Welcome

It’s been awhile since I last posted and I am still on my paternity leave. Very much enjoying the time to stop and think. An opportunity to get on the Padel court as much as possible and most importantly of all spending time with the family. Having a great opportunity to spend with the children.

We have been fortunate to have some great time together as a family. With this added time to slow down it got me thinking about our world and our areas of focus. So I wanted to explore topics and areas that leaders over complicate on productivity but more importantly we as individuals.

Why are we wrong on productivity

Every company from the very large to the tech start-up have goals or objectives. This has become the norm. Companies have them, departments have them, teams have them and individuals have them. Your performance as an individual is based on them.

Now I am not against goals and objectives and find them powerful. But they may well be a key thing that actually impedes development and growth, on all areas.

Looking back at where these came from and understanding of their purpose is useful. A large chunk of their development came from Harry Ford’s factory. It was there to ensure that when people were building the car, every part of their factory line completed their part in building the car. This then spread into all other areas of factories globally. Organisations became interested in the success of Ford, that they began asking questions and the one thing they saw was goals and targets set. So they also adopted this into their own workforces.

But let’s look at knowledge workers. When we work we don’t have a conveyer belt of actions to complete. There is no things to put together and the output is the work (unless you count clearing your emails!). The knowledge worker is more on thinking time, this doesn’t often happen immediate outputs. We need space and time to think. Our outputs are in our minds and not in the hands.

This means that how we measure and track these goals is very different. It can’t be the same and when we have done the same it hasn’t resulted in increased productivity but led us more into a world of burnout and frustration. I personally believe that the increase in burnout is due to our over obsession with goals and productivity that will never end. Businesses want more and this pushes us as individuals to more. We are unable to stop and get off the ever burning need for achieving and moving forward.

Let’s stop and pause. What is productivity? Is this the be all and end all that we need to focus on? What are we expecting with the consistent focus on productivity and more?

Does potentially reframing this into something different drive better outcomes for the goal of productivity?

Instead of measuring the objective maybe we should focus on:

• Outcomes: If a task is set focus on outcome of the task, not the output but the outcome. How did the individual has worked to achieve the outcome. What was their methodology and approach to the task.

• Experiments: Within business and leadership a lot of things we don’t really know what is going to happen. There are things in our control and a lot that isn’t in our control. In product and engineering teams there is the point on A/B test. Should this be something we should start looking at in running goals and productivity within our teams?

• Learnings: A large part of goals and objectives is to grow. We can only learn through growing but with goals and objectives there isn’t the room to grow. They are often too black and white — you either achieved the goal or failed. Is it any wonder that our society today is fearful of failure and making mistakes?

Maybe if leaders stopped and thought about the impact of the goals and focussed on what needed to be done we might see a big improvement in a number of areas and most importantly for me would be burnout of employees.

This week try and slow down on those goals and instead write some field notes on:

• How you are feeling with the tasks in front of you?

• Why you procrastinate on certain tasks?

• What your emotions are during the days and weeks at work?

Use this information to then help you understand where you need to focus attention on moving forward. Ideally focussing on the things that get you excited and not demotivated. Or at best ensure you spending more of your time on the things that get you excited and energised.

Quote of the week

I was able to go to The Farmers Dog pub and if you live in the UK and able to get to the Cotswolds it’s somewhere I would recommend heading too. But on a board in the restaurant was this quote from Anthony Bourdain and I think this ties in nicely with the above article.

Maybe we just need to slow down and enjoy what’s around us and near us more and less time looking at our phones and emails. We might find this will make us more productive.

Have great week and more to come soon.