The Productivity Paradox
Productivity management is a cultural matter.
In many organisations, 80/20 is now gospel. True, framing an issue in terms of productivity can contribute to problem-solving. However, thinking in terms of ratios may have a detrimental impact on organisations’ cultures.
To put it bluntly, it is not flattering to see oneself as a numerator. It makes discussions on resourcing rather awkward, if not alienating. And the common perception of a lack of adequate resources across organisations might spur a vicious cycle of decreasing motivation, if not leading to self-fulfilling prophecies ultimately detrimental to trust.
Instead, or perhaps before considering resourcing, management should focus on elevating the resource problem to more of a strategic issue. Doing so will help them consider planning and organisation as two alternative levers to be utilised.
“What happens when strategy or planning need to evolve?”, asked the Mouse.
Reframing strategic goals and plans contributes to clarity, but it does not guarantee efficiency. Indeed, in a dynamic environment, efficiency results from the ability of a team to adhere, adapt, and take responsibility of the fulfilment of their mission.
Though, adherence, adaptation, and responsibility require context. The more people get context, the more they can understand what they contribute to (adherence), what needs to be done (adaptation), and their role in it (responsibility).
However, the challenge of providing context is twofold. On the one hand, not enough context can lead teams to infer reality from sparse information, with the risk of irrelevance. On the other hand, too much context may lead to anxiety and confusion.
Finding the right balance in sharing context requires consistency in the language that is used to describe it, and the regularity in doing so. This may explain the popularity of relatively simple management practices, such as stand-up meetings, as they provide a common framework (and often a physical space) to share context.
Paradoxically, increasing productivity requires moments when productivity is not the main concern. In other words, resource challenges are not only a matter of strategy and organisation, but also a cultural challenge; to be addressed properly, they require teams to reflect on their approach to productivity.
As simple as it sounds, considering productivity management as a cultural matter can have far reaching – positive – consequences for organisations:
It may enable teams to address the deep-seated alienation of working towards achieving targets, rather than contributing to a common endeavor.
By empowering teams with context, authority can be legitimised.
Finally, cultural awareness around productivity practices fosters responsibility by design, in ways that are much more tangible than well-intended speeches on organisations’ sense of purpose.
After all, it is worth remembering that Pareto and Adam Smith were trying to convey a worldview rather than solving an optimisation problem. In the expression “political economy”, let us not focus on the lesser word.
Baptiste Raymond - 03/2022.