Policy has driven inequality

I have the advantage and disadvantage of being old. I remember what I think were 'better times' (but all old people in most historic eras have felt the same.

When I first worked in industry, unions were strong and fought well for what they saw as a fair share of the results of productivity gains made by their companies.  Strong unions did manage to keep the pay divide (between the worst and best paid employees) under control - and they did this in an age when productivity rose constantly (largely as a result of technology improvements and innovations).

Many said that the unions were too strong and so political priorities were for a time focused on reducing the power of unions.  This, again for a time, improved the economy but - whether as a direct result or not - did start the widening of the pay gap.  This has widened continually over the years as self -and mutually -serving remuneration committees secured vast increases in pay for senior executives whilst those further down the food chain received only modest increases.

This seemed to be acceptable for a while . Only the unions occasionally complained - but they by now had too little power to do anything about it.

A few policy decisions have attempted to ameliorate the situation (minimum wage, equal pay, and so on) but industry bosses have so much power, they can safely navigate around these little problems.  Their pay - even for those in the public sector, in hospitals and universities - has continued to rise steadily. They have bonus schemes which seem to have little to do with long-term success snd can sit smugly even when the fortunes of their company start to wane.

The politicians of the 'new right' form alliances with the great industry leaders and we enter a spiral of mutual interest' making the problem worse.

I have written before how I expect AI to make things worse (in the medium to longer-term) so the cavalry are not coming anytime soon.

Well, as I said at the start, I am old.  This not my problem, my fight. I hope younger generations can address these problems - but I an not sorry I won't be around for the fight.

Our People Are Our Greatest Asset

 How many times have you heard a CEO or senior exec trot out those words. It is a common phrase but a rare company that acts as if they believe it. I have railed before about the invention of the title 'Human Resources' but that's how many companIes treat their employees - numbers on the payroll, another resource to be used (and abused). I hope this doesn't soundv like you.

These execs create job roles and work regimes their have no consideration for human form or function.They create impossible targets . They create confusion, exhaustion and burnout. They communicate badly or not all.

These managers need to go back to school .  Actually that's too good for many of them who are possibly incapable of learning new ways of working - snd managing

Someone needs to help the leave - or art least to help them establish a people-centred strategy for productivity- improvement. They have to learn that their people truly are, or could be, their greatest asset - and plan, act and mange accordingly.  

Human factors - the collective term for factors such employee skills and experience, the organisational  culture, employee communication, team building, facilitating collaboration, etc.  These factors directly influence employee engagement and motivation which then go on to drive productivity and creativity.

Look after your people and they will look after your productivity.

Our People Are Our Greatest Asset

How many times have you heard a CEO or senior exec trot out those words. It is a common phrase but a rare company that acts as if they believe it. I have railed before about the invention of the title 'Human Resources' but that's how many companIes treat their employees - numbers on the payroll, another resource to be used (and abused).

These execs create job roles and work regimes their have no consideration for human form or function.They create impossible targets . They create confusion, exhaustion and burnout. They communicate badly or not all.

These managers need to go back to school .  Actually that's too good for many of them who are possibly incapable of learning new ways of working - snd managing

Someone needs to help the leave - or art least to help them establish a people-centred strategy for productivity- improvement. They have to learn that their people truly are, or could be, their greatest asset - and plan, act and mange accordingly.  

Human factors - the collective term for factors such employee skills and experience, the organisational  culture, employee communication, team building, facilitating collaboration, etc.  These factors directly influence employee engagement and motivation which then go on to drive productivity and creativity.

Look after your people and they will look after your productivity.

Virtuous Circles

The UK does not have a good record on employee training and development. Compared to many other developed countries the skill levels in our workforce are low.  Government incentives to train and develop employees are not strong. - and many employers are fearful about giving employees skills which increase their value to competitor organisations.

"Train them and they will go elsewhere" is a common mantra.

Well, perhaps employees with higher levels of skills do deserve higher wages - and if those higher skills make the organisation more productive, perhaps the organisation can afford higher pay.

If the higher skills levels have not resulted in higher productivity, something is wrong. The organisation has not developed systems and processes which can exploit - or which even demand - higher skills levels.

Organisations should be continually refining working systems, processes and work methods to increase productivity - and which give employees meaningful and rewarding work to do.

The organisation should be treating these valuable assets (the highly skilled workers) well and the workers should feel well looked after and valued.

They then have no need, and no inclination to go elsewhere.  This is a virtuous circle and should result in continuously increasing productivity - and resulting wage development.  

Everyone is happy!

Task Traceability

 I worked for some time ii the seafood sector.  Traceability was a major issue, as it is across the whole food sector.  If there is an outbreak of something like salmonella, rthe authorities need  to be able to identify those who might be affected by it.  Traceability should work across the whole supply chain - from farm (or fishing boat) to fork.  Because food safety is so important, there is detailed regulation ensuring and testing traceability.

However the principle of traceability applies elsewhere - in other areas of industry, in other areas off applicability - even inn other parts of life.

