COVID, Productivity and Innovation.
A REACTION is not a SOLUTION: Why we can’t rely on the new normal.
In our professional lives, time is a commodity.
A priority for most organisations in relation to time is: Productivity.
It is worth examining this term.
The etymology of productive is rooted in the Latin: Producere — Product (brought forth) — Productivus, and evolved to the French: Productif-ive. English: Produce, respectively.
Circa. 1727, the term productiveness, was in common use, until (1809) productivity: “the quality of being productive” was later adopted as an economic term to mean: “rate of output per unit” (1899).
It should be no surprise that the language and practice around productivity was formalised during the First Industrial Revolution (1760–1840); the jargon and practice of which have remain relatively unchallenged since then.
Productivity by its modern financial definition has become disassociated from its Latin and manufacturing roots: it quantifies the ROLI to operate a ‘unit’ irrespective of whether it is a machine, an individual, a program, or a collective.
For example: if a standard working week is 40 hours and we are able to complete 40 tasks in this time:
If we now invent a tool that allows us to complete the same amount of tasks in half the time:
We are now 50% more efficient, however this has simultaneously created a potential deficit of 20hrs.
Within our 40hr week, we are now 50% less productive.
We would be required to double our output to maintain productivity.
The acceleration of technology and services — while becoming more efficient and affording us more time — productivity interprets as: ‘potential capacity’.
If we follow this logic, there is theoretically no escaping this cycle:
Productivity drives greater demands for efficiency, which creates more capacity, which we fill and creates ever increasing pressure upon ‘units’ to produce — a most elegant echo chamber.
These ‘units’ are generally us.
People.
Obviously this is unsustainable and the increasing pressure for efficiency has not gone unnoticed.
And then something breaks…
COVID has effectively broken this standardised model of work and forced us to adapt.
Among the many challenges COVID has exposed, foremost to these is the sustainability and efficacy of such practices — especially since we have been forced to adapt and discovered there are infinitely more options in which to operate.
For instance, working remotely has dispelled the notion that one must be present within an office in order to work productively, often the opposite; many organisations have found equal or greater efficiency and employee satisfaction in the flexibility and ease of working from home.
However if we follow the cycle above (Fig. 4.), I predict despite the cursory satisfaction and convenience of working from home, should this practice become the “new normal”, we will observe process to scale in proportion to this ‘free time’ to maximise efficiency and productivity.
This is why, in relation to COVID (see also: GFC 2009, SARS, et al…) it is wise to maintain a critical eye so as not to conflate a reflex reaction to conditions as ‘innovative process’.
Rather than maintaining processes adopted as a reflex, it would myopic organisations to waste this opportunity to redesign what sustainable practices are relative to their field.
Productivity, as a practice is of value.
Productivity as an ethic requires temperance and boundaries.
This is where we discover genuine innovation — we need not amputate the entire leg — there are more intelligent, sustainable and effective options available.
The Rebel Creative; Author, Speaker and Founder of Applied Creativity, Christopher. S. Sellers is a foremost leader on creativity and innovation — www.cssellers.com
