Do Governments Innovate?

Most people - including me - would answer immediately - and say ‘No’.

However, things are not so simple.

Think of recent large-scale innovation changes.

Nuclear power for example.  Or space exploration.  Such massive innovations could not have happened without large-scale investment (and planning and coordination) from governments.

Other innovations cannot be fully diffused into markets without support from government t and government t agencies.  The rollout of electric vehicles cannot work without a sound national strategy for there provision of charging stations.

Spo, sometimes innovation needs a helping hand from government. This can be upfront in supporting massive technological change or post-event in supporting the diffusion snd uptake of new technologies.

Thus, new technology may take some time to show up in productivity figures.

This is, of course, exacerbated by the need in innovating firms to train the workforce in the use of new technology or systems - and promote the innovation to potential customers.

Government education and training policy also has to adapt and reflect technological change.

So change includes the major change (introducing a new technology, for example) and the few or many intangibles which must be changed to exploit the technology.

Governments clearly have a role to play here.

Governments perhaps do not directly innovate … but the support they provide can make the difference to the success is a new innovation in improving national productivity.

Trust is Key

Bad title.  There is no one key to productivity. Yet, research shows a strong correlation between mutual trust and performance in organisations.

Mutual trust means that:

• Senior leaders trust employees
• Managers trust their team members
• Managers are trusted by their direct reports
• Employees trust their fellow team members
• The senior leadership team is trusted by employees

If you can generate and then maintain such trust, you move forward.

Establishing and Improving such trust involves the training of employees and especially managers/leaders - on effective business communication and on how and why trust bonds are formed, and how they are broken. An innate sense of empathy in senior leaders is also very helpful.

So, ‘all’ you have to do (as ever) is to hire the right people for supervisory/managerial/leadership roles, and give them appropriate training and development opportunities.   Mentoring by an.established peer with the right qualities is also helpful.

The Sound of Silence

Many people like to listen to music while they work on their computer or carry out other individual tasks.  Music can drown out the sounds of the task itself or the sounds of colleagues - especially when working in an open plan office.

Others think music is a distracting  influence and prefer to work in silence.

A ‘listening’ brain is continually processing sensory input (including multiple changes in rhythm, tone and volume) even when a person is not consciously paying attention. This constant input can put a considerable cognitive load on the brain, potentially leading to mental fatigue and reduced productivity - the brain is working at something other than the work task in hand.

In contrast to the potential mental overload caused by noise, silence can have a soothing effect on the brain. Moments of silence can help lower blood pressure and heart rate, reducing the levels of stress hormones 

The calming effect of silence can contribute to improved concentration, better decision-making, and an overall sense of well-being.

Furthermore, a study published in the journal "Heart" showed that just two minutes of silence can be more relaxing than listening to "relaxing" music, 

Silence has also been recognised as a catalyst for creativity and productivity. By reducing auditory distractions, silence can help people focus, make connections between ideas, and solve problems more effectively.

So encourage staff to throw away (or lay aside) their headphones, turn off the radio and listen to … silence.  They will feel better and be more productive.

Failure can lead to Success

Most business people are aware that failure can be a useful learning process - allowing those who are part of the failure to learn lessons about what went wrong and/or where they could have improved their performance … and especially where they lack specific skills  and experience.

Now this ‘principle’ is being taken further by setting up ‘productive failure’ - giving individuals or groups tasks which include s strong chance of complete or partial failure.

One way of doing this is to give the individual or group a task which requires skills or experience they don’t have - for example by asking a group to design a new AI-related service when their normal field of experience is, say, hardware engineering or accountancy.

The team should not know the nature of the ‘experiment’ - they should feel the exercise is a positive one - for them and for the company.  Thus, it must relate to the company’s portfolio of products or services - and the current company content.

Of course the team must be given the chance to debrief their experience and identify where their skills/experience were lacking or how they could havre tackled the task differently.  

It may be that the group includes highly creative people who come up with genuinely useful ideas.   So much the better, of course,  Whether the group comes up with useful ideas, or is unable to so so, the company wins. 

Can the UK Fix its Health Service?

 The NHS (National Health Service) in the UK is regarded by many British people as ‘he jewel in the crown’ - by far the most important public service.  Over the last decade, though, there has been increasing disappointment with the state of the service - with the COVID pandemic putting a large nail in the coffin.  Though people still value the NHS for its convenience and its ‘free of charge at the point of use’ status, it is generally reported as, and regarded as, ‘broken’. Demand for its services is rising with an increased demand (and lengthening waiting lists) for, in particular, mental health related services.

So what can be done to fix the NHS .  ‘Throwing more money at it’ is the usual political solution - but a solution that never works … and almost certainly could never work.

Increasing, and improving the use of technology is one partial solution - and AI certainly seems to offer some potential to help. (The NHS uses and produces vast quantities of data and carries out a large amount of data analysis.)