Take strategic - or other forms of -planning.  The overall mission and vision have to be converted into strategic aims and objectives which then must be cascaded and translated into different levels of planned tasks and activities throughout the organisation

Once the planning has been done and, in theory, everyone knows what their role is in delivering the strategic plan i t is useful to carry out an audit. Check there is traceability of the links across the planning chain. 

Why are the lower level tasks necessary?  

How do they link to the overall plan?  

Are there any elements of the plan that do not presently translate into lower level tasks?

This is a relatively standard traceability exercise - and thus there are lessons to be learned from traceability in the food sector.

Is Manufacturing positively productve?

  f course it is.  By its very definition, it produces. It turns out goods - often in high quantities.

But does manufacturing have high productivity?

Yes, normally it does.  Over the years, manufacturing has adopted lots of new technologies - and all of these have had a positive effect on productivity… reducing the time taken to produce goods - and reducing the number of people required to produce them.

What this all means is that over the years since the Industrial revolution brought about the modern manufacturing sector, productivity has risen massively.  This has resulted in those who own and run the sector becoming wealthy - in some cases, massively wealthy.

In the early decades, it also saw massive growth in labour as people flocked from the countryside to the cities and took up jobs in the emerging manufacturing sector.  

This was accelerated as agricultural productivity also rocketed and the demand for labour in the farms and fields steadily diminished.

But more recently the rise in automation, in robotics - and now in AI - has seen the need for manufacturing labour decline.

So, manufacturing still generates wealth - but that wealth is shared by fewer people!

The continuing rise in robots and AI will mean fewer opportunities for people to engage in well-paid, skilled work in the sector.  Fewer people still will share in the wealth generated.

If these trends continue unabated, we might one day see a world where a few mega-factories produce lots of goods - and produce them with high productivity processes and systems … but there is no-one left  to buy the goods produced.  The potential customers are on the breadline - worrying not about new phones or TVs but about their next meal.

Please tell me my vision of the future is not real!.  

Please tell me government - and academics - are working on new forms of government and policy that will prevent this future coming about!

Please tell me that the pursuit of higher productivity is not shortly to become counter-productive!

All-Purpose

When starting a task - a simple one or a complex multi-faceted project - the most important factors are to fully understand the context of the task - and your purpose in starting it.

What are you trying to achieve?

Why is this task/project important in achieving your goals?

If you do fully understand the purpose, you are more likely to have a positive attitude towards the task.

This is particularly important if the task itself has unpleasant or inconvenient aspects to it.  For example if the task is to discipline a member of staff, you might find such a task difficult and keep putting it off. If, however, you can see the true underlying purpose (or purposes) of this task - perhaps to help this member off staff improve their contribution, or to show other members of staff that you treat everyone fairly , praising and penalising as appropriate - it becomes easier to undertake. 

For more complicated , perhaps more serious tasks, understanding the purpose should mean you are much less likely to make a mistake or to mis-communicate to others with regard to the task.

It should also help you set meaningful goals and intermediate targets.

So, take the time to think through the items on your ToDo list or in your strategic plan - and fully understand why each needs to be successfully completed.  If you don't understand the purpose, why do it?

Thinking Time

There is quite s variety of views on the effectiveness of multi-tasking. Some people think it is essential to cope with the demands of a modern workplace. Others think it simply distracts from the efficiency of single-focus work.

There is some truth in both views and whether multitasking is 'right' for a worker depends on his/her personality and on the nature of the work.

This blog post, however, is not intending to come down on one side of the debate or the other.

It is to remind you that in a modern, multi-faceted, ultra-busy working world, it is essential to make time….. to think.  

This may mean making small adjustments to your current working processes and workflows.  For example, project teams should make sure they meet together regularly to avoid the need to send emails around the team which arrive and are dealt with asynchronously and may result in mis-communication, misunderstanding and delays.

Perhaps a short catchup meeting (face-to-face or virtual) at the end of each day will ensure everyone is 'on the same page' and information can be shared, discussed and used as the basis for decisions.

Perhaps ten minutes at the end of each lunch break can be set aside for a communications blackout and a 'thinking window'.

Everyone - and each team - should think about what might work for them - to give them reflection and thinking time … and if the agreed team protocol does not work for you, you need to superimpose your additional, individual framework to met your own needs.

Think about it!

Dont't Worry About the Best

 ’m interested in both technology and productivity so naturally I have an interest in how technology can underpin improved productivity

 Like lots of people recently, I have been experimenting with AI software.

What becomes clear very quickly is that ‘there is a lot of it about’.  Most people are aware of the existence of ChatGPT but there are many other examples of AI software, often with particular abilities or focused on a particular function or sector.  Certainly there are too many for me to test and evaluate.  When I started looking at AI, I wanted to use the ‘best’ software.  But identifying the ‘best’ means the best for my circumstances, my situation, my purpose and my tasks. 

You can (and I did) read reviews to shorten the list of possibilities - but all those ’my’s in the list above mean that reviews do not necessarily help identify what is best for mw.

Additionally, AI is progressing at a fast rate and what you identify as ’best’ now may not be the ’best’ in a few months time.

