Just Work a Bit Harder

 That’s what many of us think we have to do to make ourselves more productive, more effective.

But it’s not true!

I’ve repeated many times in this blog that you are not productive if you are not doing the right things.

The simplest way to illustrate this is if you have a product in your portfolio that is loosing money - for whatever reason.  If you increase the output of that product you lose more money.  Is this a smart thing to do?  Of course not.

You have to have a sound and secure strategy - designed to meet your long-term goals, achieve your mission.  Then you have to translate that strategy into a series of action plans designed to reach agreed targets along that route to success.  

This is really what’s meant by ‘Work smarter, not harder’.

There are all sorts of intermediary and ancillary issues to think about - staff training, development  and deployment, staff well-being, your own well-being,  looking past current priorities through improved marketing snd productivity innovation ….. I could go on but I guess you get the picture.

Think about why you are running a business (or a department, a machine, a process, etc.  Then think about what success means. Start to plan how to get there.  

Then work hard!