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  My first thought on reading them was that they were out-of-date, but on re-reading them, I realised the format and appearance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)

Last week I talked about the need to cross organisational boundaries - to avoid creating 'silo management' where each department takes decisions on its own information to suit its own ends - resulting in sub-optimal

Many of us are defined by our academic qualification or professional status - as engineers, managers or whatever. But most of us have learned that we need to be able to talk to those in

Sugar gives you an 'energy rush' - very useful when you have a demanding task to perform.  That is why we like sugary snacks throughout the day when we're at work or taking physical exercise.

We went through the 'quality revolution in the 70s/80s - now everyone (well all the big guys) has ISO 9000 and some have been through TQM programmes. Why is it then that it is so

I want a new guitar. I admit I don't need one (I have 4)... but I want one. The problems is that my wife says we don't have the space.  She has initiated a new