So I did what I had to do - choose a relatively general purpose software package which would allows me to experiment across a range of applications and tasks..

The point of this tale is not to inform you of how to choose AI software but to remind you that the ’best’ is often an unhelpful objective to pursue.  Searching for perfection often means taking too long or costing too much. All productivity facilitators need a healthy dose of pragmatism - realising that ‘better’ is often good enough!

Its not only what YOU think

What makes a given process or situation more productive is often a set of factors, some of which are relatively simple and others complex and perhaps hidden.

Assume you work for a forestry company.  How do you make the forests owned or managed b y the company more productive?

You might think of trying different fertilisers, irrigation regimes,  pollarding/thinning techniques and so on.

However, without significant expertise and experience in forest management, you would be very unlikely to know - or even suspect, that more complex forests have higher productivity (or rates of photosynthesis).

Yet,, researchers are finding that the arrangement of trees affects photosynthesis .  In particular, a variety of tree heights - known as high vertical heterogeneity - affects how trees use water to create biomass - and be more productive 

In other areas, similar surprising factors emerge - so any technical productivity initiative needs a mixed team - pf productivity experts/facilitators working with subject experts - to identify and develop the hidden factors.

I have always said that the main 'tool' of the productivity facilitator, is the ability to ask questions.  Having a technical expert as part of the team means be useful in getting original answers.  Certainly it is always useful to get others thinking about problems - the more minds you have focused on a problem , the more likely a solution becomes.

Should You Become a Monk?

Strange question for a productivity blog, perhaps  but stay with me.

Increasing evidence suggests that multitasking is distracting. As is the interjection into the work-place and workstream of email, telephone vocals snd other distractions.  People have realised this for some time and s number of them have come to the same  conclusion - that they need to hunker down and concentrate for some time on a single task 

Inspired by the single-mindedness of monks throughout the ages, this has become known as entering 'monk mode'. -  intense periods of uninterrupted focus to optimise productivity. It involves hyperfocusing on a single task and removing all distractions. As well as making the person more productive on that one, singular task, monk mode has the added advantage of reducing burnout caused by the constant shuffling of resources to work on different projects snd tasks.

You must ensure that your colleagues are aware of this shift of process and you, yourself, must ensure that all potential distractions are removed or reduced.Some people use monk mode at quiet periods of the day - even before official start and after official end times.  Make sure your workspace is tidy - untidiness is a source of distraction.  If it starts tidy, it should end tidy.

Monk mode won't work for all jobs, all tasks, or all people.  But for many, it does seem to - and its worth a try to see if it works for you.

You Need a Plan B

 Managers make plans.  They do it often and over long periods of time.  The rest of their time is spent executing those plans.

However, as we all know, sometimes things go wrong.  Worse still, often those things going wrong are outside of your control or sphere of influence - you are simply a victim of their effects.

Effective managers have built a risk register, mitigating actions and even a backup plan, ready for such occurrences They learn that they should think through every decision and every action built into their plan and identify what might go wrong - and what external factors might affect it.  Then they plan in detail or in outline depending on he nature of the threat, what actions they might take if things do go wrong.

Jim Collins, the management guru and author of the book From Good to Great, calls this 'Productive Paranoia', suggesting that we should all be paranoid about future events that might derail our plans.

“The question is not if bad things will happen, it’s when,” Collins said during the 2023 World Business Forum summit. “And it’s what you do before the storm comes” that determines how well you’ll react or recover.

Of course, overthinking about unfortunate events or calamities can be dangerous, but not as bad as expecting all things to turn out as you plan.

You really DO need a Plan B. 

Education: What is it For?

What is the purpose of education ? Actually the question should split into:  What is currently the purpose of education?. What is the purpose of future education?

As fewer of us will have jobs in the future (because we cannot match the productivity of robots and AI agents), our grandchildren will not need education to prepare them for the world of work.  We need to prepare them for a world of  no-work, of leisure, of filling their time constructively without the inherent motivation of work.

This assumes, of course, that (part of) the wealth generated by automated processes and systems is divided among these non-working citizens in the form of q universal basic income which meets their essential safety and security needs.

Education can then , and must, concentrate on their personal development and their enrichment.

The number of changes this will require of current education models is frightening and I do not have great confidence in the ability of our educators to refine their models appropriately.  If they don't we will condemn future generations to increasing frustration snd lack of direction.

Oddly enough,. some of the answers lie in the changes that are bringing about this situation.   We need our children to go through something similar to 'machine learning' whereby we allow them to experience situations through which they can develop their own knowledge and perhaps experiment with new ideas.  No longer do they have to accept a standardised model of learning - they develop their own,

Their learning and development must include social development so some of this learning must be in groups - but these can be mixed age, mixed gender, mixed ability - though we may have trouble defining 'ability' in this new world.

I hope someone with power and influence is already thinking about, and planning, this new system as it will be a long and difficult transition.  I also hope that future parents realise their part in this transition. In fact their participation is essential since if we leave it to governments, the drag of bureaucracy might mean it never happens - or not until it is too late for the next few generations.