The Irony of AI Success
Being introduced to one of the new AI services (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc.) is like meeting a genie who offers you three wishes. What should you ask for? The power of AI seems so immense
Productivity Needs A Long-Term View
Long-term planning can be difficult for CEOs. A company is only as good as its latest quarterly report (according to many investors), so today's results are crucial. Yet, real change— especially culture change— can take years to
Improving Work-Life Balance
Physical and mental stress are all too common as more people seem to find the pressures of completing expected work tasks and expected in-office time too much to bear. As firms shed labour to cut costs,
Where Will Your New Employees Come From?
Times are tough for both commercial organisations and governments in terms of recruiting the labour needed for economic growth. Employment is high in most developed countries and there is a trend towards disengagement and ’quiet quitting’.
Building Engagement
Engaged employees are more productive. This is not surprising. If employees feel they have a significant part to play in the organisation they work for, they are much more likely to share the goals of the organisation and to
Improving Productivity in the Modern Workplace
Over the last two decades and especially since the pandemic - the workplace has undergone significant transformations. The rise of technology-driven companies brought flat hierarchies, attractive employee perks, and open-office concepts. Meanwhile, the integration of productivity
Thankyou, Sergey
Last week, I asked “What should we measure?” And talked about the need to measure outputs/outcomes rather than inputs - in terms of workers’ contributions. Working long hours is not a key to success. Those
What Should We Measure?
There is an old management adage… “If we can measure it, we can understand it”. This is broadly true. Certainly if we don’t measure, we find it hard to assess or judge. So. if we want to
Engage and Reward
I have written before about my belief that WFH imposes a brake on productivity. There are all sorts of reasons - big and small. The other day I thought of another reason which I thought I should
Don’t Multitask
If, on reading this headline, your first response was “If I don’t multitask, how do I get through my long and varied To Do list?”, then read on. If you switch regularly snd swiftly between
Crisis, What Crisis?
Media pundits love to talk about the productivity crisis. (Well, let’s be honest, they love to talk about any crisis…. and if there isn’t a crisis to talk about, they will invent one.) The productivity crisis
Breaking out of the Spiral of Decline
Poor, and declining, national productivity is a serious malaise. Not only does it mean that inflation is likely to rise - as wage rises lead to increased costs without corresponding output rises - but investment also declines).
Use Intelligence Before Using AI
AI is certainly ‘the next big thing’ with many claiming it as a transformational tool. Whether it is or not, only time - and productivity statistics - will tell. However, the sheer volume of publicity being
Set Goals at the Right Level
Organisational strategies obviously work at the corporate level - they are overarching, sometimes summed up as BHAGs - Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals. Such goals are useful in expressing the longer term direction for, and aims
Which Decisions?
Clearly industry leaders havre difficult decisions to make at particular times and under particular circumstances. At all times, these difficult decisions should be informed by the overarching organisational mission and strategic plan. However, we are particularly
Do As I Say
There is an old saying that poor leaders can be summed up with the phrase ‘Do As I Say, Not As I Do’ meaning that leaders who do not ‘walk the walk as well as
Where Digital Tools Fail
Technology has been a significant driver of enhanced productivity over the last several decades. Now many are predicting that AI will be the next major revolution. However, the current crop of digital tools (including AI) is,
Do Governments Innovate?
Most people - including me - would answer immediately - and say ‘No’. However, things are not so simple. Think of recent large-scale innovation changes. Nuclear power for example. Or space exploration. Such massive innovations could not
Trust is the Key
Bad title. There is no one key to productivity. Yet, research shows a strong correlation between mutual trust and performance in organisations. Mutual trust means that: Senior leaders trust employees Managers trust their team members Managers
Listen to the Sound of Silence
Many people like to listen to music while they work on their computer or carry out other individual tasks. Music can drown out the sounds of the task itself or the sounds of colleagues -
Failure is a Route to Success
Most business people are aware that failure can be a useful learning process - allowing those who are part of the failure to learn lessons about what went wrong and/or where they could have improved
Can the UK Fix its Health Service?
The NHS (National Health Service) in the UK is regarded by many British people as ‘the jewel in the crown’ - by far the most important public service. Over the last decade, though, there has been
What is the point of productivity?
Reading documents and even blog posts about productivity would lead one to believe that the only purpose of improving productivity is to raise profits. That is true at the level of the firm … but
America Leeds
Even though productivity has been rising slowly in the last few years, America still tops the international league table for productivity. Why is this? Well, possibly the most significant reasons are: Firstly, America is a high-tech