We constantly hear from UK Government that we need to be more productive. The cry goes out we are less productive than such and such country. My response is “so what!!” You can either be innovative or productive but not both. Let’s look at why trying to be innovative and productive is not effective.
The Oxford Concise Dictionary definition of productive is “of or engaged in the production of goods, producing much.” In other words, it is about how much you produce, and productivity is about how much you produce for a given amount of resources. It’s about volume.
Innovation on the other hand is about failure. It is inefficient and very desirable. In order to be innovative, you must use up resources in the pursuit of new methods, ideas, products and services and to do that you must waste time and resources. Eddison is reputed to have said concerning the invention of the lightbulb (one of the most innovative inventions of all time) “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” It’s a good job nobody was persuading him to be productive!!
In order to be effective, we must do things that move us toward our objective. Very often this involves us exploring blind alleys and even failing along the way. So long as this moves us toward our objective in the best way then this is what we should measure. We could become very productive by turning the whole country over to producing something very cheap and very easy to produce. We could set up a fully automated factory to just produce one type of very simple plastic toy. We could have one person maintaining the factory and we could produce the toy in millions, maybe billions. We would be ultra-productive and both economically and environmentally bankrupt.
Yes, we need to produce as efficiently as possible but only if what we are doing is effective and in the environment in which we live we all need to innovate. That’s both in business and personally. That means dedicating time to things that ultimately don’t work. Almost certainly failing along the way and that’s not productive.
Building larger, faster aircraft to move more people around the world cheaper is both efficient and productive but if your goal is limiting emissions, it’s not effective. Advanced VR might be. Then again it might not but to be effective we must innovate.
Battery chickens are productive but if your objective is animal welfare and environmental improvement, they are not effective.
etc.
If we want to really move forward, we need to measure what really matters and that’s how effective we are, not how efficient or how productive.
Worth bearing in mind with the next climate summit approaching. Being productive will not save the planet, being effective might.
If you want to receive our regular blogs, please subscribe at Subscribe