Effectivity

The Productivity Pitfall

When people in business talk about productive efficiency, they mean how much they can squeeze from a fixed input - a machine, an employee or a field of corn.  They recognize that there is a range of possible output, but that there is an upper limit and that this is where the business wants to be.  This makes sense at the street level but on a higher level of performance it just may be holding them back from spectacular results.  What is wrong with this concept that we call productivity?

By definition, conventional productivity is focused on reaching a fixed maximum.  If I focus on maximising my productive use of a working day, I realise that in my 8 hours I have a limited resource.  There is a limit to the number of bricks I can lay in those limited hours, or the number of consultations that I can make, or the number of meetings that I can attend.  I can only increase my productivity to a point.  What if this thinking were holding me back from even higher achievement?

If we are able to suspend our logic temporarily and assume that the resource that we are looking at is not fixed, how would this change our thinking?  If, for example, there was no time limit on the length of my working day, how many useful articles could I write for my websites?  The answer is that the number might be limited only by my knowledge, or the number of topics that I can write about.  This is much greater than the limit of hours in my day.  Now we can look at the number of useful articles that my readers are looking for and decide on the best number to publish.  So now we are talking about the optimum total output, rather than just the productive maximum?

This is where our thinking changes our reality.  We are now able to focus on optimizing our production rather than concentrating on just maximizing productivity.  We have disregarded the apparent limit and are now looking to find the optimum output. 

Of course, the limit still exists, at least for the moment, so when we have decided on our optimum production, then we return to reality and decide how we can replace our optimizing scenario for our productivity scenario.  Where will we get the extra resources to lift the limit?

From this optimizing thinking, a factory may discover that it is optimal to have 2 machines running at 80% rather than 1 running at 100%.  Productivity tells us how to maximize the productivity of one machine, optimization says spending the extra money to buy another machine will lead to a superior result, in the long run.

In the same way, a person like me may look at the quantity of articles that he can write in a week and decide that he is already at the limit to his productivity.  If he uses an optimizing strategy, he can see that an extra 3 articles a week on one of his sites will bring an optimal experience to his readers and an overall optimal output.  He decides that he needs to lift the time limit, by finding another writer to contribute to one of the sites.  This optimizing thinking has removed the previous limit and enabled him to see a new solution to achieving the optimal output.

Productivity thinking has it`s place but it has to be supplemented by optimizing thinking.  Some people instinctively look past the limits and can automatically see optimal strategies.  For the rest of us, we need to consciously disregard what we see as a productive limit so we can focus on optimum results and then work backwards to see how we can achieve that optimum.

Have a look about your home or workplace and practice spotting productivity thinking that leads to less than optimum output.  What could you improve if the current limit no longer existed?  Try this  today.

Thanks

Tom

Thanks

Tom