How Productive Are You?

By Martin Senn • July 2nd, 2009

Time and productivity are the two elements which everyone seeks. In business productivity refers to metrics and measures of output from production processes, per unit of input. Labor productivity, for example, is typically measured as a ratio of output per labor-hour, an input. Productivity may be conceived of as a metrics of the technical or engineering efficiency of production. Every business produces something aimed at market consumption.

Time and productivity have also become an important part of personal progress. If we can get things done in less time then we gain more time to do socialize, fellowship and improve our personal relationships. Our personal productivity is also a measure of our worth in the business world. If we “know” how to do things better, more efficiently and effectively then our value to an organization increases. Knowledge and talent play an important role in increasing our individual productivity whether applied to our personal or professional lives.

Do Communications Impact Productivity?

Matthew Hodgkin writes in his post “The ROI of being social at work” : MIT research [1] shows that 40% of creative teams productivity is directly explained by the amount of communication they have with others to discover, gather, and internalize information. In other MIT studies, research shows that employees with the most extensive digital networks are 7% more productive than their colleagues. Furthermore, those with the most cohesive face-to-face networks are 30% more productive.

This reinforces similar research by Aral, Brynjolfsson & Van Alstyne [2] that highlights the importance of these networks because they “strongly influence information diffusion … and access to novel information”. Availability of these networks, their research shows, is a highly significant predictor of worker productivity.

Since information does not diffuse randomly in organizations, but rather reflects the nature and structure of human relationships, providing the right tools that support human social relationships, communication and interaction, will provide a significant ROI to the enterprise.

Are You Improving or Constraining Communications?

The attraction of social media is driven by the freedom to communicate. The conversations propagate based on the quality of content reflected in knowledge provided which can be applied to others learning. People like to learn and the best learning process is peer to peer communications. Institutional communications have taken on the tone of “forced” learning while peer to peer conversations create a natural pull to learning.

If you try and constrain conversations your blocking peoples opportunity to learn. Conversations have now gone digital and the knowledge of how to engage and collaborate in human rather than institutional terms is the secret sauce of productivity. Where can you and your organization get the knowledge? Begin by listening or in most cases learn how to listen. Markets are conversations and productivity is directly related to “how well you are engaging” in those conversations. How important is productivity in today’s market? It is the new currency. How productive is it to have a physical office? Not very productive in today’s virtual worlds.