Productivity Police

Since being one person in the workforce isn't acceptable anymore--all of us expected to do the work of multiple people these days--productivity has been elevated to a virtue. The productive are talked about like their own subset of potential entrants to heaven in the afterlife.

The thing is, with so much pressure to be productive, it's much harder to get anything done. It's that old problem of having so many tasks to finish, who knows which to finish first?  Even if your managers are savvy enough to help employees prioritize their workload, the sheer volume of incoming calls, e-mail, and assignments that rack up when you have a dozen responsibilities, is a productivity killer. Employees wading through such massive material become like the 1970s boat cars your grandmother or great-grandmother drove rather than the compact, sleek, aerodynamic racers you'd hoped for.

Worse yet, as vaunted as productivity is, the workplace doesn't treat it that way. In case you haven't noticed--as it happens I've noticed for you many times over--manners in the office are on the decline. "We're in a multitasking culture anyway, so why try to limit noise and other distractions?" popular logic goes. So, in-office radios and televisions, and those who insist on singing, humming, whistling, snapping fingers, whoo-hooing, and smacking lips when eating in the cubicle next door, is on the rise. Do companies even bother with the office etiquette talk anymore during new hire orientation?  None of us work in a mausoleum (even if it feels that way during layoff season), but there's no real work-related reason for noise extraneous to talking and conversational laughter, is there?

When you think about productivity, it's time to get counterintuitive. Don't think about getting it all done; think about getting any of it done in a high-quality, timely manner. Think of the possibility none of it is getting delivered in the shape and condition, and within the time frame, your bosses requested because with such scaled down staffs and training budgets, it isn't possible. Sometimes, when it comes to productivity, less is more.

Piles of garbage marketing plans, new product designs, sales strategies, and customer service is impressive if your managers have been conditioned not to inspect it too closely, but you, and the bosses who task you to train their workforce, know it's still garbage. So, your employees are overworked and productive in the sense they're turning something--anything--into their supervisors to meet those deadlines.

Does it matter if they have to fish this "productivity" out of the trash, and dust it off, before presenting it to customers?  Maybe no one will notice.

How do you measure productivity at your company?  What metrics make output that's not only timely, but high-quality, more likely?  And is there anything trainers can do to help?

Comments

[Duc Mason]

When I comes to productivity there are two types of it: quality productivity and quantity productivity. I do agree, that sometimes quality is more important. But I think that you just gotta differentiate your tasks and make right priorities. Another important factor is freedom of work and collaboration. For example, things changed a lot in our company, when we started to use this tool - http://www.wrike.com/. It really makes the whole team more concentrated on what they have to do and thus more productive. This one is worth checking out, really.

[Mark Smith]

Great post. Surprisingly, I can usually increase my productivity substantially by going to Starbucks...and not because of the caffiene high (doc says I MUST do decaf). I don't pay for the wireless access so I can "unplug" and not be tempted to check email. Plus I have the added benefit of not allowing myself to engage in idle office discussions. I principally use it for writing projects, project planning, business strategy and reviewing boring documents.

Sure it's noisy which probably bothers some. With 3 boys at home I guess I've learned to filter it out. Furthermore, my occasional A.D.D. brain can break away from what I'm working on for a few minutes of people watching.