HOW TO
Being productive is a key concern; we owe it to our employer, our client, our colleagues and
ourselves. Most importantly, we owe it to society, especially when we work in a
field defined by its ambition to generate positive social impact. In principle,
the very concept of productivity, which inevitably evokes visions of
greater quality, a better use of our time, cost-effectiveness and
so on, should be intimately connected to improvements in our collective
wellbeing. At least that’s the theory.
In practice,
productivity is an amorphous and occasionally problematic concept. Key
components of the economy have developed in ways that “produce” immense wealth
while shrinking social benefits: speculative finance and tech monopolies absorb
a ballooning share of advanced economies while often providing little in the
way of real public good. Education sometimes seems to focus on attracting
paying students more than preparing them for paying jobs. Many lucrative, high
profile occupations are of astonishingly little value to the collective, and
the phenomenon of busyness as an end unto itself seems to loom larger
by the year. Overly bureaucratic systems, which colonize the private sector as
much as public services, ensure that much of the work we do is both “accountable”
in formal terms and of little practical value.
Against that
backdrop, we must constantly ask ourselves what it is we do that is genuinely
meaningful to others. In other words, what is our “value-added” from a human
perspective? A good place to start is the old-fashioned definition of
value-added: the transformation of raw material to fulfill novel functions,
which in turn improve our collective wellbeing. Clear-cut examples include the
transition from grunts to language; stones and sticks to tools and weapons;
wheat to bread; or iron ore to steel bridges. What is it that we transform
and to what end?
Productivity is an amorphous and problematic concept
Measuring value-added is problematic when applied to intellectual output. Culture is an indispensable foundation of any society, although many cultural artefacts (subsumed under such categories as religion, literature, art, architecture or, for that matter, advertising) will spur legitimate questions as to their utility and desirability, when taken individually. Research and innovation cannot claim to be inherently positive, nor can journalism and punditry: they too must prove themselves
Two basic
yardsticks may help define our productivity in coherent terms. The first is the
end-game: what well-defined collective need are we attempting to fulfill?
Numerous answers are possible: creating employment opportunities, providing
accurate reporting, supporting vulnerable constituencies, etc. Of paramount
importance is to avoid claiming one goal ostentatiously while unconsciously
pursuing another. Indeed, many organizations come to view their own existence
as an end-in-itself, trumping their initial and purported raison d’etre;
damning inefficiencies ensue.
The other
criterion stems from the distinction between activity and productivity. A large
part of the tasks we devote ourselves to are highly unproductive, unless we are
very strategic about them. Routine examples include many avoidable meetings,
shallow “networking” events, unrestrained chains of emails, superfluous
bureaucratic procedures, ego-driven media engagements, and many social media
practices. Some professionals let their schedules be almost entirely consumed
by the above, causing extraordinary hurdles and delays in advancing business
that relates more directly to their organization’s stated raison d’etre.
Productivity, all
told, necessarily combines clarity of purpose with focused work and tangible
outcomes. Quite simply, anything we do that does not unambiguously tie into our
formal mandate, require several (and often contiguous) hours of our time, and
leave traces visible to others outside the organization is ultimately not
productive. Take a supposedly high-impact, 30mn meeting: it only becomes
meaningful if bracketed by thoughtful preparation and serious follow-through,
aiming at transforming such social interaction, ultimately, into a collective
win. Even the vital ingredients of productivity—namely creativity, vocational
learning and social skills—are nothing without the actual toil that turns them
into something concrete.
In the specific
case of Synaps, productive activities boil down to groundbreaking fieldwork
shedding light on an important social issue; crafting a publication that will
effectively bring this challenge to the public’s attention; designing and
implementing operational ways of addressing such a problem; drafting and
carrying out a strategy to resource such programming; and building mutually
beneficial partnerships to that effect. To be clear: any email, phone call,
conference, interview or travel not clearly related to these functions is, by
default, fundamentally unproductive.
A reasonable aim is to be fully productive at least four hours per day
Naturally, no one
is productive day-in and day-out. And luckily so—much of what makes life
enjoyable, even in the professional context, is not defined by practical value.
As discussed elsewhere on this platform, creativity is largely a consequence
of idle time. Learning new skills offers crucial, albeit delayed, returns
on investment. And organizations don’t do any better for banning socializing
among colleagues, not to mention casual interactions with eventual recruits,
clients and competitors.
Productivity ebbs
and flows. It definitely tends to slump if you don’t make a point of regularly
setting and achieving new, momentous goals, which in turn requires acute
self-awareness and self-criticism. A reasonable aim is to be fully
productive at least four hours per day—leaving the rest to be filled with
unavoidable, unproductive activities such as catching up with email traffic or
indulging in “networking.” You may argue that these are critical to what we do,
which is true but misses the point: someone entirely devoted to such essential
tasks ends up producing strictly nothing.
By contrast, and
although it may at first seem unambitious, you will be surprised at just how
much you can achieve by focusing even half of your time on what is genuinely
useful. Best is to start with getting real work done, in the mornings, and
tick off more frivolous tasks as energy frays. Short of that, we may continue
to earn a salary for ourselves, but our social utility will quickly wear thin.
7 June 2017
Illustration credit: Barge haulers on the Volga by Ilia Efimovich on Wikipedia / public domain.