Squeezing The Last Drop Of Productivity

In business circles, ‘productivity’ is a magic word. It triggers reactions from business owners and government alike, both of which seek to increase it. Increased productivity leads to greater output, decreased cost, and a more efficient operation all around.

For a country, productivity is closely linked with living standards. For a company, it is directly tied to performance. What’s not to like?

However, increasing productivity is not as simple as turning a dial. Since the Industrial Revolution, economists, academics, managers, and company owners alike have been struggling with the age-old question: how do we increase productivity?

MANAGE YOURSELF FOR EXTRA PRODUCTIVITY

Increasing your personal productivity is almost as important as increasing productivity of the firm. Here are some tips from Bob Pozen, senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and former president of Fidelity Investments.

Even measuring productivity is hard. Consider this story from the Harvard Business Review:

“A few years ago, a major manufacturing-based conglomerate asked a gifted mathematician to join its corporate staff. One of his first assignments was to design a system that senior managers could use to evaluate the operating efficiency of the company’s various divisions. He devoted many months to the assignment and also tapped the knowledge of several academic experts. The result was a truly sophisticated model that combined historical performance data with economic forecasts to set target productivity levels for each business unit.