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Productivity 2.0

15/10/2013

10 Comments

 
Why looking like a busy little very important squirrel isn’t going to save the universe.

Out of all the concepts that live a lonely existence of being completely, utterly misunderstood in today’s society, I have one favorite. It’s a word loved, hated and feared by companies, politicians and individuals alike: productivity. Now what on earth is it, really?

Don't worry, I am not talking about the typical news media laziness in using the concept mathematically accurately (that topic is a story of its own – but let’s not get confused here). I am talking about the way in which we as individuals define the productivity of our actions - and kid ourselves every single day. And how the little groups we form, like companies and associations, kid themselves, too. And how that actually does matter.

Most of us skip the philosophy and semantics of productivity and take care of the little bastard by defining a way in which we feel productive. In a world overly appreciative of rational thinkers, I have seldom run into a concept as widely treated as feeling-based as productivity. You don’t agree? Think about large companies and their struggles today. They may be totally lost with how to boost their productivity, and look around in an office full of half-asleep people due to so many factors (lack of motivation / sense of direction / skills / speed / smarts / incentives), and feel so powerless that they give up on the analysis. Some organizations do try hard to tackle the problem, which of course is a great step out of the ignorance. However, often that analysis and hence its conclusions fail to be truly effective due to the restrictiveness of the solution space: If we rule out things like motivation, sense of purpose and individual flourishing as huffy-fluffy ambiguous distraction, and instead give the problem cheap explanations (like “Shirley is sleeping on her desk because she’s lazy and getting old” or “John is running around like a crazy squirrel, so he must be productive!”), we do not give our efforts a chance to succeed.

Now, one can define “productive action” in a few different ways, depending not only on underlying values, but also on the resilience given to exploring this concept.

Possible definitions include:
  1. Doing something (as opposed to being idle)
  2. Doing something that someone pays you to do (common definition used unconsciously in everyday discourse, as well as the underlying assumption in traditional thinking of productivity in economics)
  3. Doing something which takes you closer to your real priorities

It is quite easy to do something productive as defined in definition 1 - just don't slack on the couch all day. It is also relatively easy when using the second definition - at least as long as you have a job or can generate one for yourself. The game gets really interesting only after you enter the third definition. This is due to the facts that A) many people do not know what they aim at, B) many people seem to think it is okay not to know what they aim at, C) only few people really are curious towards what we do, why we do it – and what could thus drive us to be better as an organization, a local society, a global society, a universe.

Now, my education in engineering was not entirely just Finnish tax payers’ money down the drain. I have a great tendency to squeeze stuff into equations, to make them look more scientific. With productivity, I argue that all of us have an implicit or explicit personal equation for it, which we use for allocating our energy between numerous competing objects (iPhone, work calendar, reading a book your friend gave you, actually doing your work, talking about your work with your colleagues, sleeping, ...) around us.

My equation used to be something like this:

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I bet you can spot multiple problems in my former equation. For me, there were two that eventually led me to ditch it:

  1. Any random outcome (even if it made someone else satisfied and/or happy, looked good on my CV or even earned me money) did not fulfill my need for meaning, which inconveniently lies behind my existence.
  2. "Time needed" did not take into account all the energy I borrowed from my days to come, as time is not a very good measure for holistic effort. I was not living as an energy-neutral human being, at all. Quite the opposite, I was systematically using up all the energy I could possibly generate / borrow / steal from other activities. Thus, the divider “time needed to produce the outcome” became a very unreliable downstairs neighbour.
  3. (The equation made me miserable.)

The reason for using very bad, downright dysfunctional and illogical equations in our lives is – well, human. It is simply because: we don't have a better one. And why do we not know of a better one? Because we have not answered to our priority 1 question in life: What should I as a free, capable and loving human being do with all that has been given to me on this planet? Now, that question can be a real bitch. Mainly for one reason: no one can answer it for you.

I don't mean to be harsh, but let's face it: We are quite lazy when it comes to answering that most important question in our lives (What actions should I take within this lifetime, that branch out from my immediate survival, well-being and convenience?). We hope someone else would provide an answer for us, and at the same time conveniently give us an insurance against the plan backfiring right in our faces.  (Also, the society as we have designed it today does not exactly support embarking on the journey of really answering that question. We are constantly lured to skip the question and find a short-cut through catching that great place to study, awesome job that no one else can get, beautiful partner that will lift us up and make us happy, etc.) 

For me, a concrete outcome from answering the question what should I do with all that I have been given has been an Excel file (once a consultant, always a consultant!) and a firm commitment to it. The file has in it all the things I want to change in this world, their order of priority, their sensible timing given that I am only one 29-year-old woman with two hands and one brain. The commitment is my most sincere, most solemn vow to dedicate my energy to the things I really value – and do it consciously, not just drift along the river of life as a passive observer. 

