How is it that despite the revolutionary technological advancements in the last 60 years, from the personal computer, the internet, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, productivity growth is slowing? Tools that were designed to make us exponentially more effective though interconnectedness and large-scale automation have been met with a steady decline in the rate of growth.
In little ol' New Zealand, experts say the root cause of this phenomenon is that transformational ideas have begun to dry up, a temporary blip as firms adjust to new technology, or that new technology is more concentrated in a handful of leading companies. While all of this may well be true, many of us have experienced environments that tell a deeper, more human story.
But before we dive into that, what do we even mean when we talk about productivity? In economic speak, labour productivity is the output per worker per hour, currently around $68 in New Zealand. In more business speak, productivity is the results, benefits, or profits a business achieves from activities. In human speak, we tend to talk about productivity in more emotional terms like today felt like a really productive day, or I haven't felt productive in weeks.
What's really going on?
In environments where every activity has a prescribed process, every role is tightly defined, and exceptions are diligently managed, the underlying philosophy is a form of scientific management designed during the Industrial Revolution. This approach viewed workers like machinery to be optimised by reducing steps and movements in factory environments. To achieve this, a mob of managers was needed to observe, monitor, and prescribe processes to employees who awaited instructions like a machine waiting for a script to execute.
Fast forward a hundred years and this philosophy is still thriving, with sophisticated employee monitoring tools that can analyse your every movement on a computer, to tracking the completion of every task to compare individuals and teams against each other. It has become so prevalent in our organisations that we often have no conscious idea that we're perpetuating it. Sadly, many coaches and consultants that were initially inspired to support new ways of working for the modern world have devolved into another arm for scientific management to enforce new practices and processes in the name of conformance and control.
One of the assumptions of this approach is the belief that people performing repetitive tasks work at the slowest rate that goes unpunished, or what we would now call "quiet quitting". As such, more incentives (carrots) or punishments (sticks) are enforced to produce more output. While this may have been somewhat effective in producing factory widgets, that is no longer the world many of us live in.
What does a future-fit organisation look like?
With knowledge work now dominating the economic landscape, carrots and sticks simply don't cut the mustard. In Daniel Pink's book Drive, he unpacks what many of us know to be intuitively true, that we are far more effective when our intrinsic motivators of autonomy, mastery, and purpose are actively engaged.
While it would be great if there were a package to install and voila, your company and your people would be productive, this isn't the Matrix (Or is it?). This is not a math equation with a fixed formula and one single solution. There's a plethora of different ways companies have found what works for them in their context, the common thread being the commitment, experimentation, and perseverance to become the best they can be.
It starts with shifting from a short-term results mindset to re-imagining your organisation for long-term viability and growth. Simon Sinek, author of The Infinite Game describes 3 simple, yet infinitely challenging pillars of business as a starting point:
1. Advance a purpose - Invite people to be part of something bigger than the physical work they do for the company.
2. Protect people - Operate in a way that protects the people who work for us, the people who buy from us, and the environment in which we operate.
3. Generate profits - Money is the fuel to remain viable and to support the first two responsibilities.
If you want help with cultivating a culture that has a purpose beyond profit, where people are protected as the most valuable assets, with profits as the fuel to continue your purpose, get in touch at hello@culture-coach.org. I'd love to help.
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