I was in Italy recently … and I used public transport quite a bit – trains and buses. All the journeys I made were on time, and to schedule.
Of course, public transport is subsidised in most European countries – by governments as part of the national infrastructure. This set me thinking about the nature of ‘productivity’ at this national, overarching level.
For example, the national railway could be ‘inefficient’ but could contribute to productivity in other sectors (by moving goods and people efficiently to/from factories and workplaces).
Similarly, at organisational level, we must not take decisions that are sub-optimal – that look to be ‘right’ in a smaller context, but might be ‘wrong’ when looking at a ‘bigger picture’.