Certainly it seems to an outsider that  the NHS has to change the way it does things, rather than simply attempting to do more stuff…. but the NHS should be looking for specific, focused technologies rather than trying to squeeze and mould existing or mainstream technologies to fit its own environment.

The NHS should be, and is, looking at developments elsewhere in both public and private health arenas - and in different contexts.

For example, many developing nations have been unable to copy western, high functioning, high infrastructure health services due to the very high set-up costs.  Yet they often construct services which meet many of their needs at far lower costs - often by using staff with shorter, cheaper qualifications.  (Despite recent trends in the use of ‘paramedic’ staff, the NHS still uses expensive, well-qualified doctors to diagnose and treat low level ailments.)

So, the NHS can be wholly or partially fixed but it may need to be  further (intentionally) broken to end up with a streamlined structure, a wider range of staffing levels and skills, more appropriate use of specialised technologies - and this will take  a massive political will to ‘attack’ the beloved NHS before rebuilding it.

The size of the NHS complicates the situation but such ‘turnarounds’ have been undertaken by failing, commercial organisations to show  that this is a difficult, though by no means impossible, mission.

What is the Point?

Reading documents and even blog posts about productivity would lead one to believe that the only purpose of improving productivity is to raise profits.

That is true at the level of the firm … but sometimes we need to take a wider view.

At the national level, raising economic performance  by improving national productivity is clearly important  but only, fundamentally, because its allows a government to improve the social well -being and quality of life of its citizens. 

The productivity improvements should also be in sustainable directions so that those changes in well-being and quality of life move only in one direction - upwards.

So let’s place less emphasis on profitability, on GDP, and start to work out a well-being index that more clearly reflects our longer-term aspirations and societal goals.  Then we can know if we are being successful.

Such an index has even discussed in the past but further work is necessary on an international basis to try to reach a consensus that allows international comparison and benchmarking.

America Leads

Even though productivity has been rising slowly in the last few years, America still tops the international league table for productivity.  Why is this?

Well, possibly the most significant reasons are:

Firstly, America is a high-tech country.  It leads the way in software development , and probably still in hardware design.  America therefore implements new technologies as an early adopter and other countries have to play catch-up.  This early lead means that America gets the real first-mover advantage for most significant technologies (though countries like South Korea are fast catching up.)

Secondly, America has high quality universities which provide an effective pipeline of new talent.

Thirdly, though linked to the technological advantage, is America’s commitment to capital investment, both physical (infrastructure, equipment) and intangible (software, patents). 

This  sets it apart from, and above,  many other economies. Non-residential investment has run at about 17 percent of GDP in America since the mid-1990s, consistently higher than the share in large European economies, according to John Fernald of INSEAD, the leading French  business school.

What’s more, public and private R&D spending of 3.5 percent of GDP is surpassed only by Israel and South Korea.

Fourthly, America has a high turnover or churn rate  rate for companies, with nearly a fifth of companies being created or dissolved annually. Thus fosters innovative firms can rapidly emerge and obsolete ones can gracefully exit.   Start-ups find financing easier than do their counterparts elsewhere.

None of this is rocket science.  (Actually, some of it is ... see reason one above).  Other countries can learn the lessons but would have to invest over a number of year to reach the same point - and this would, in many countries, be mitigated by a reluctance to take risks.

No Secretto Improved Productivity

 There are thousands of articles, book - even blog posts - promising you the Top 5 (or 6 or 21) secrets to productivity.

However, I have disappointing news..  There is no one secret, no magic bullet, no productivity panacea.

Improving productivity takes real commitment - from the leaders of the organisation and infused throughout the organisation - a commitment to asking searching questions, examining systems, processes and working methods and to getting all staff to buy-in and participate in thinking up new ways to do old things.

Forget the promise of the ‘productivity revolution’.  Get the organisation thinking hard and working hard to ask - and then answer- all the difficult questions that need to be asked.

Is this the big success area for AI?

I am slightly sceptical about the great productivity gains suggested for AI.  I hope I am wrong but I think it may take quite some time before the ‘intelligence’ of AI gives solid results.  That is not to say that AI will not bring benefits, such as productivity improvements, only that we should not expect too much too soon.

There is ,though, one area/industry that seems ready for AI - healthcare.

Healthcare has a lot of bureaucracy and many medical and para-medical staff spend far too much of their time filling in forms, recording data and generally keeping the vast bureaucratic machine fed.  If we can reduce this feeding frenzy, we save time and increase job satisfaction (or at less reduce dissatisfaction and frustration).

We have also seen advances in areas such as diagnostic analysis resulting from machine learning (which is what a lot stuff we now call AI really is). Analysing large MRI and other scans is faster and more reliable using AI.  AI isn’t perfect at such analysis and subsequent diagnosis but tests suggest its success levels match or exceed those of most doctors.

The next stage is for AI to make recommendations as to further tests or even potential treatments.Such processes will improve over time as AI ‘learns from its mistakes’ and learns from actual outcomes.

