daily work activities; from efforts to results; and from business results to their own advancement and growth opportunities.
   6. Develop the skills and full capability of all employees to participate. Create the success you want by developing the right skills and knowledge that will aid them now and carry them into the future.

Today’s employee needs more than technical skills and job knowledge. They need to understand the business, the market, its customers and most importantly how to learn at the speed of change.

Valarie is CEO of Think 6 Results -- a knowledge broker passionate about learning and improving performance in organizations. She’s a writer, presenter, and executive coach on a mission to get every employee and organization focused on and thinking about the SIX business driving goals that matter.

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Contact Valarie at [email protected] or by calling 630-705-1189. Visit us at http://www.Think6Results.com.

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