Well, I’m here in Mauritius and I’ve been having an interesting time. I spent a few days with the Board of PAPA (the Pan African Productivity Association) discussing the productivity status and opportunities in Africa.

The 'something in the air' i refer to in the blog title is ... ME.  As you are reading this, I should be in the air (if I'm not waiting at an airport terminal) en

Big Data in 'in' - its a fashionable topic, its 'cool' and exciting.  But is it useful? What are the applications where it will 'make a difference' - on a global level. Well, I've been

I have been doing a little work recently in relation to productivity and performance measures.  The thought struck me after trying to construct appropriate measures for a particular organisation in a particular situation that the

I was looking at a PowerPoint presentation the other day (not one of mine) and I thought "What a great job this person has done of making a complex issue understandable."    It reminded me

A number of you sent me comments to try and unpick the (UK) productivity mystery I referred to in last week's post.  Some of these were backed up by serious analysis. Yet, after reading them

British productivity was growing steadily if slowly in the years before the financial crisis struck but it’s now some 16% below its pre-crisis level. The Bank of England has published a paper in their  quarterly

Many countries have productivity centres to advise their government of productivity and related issues. But do they do any good? Is productivity something that can be shaped and steered by government? I would say 'YES'

Most of the time we get things right.... at least if we have the skills to accomplish what we set out to do  Occasionally, though, we slip on a banana skin - and we get

I have been in the productivity' business' for longer than I care to remember. Sometimes, I feel that the longer I am in the business, the less I know - or the less I feel

As a productivity professional, I am used to counting every penny/cent spent and justifying the expenditure by the benefits it brings - its (perhaps tiny) contribution to the aims of the organisation. Sometimes, however, firms

Consultants usually specialise in .... productivity, quality, organisational development, innovation, or some other 'improvement' topic. This suggests that the business world is full of tools and techniques that must be selected carefully according to the

I was recently looking at some documents I had created a few years ago.  My first thought on reading them was that they were out-of-date, but on re-reading them, I realised the format and appearance

I'm sure that even if you haven't read Thomas Piketty's book, Capital in the Twenty First Century, you will have seen the controversy surrounding his suggestion that we need to substantially raise taxation of the wealthy

I spoke last week about the problems of interpreting productivity figures. Recent data from the UK's Office for National Statistics suggests that across the economy, productivity is still 4.3% below the pre-crisis peak and if it had

Explaining productivity figures needs interpretation and judgement. For example, the UK has had low productivity growth for the last few years. Why? Bank of England economists suggest that one reason might be that fewer businesses

I’ve recently returned from Greece where I was privileged to visit the site of the oracle at Delphi – a major centre of  world communication in the 5th century BC.  The size and scale of

On my recent visit to India, I visited a number of organisations and facilities where the senior mangers were critical of the performance of the workforce - citing their reluctance to work harder as a

In a recent trawl across productivity writings - papers, blogs and so  - which I find useful both just to keep in touch and occasionally inspire me to new thought -  I came across the

I've been in India for a week talking about a number of issues, including skills development.  India is making a big investment in Sector Skills Councils to try to work with industry to identify and

The UK has had severe flooding this spring – especially in the South West of the country. The reasons are not fully clear – but the weather conditions have been remarkable and relentless. Over the

Paradigm changes are rare - and when they occur, they can be very disruptive and threatening to those with a significant (financial or emotional) investment in the status quo. They are also unexpected - almost

How many people in this world do you trust? My answer is 'All of them' until they suggest to me that they cannot be trusted.  If we start from a position of trust, we normally

Our office is quite small - a few desks ... and computers of course.  One of our members of staff is a graphic designer (amongst other things, for of course we cannot afford single-specialism staff)