AI is unlikely in the near term to take over any ‘hands on’ work of doctors and nurses.  But if it can reduce the ‘side load’ of bureaucracy and speed up diagnosis and determination of treatment, we could see quite large productivity gains in the relatively short-term future.

Healthy Employees Are Productive Employees

Many employees, when asked in job satisfaction surveys, express the view that they are constantly tired and often under stress. Even in organisations with standard work hours, employees are increasingly expected to be available during evenings, weekends, and vacations.

Now a degree of stress can be helpful in motivating and focusing employees but too much can result in tension and ill-health - both mental and physical.

Progressive employers recognise this and take measures to control stress levels, knowing it is good for the employees and good for the business. 

Workplaces should embrace a culture of self-care and relaxation, which enable employees to enjoy reduced stress, better rest, and an enhanced work-life balance, ultimately boosting overall well-being and productivity.

Of course, employees must know that any measures taken are genuine and based on appropriate values and respect for employees’ well-being.  They can recognise ‘lip service’ and inauthentic approaches and messages.

Rather than opting for time-consuming training programs on self care, leaders can benefit from training that focuses on creating an environment and culture conducive to well-being. The organisation can seek to  use technology to increase employee freedom without sacrificing productivity.

Employees can be encouraged to set realistic rest regimes both at work and at home - helped by a consistent bedtime regime.

Employees must realise that a major part of the solution to their problem lies in their own hands.  

The company helps and supports.

How Was The Pandemic for You?

It is apparent that many people gained a fresh perspective on their own lives during the pandemic.  They now want the mix of home and work life they enjoyed when forced to stay out of the office.  

I have written enough about my view of home and hybrid working - and its impact on the productivity of an organisation.   (Spoiler for those who did not read those posts : I think it is not helpful.)  

This time I want to approach the experience of the forced seclusion from a different angle.

Truly successful people constantly develop themselves alongside working for an employer - or they turn to running their own business.

How many of you during the pandemic:

- [ ] Learned a new skill

- [ ] Acquired new knowledge

- [ ] Planned a modified future for yourself and/or your family

If you did none of these, what were you doing?  Why were you wasting this glaring opportunity to improve your future? 

Of course, you can still do all of these -  but it is more difficult while holding down a full-time job.

Seize the day!

Speed Is Still Not Everything

I wrote a week ago about the danger of thinking that (productivity) improvement is always about increasing speed.

I thought this week about an example that sums this up quite nicely.

I went recently to a performance by a small group of classical musicians  - playing a variety of materials from several composers.   (This is not really my primary choice of music but it does make a refreshing change to hear top class musicians playing sophisticated, complex music.)

However, my mind can wander when the music does not contain ‘tunes’ that I know.  On one such occasion, I thought about how little the concert I was watching would have changed from a similar concept 100 or even 200 years ago.

Was it better or worse?  Possibly the most important change is that classical music is now much more accessible to all members of society, rather than being the preserve of the very rich.  Recordings exist. Concert performances are relatively common and cheap. Instruments are much cheaper - although at the top end this is not true.

However the time taken to perform a specific piece is still the same.  Speed has not changed - nor is its likely to.

Speed is not everything!

Speed is not evrything

I have talked here before about the danger in concentrating on speed of operation as the primary focus of improvement efforts.  It can, for example mean a drop in quality…. and it can mean a team or line becomes unbalanced.  

What we should try to do is to improve the speed of an entire unit or process - making sure the trees is working with s single purpose in pursuit of agreed aims and objectives.

All members of three teams should share the same mindset - we work together and we support each other.

(If mutual support cannot be provided, you may have to put in some external stimulus)but make sure this is seen as encouragement rather than as punishment.)

Team development is one key to success.

The Creativity of Ignorance

Sometimes when looking at problems or searching for innovation, it is a handicap to have too much knowledge of the context of the problem.

For example, if you give the problem of spanning a river to a bridge-builder, you will get a bridge as the solution.  It might be a great-looking bridge and/or one with little bits of innovative engineering, but it will not be too dissimilar from past bridges. The advantages are that it will almost certainly be buildable and stable.  

If you give the same problem to a design student with  little or no engineering knowledge, you might get a fabulous, innovative design which looks little like any existing bridge.  It might be unworkable, unbuildable and even dangerous if it were built but it will look- and perhaps - act differently.  

If you combine the talents of a great designer with a great bridge-builder, you will perhaps get the best of both worlds - an innovative deign that is buildable and will prove effective in use.

The ‘ignorance’ of the designer is tempered by the ‘knowledge and skills’ of the bridge-builder.

This is true in other walks of life snd areas of technology - creative people ignorant of the technology can come up with idea which  someone with the appropriate knowledge and skills can turn into a workable solution without losing too much of the innovation snd flair of the original deign.

Ignorance can result in creativity.