What is productivity? And, why does it matter?Learn Management Articles on management-info.biz. What is productivity? And, why does it matter? article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
By: Robert F. Abbott When Phil hires a new helper for one of his construction projects, he first watches to see whether or not the newcomer has the right attitudes and habits to keep him as an employee. And, if the newcomer meets expectations,' Phil introduces him to his philosophy about work by telling him the woodcutters story. Two woodcutters who are working together for the first time, set off in the morning to cut down trees. One woodcutter works very hard, and aside from a couple of breaks, works steadily all day. The other woodcutter, though, seems to take many more breaks, at least one every hour. So the first woodcutter expects he'll have cut down many more trees by the end of the day. But, when they quit for the day, the first woodcutter finds, to his surprise, that the second woodcutter has done more, despite taking all those breaks. And, in his frustration, the first woodcutter wonders out loud how the second woodcutter did it. The second woodcutter couldn't help but hear the first woodcutter's question, and replies, 'Yes, I take many more breaks, but every time I take one, I sharpen my axe.' Phil uses this story of the woodcutters to explain his ideas about productivity, and he doesn't relate it to the productivity which economists refer to in their statistics. Phil thinks of productivity in a very immediate way: how many nails you can drive in one hour, for example. The economists are talking about the same thing, only they're talking about it as the sum of many millions of businesses and organizations, so they're talking about productivity in an abstract way. Whatever the case, productivity simply refers to the amount of value you can get from labor, land, or capital (invested money). As we'll see in the next section, Phil's income goes up when he (and his helper’s) productivity goes up. Increasing productivity across a whole nation is also good news. It means everyone in society becomes more prosperous, that everyone (or almost everyone) will have more money to spend or save. Increased productivity can also mean lower prices. For example, if carpenters and home building companies increase their productivity, then house prices will go down. Generally speaking, though, consumers, owners of businesses, and workers in those businesses all share productivity gains. And what about people without job? Well they often gain, too, because when businesses owners and workers make more, they pay more in taxes. In turn, that makes more money available to governments for social programs. Having heard all that, you may be skeptical, thinking your prosperity hasn't gone up much, if at all. But you'd be wrong. Productivity has gone up, and gone up a lot over the past two hundred years, and especially over the past 50 years. It may be invisible to most of us, but productivity is one of the silver bullets that have given us our prosperity and so many of our choices.
|
More Articles:1. Why Do I Need a Board of Directors By Rick Johnson Family owned/privately held organizations in wholesale distribution, both small and large, with succession issues, family preparation and second and third generation leadership issues have been subjected to the evolution of leadership. These organizations are often founded by an aggressive, highly talented entrepreneur. Many of the principles of leadership employed by the founder that helped build the success that the organization enjoyed in the past is not the type of leadership that will mai… 2. Comparing Ancient Programs from the East to Modern Programs like Stephen Covey. By Dr. Jason Armstrong Comparing Corporate and Personal goal attainment programs that have developed over thousands of years with those of modern day legends such as Covey - “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”In the 1990s Stephen Covey’s name became famous through the publication of the “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. As many know the “7 habits” are not a group of new concepts but age-old approaches to success represented in a way that can be clearly applied to modern day personal and corporate deve… 3. Better Manager Skills - How to Learn By Chris Anderson When you first take over a department, expectations are usually high but operations are sometimes in disarray. The staff is disorganized, goals aren’t being met, and hours are spent on unproductive tasks. Just when you think the company would never get on track, the CFO recommends that you learn more about something called operations assessment.Crucial Management Skills Help Avoid MistakesAt first, you aren’t sure how operational assessment skills would help you manage better, but you quickly … 4. What is Knowledge Management Anyway? By Ben Shar When you think of all the things companies have, you do not always consider the knowledge they have. For instance, a company is only as good as its employees, its resources, and its knowledge. But, where and what is that knowledge? How is that knowledge managed within the company?A basic definition of knowledge management is this. Knowledge management is a process that companies use to generate value from their assets. Knowledge management can be much more, but this is the basics of it. N… |
||||