As you may have guessed, I no longer use my old equation. My new equation is:
Picture
There are two main differences compared to my old equation:

  1. I no longer value any random outcome, any change in the status quo as a leap of achievement, but rather have a carefully defined and conscious mission for my existence (e.g. “always act with responsibility and genuine love towards yourself and other people”). For me, this is the only way to stay sane in this “doing and achieving like busy little rabbits, thinking only when absolutely necessary” society.
  2. I no longer simplify my input resources to “time” as if I was a machine with 24 running hours per day, but rather talk about energy for which time is only one component of many.

All in all, pretty eye-opening thoughts have entered my mind lately. You would think a recovering perfectionist/overachiever like me would be dying to find a legitimate justification for my existence through some very familiar friends of mine – achievements. What is at the same time shocking and pretty spectacular is that I am actually, for the first time in my life, not just feeling but being fully productive. That means I am actually using my energy to approach my top priorities in life. 

And let me tell you, it feels pretty damn good.

10 Comments
Rosette
19/10/2013 02:13:06 am

I have used productivity in my life to think about particular tasks, but I have not applied it n a scale of whole life. Those particular tasks have been quite minor, carrying typically monetary value less than 1000 euros or time wise less than 100 hours. There usually has been as an implied goal to save either time or money or both. As a one trivial example, how to travel from point A to point B within a budget. In more general terms, to achieve more with less.

On a system level there is a slight problem, because one man's productivity is other man's inefficiency (or can be, not always though). But when we talk about the money, that's usually the case. In corporate world, employees see it as desirable to get their salary per month ratio up, while employers are rather pushing it down, to increase profit margin as their own productivity goal. This struggle is silent in a sense, that the conflicting goal set and the best possible solution for it system wise isn't usually openly discussed.

When it comes to personal life, I feel like productivity isn't appealing question for a grand scale. One of the big questions is what to do question. If there is a good answer to that, I maybe slightly naively believe, that strategies for particular efficiency issues will sort themselves out.

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Rosette
19/10/2013 02:37:18 am

Sidenote 1: Maybe the partial hierarchy between questions is, that "what" questions are above "how" questions, which are more about technicalities. Question about productivity is in this latter category.

Sidenote 2: When it comes to corporate system, not only money, but also time is part of conflicting productivity goal set. Extending working hours of a single person might be seen as desirable from employer's perspective, and at the same time undesirable from employees perspective. It's like time and money are inseparable twins and Yin and Yang of corporate world.

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Kip
19/10/2013 06:30:45 am

Spot on! Something I’ve been implicitly thinking for a while now but not quite been able to nail. We so easily feel satisfied with ourselves by being productive and efficient in the task at hand. And so often forget to think through what the task actually contributes to in the big picture.
Thanks for the post! Hope we see more of these.

Reply
Teemu Karppinen
20/10/2013 05:17:33 am

Thanks for the post!

Have you considered that your top priorities might change over time? Are you giving enough space for your future growth if you now commit to your current top priorities?

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Annu
22/10/2013 12:29:10 pm

Good addition, thanks Teemu!

Naturally a person's top priorities change over time. That means the upstairs guy in the RHS of the equation is dependent on timing.

The most important question ("what should I as a free, capable and loving human being do with what I've been given?") needs to hence be answered not only once in a lifetime, but on a regular basis. For me, that's one of the little exercises which go hand-in-hand with being a responsible human being.

Reply
TM
7/11/2013 03:15:55 pm

Respectable level of honesty, and an intriguing blog to those of us who feel the need to contribute to a higher cause. The society does seem to reward collecting points (grades, titles, square meters, research publications, girlfriends...) more than a real lasting impact, which makes it easy to not think about one's real priorities. I only know one person who lives by that question (and chose to focus on AI research).

However, the economist in me wants to say that busy little squirrels guided by an invisible hand will produce roughly the right results, leading to increased wellbeing and happiness (given that we adjust for externalities). It is difficult to argue against something that has brought us food, vaccines, sofas, 40-h working weeks and this ipad.

Regardless, promoting better leadership is a good cause, and has the potential to improve the lives of millions. Good luck!

Reply
TM
7/11/2013 03:39:43 pm

That is not to say your thinking is flawed. There are definitely areas that do not receive the attention they would deserve under the current market mechanisms. AI research and leadership development may well be among those.

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    Author

    Annu. Institutional entrepreneur, writer, ex-management consultant, poet, documentary film maker, musician, full-time daydreamer, and ally of the truth from Helsinki, Finland.

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    Published posts

    Introduction: What is this blog about?

    Prologue: My love affair with the truth


    Productivity 2.0: Why looking like a busy little very important squirrel isn't going to save the world

    Dreaming 2.0: From princess/rock star fantasies to real adult dreaming

    The S word: Why the current leadership paradigm isn’t fulfilling our hunger for direction

    The race to misunderstanding: Why genuine comprehension is becoming endangered

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