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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.
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More Articles:1. Is Your Business Healthy? By Kevin Stirtz Most business owners I work with want to grow their businesses. I guess this probably applies to most businesses in general. But growth for the sake of growth alone is not always healthy for a business or its people.I’ve always believed a business should strive to be healthy rather than focus just on growth. Of course, this begs the question, “What make a business healthy?” This question comes up often for me so, I have crafted what I call my Healthy Business Manifesto.(Before I dive in, I sho… 2. What Personal Assistants Really Want By Lorraine Pirihi What would happen if the personal assistants in your organisation were away for a week? How would it affect the running of your business or department? How would it affect you…personally?If you are fortunate to have a personal assistant whom you heavily rely on to assist you, in most instances you would find yourself run ragged if they were absent for longer than a day.This week I spoke with two clients who were in the situation where their p.a.'s had been on holiday and these clients' lives w… 3. "Leaders" Versus "Cheerleaders" By Kevin J. Price Everyone wants to describe themselves as a leader. Everyday, new books on leadership come out on the market. Leaders are seen everywhere – business, society, and, of course, politics. Yet, in our culture where greatness is often measured by noise rather than accomplishment, I thought it would be helpful to define the factors that differentiate the true leader from the notorious “cheerleader.”* Cheerleaders are thermometers, while true leaders are thermostats. Where thermometers measure th… 4. Getting the Most from Appraisals By Graham Yemm Does your organisation have one of those annual ‘occasions’ that few look forward to: the annual appraisal or performance review? How do you look forward to it? I wonder how people talk about it before and after?Are appraisals worth doing? If done properly – yes. If done poorly – no!!!Why have appraisals? When carried out properly they can achieve a number of benefits for all parties. The organisation, the manager and the appraisee can: establish current levels of performance, and the or… |
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