Productivity From the Inside

Talk about Productivity and many equate it to be 'better, faster and cheaper'.  Some think of getting new and advanced machines to replace manpower, others say productivity is about getting the government's Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) money to improve productivity.  (To read more on the latest curbs and abuse of PIC, click here). Many trainers advocate training your staff while at Asia Trainers we opined that training bosses and managers are more important than training staff. 

To the businessman, productivity is about Ever More with Ever Less.  This means getting more output with ever lesser input.  This must be the most apt definition and I shall use this in this article. 

To have more output is easy, just lower your selling price and your sales would increase and you will have a quantum leap in productivity.  But without profit margins there is no productivity.  Thus the element of profit or residual value is important.  

But how we distribute this residual value or profit is also important as it will determine productivity.  If you give all the profits to the investors and leave the other stakeholders (employees, suppliers, government and society) with less, there will be backlash and soon your productivity will suffer.  

From here we can see productivity is actually a complex subject and is so inter-related to everything in this world that we cannot just increase productivity with one-sided view.  Many people say what you do today will affect your productivity tomorrow or years ahead.  Others say that unforeseen events will also affect your productivity and many uncontrollable events affect our productivity more that what we do.  To simply matters, I shall list the following 36 ways to increase productivity:

1. Increase sales with higher profit base, also called Sales Productivity, see our article on 5-Ways' for details
2. More trained people with higher skills and experience with acute thinking skills 
3. More skilful workers (skilful is to apply skills wisely while skilled is to possess skills)
4. Better machines, equipment and tools, especially those latest technology that gives you a headstart
5. Better business strategy, like Alibaba's focus on middleman e-commerce versus Amazon's e-commerce
6. Better finance, as money will get you more things done faster 
7. Use of Cheaper Input (like solar energy) and lower cost centres
8. Better systems, policies and procedures
9. Reduce wastage in use of labour, materials and tools
10. Reduce wastage in quality rejects
11. Higher quality products that command higher price (like Apple)
12. Restructuring of business and systems to focus on productivity
13. Better Technology and Systems
14. Higher Morale
15. Higher Motivation and Inspiration
16. Committed employees that will postpone instant gratification for tomorrow's gains (like serve customers without profit to secure more long term customers)
17. Trained management and bosses
18. Better and more conducive government regulations that spur productivity (like the PIC scheme)
19. Cohesive and Harmonious working environment that creates positive working environment
20. Better teamwork 
21. Highly Passionate people 
22. High quality Leadership from the top
23. High quality Leadership from Every Position, where everyone is Self-Directed and Leads in his own field
24. People taking OAR and not lie on BED (OAR means Ownership, Accountability and Responsibility while BED is Blame, Excuses and Denial)
25. Better Incentives that tied in with productivity gains, both long and short term gains (we call this 'Lower Staff Cost by Increasing Staff Remuneration)
26. Better support from Vendors that give you high productivity inputs
27. High respect for human beings, which translate into high positive feelings, and that must the starting point for productivity
28. More mindful action and doing things mindfully
29. Use of Free resources, the biggest is ideas that remain untapped in individuals
30. Constant and Never-ending Improvements or Kaisen in Japanese
31. Thinking individuals that do things thoughtfully
32. Highly Engaged Employees (HEE) that produce the highest output possible (see here)
33. Power Communication among people that facilitates ever more with ever less
34. Build Strong Desires inside individuals that they want to do better in every moment
35. Self-checking and Self-disciplined people that reduces the need for control and policing
36. Better protection of the Environment that creates better future output

I could go on and on, but the point is Productivity is always From the Inside: you cannot just increase productivity from the outside with better tools, machines and methods.  Productivity is also karma, that is intentional action, that will produce effects tomorrow.  Productivity is about human relationships and is something innate in humans.  Actually humans are very productive, otherwise how can we have non-stop progress in civilisations?  We are already very productive, and how we can have continuous and non-stop productivity improvements is what will make us more successful and happy.

By Andy Ng, whose courses have now travelled as far as to Japan and Maldives.  To find out this latest course Productivity From the Inside, click here.  Related articles:

• How managers de-motivate people unknowingly
• Sale productivity: the new buzzword
• Lower staff cost by increasing staff cost
• Highly engaged employees produce amazing output
• How to be happy and less stressful by freeing your mind