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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. Introduction to Pipeline Integrity Management By Andrew Becker Pipelines are an essential component of our nation's energy supply. They remain largely unnoticed until disaster strikes.Some recent pipeline liquid and gas accidents include the following incidents:Reedy River, SC - Liquid - Operator Training; Lively, TX - Liquid - External Corrosion; Bellingham, WA - Liquid - Mechanical Damage; Edison, NJ - Gas - Mechanical Damage; Carlsbad, NM - Gas - Internal Corrosion.In 1999 government officials and the public demanded something that would prevent accid… 2. Manage Your Time - Save Your Business. By Edward Charkow If you work from home, chances are you already know that you’re really pulling “double duty”. You probably work on your business while doing the laundry, corralling the kids, or fixing dinner... and let’s not forget all the phone calls from family and friends expecting you to run errands or just "go out" for an afternoon of fun.One of the hardest parts of running a home business is separating your work from your family and social life. Here are six proven ways to keep your home life running sm… 3. Reduce Inventory Shrinkage - Put 2% of Your Annual Inventory Cost in Your Pocket Using "Carrots" The way I hear it, the 'typical' annual rate of inventory shrinkage in the retail industry is in the order of 3 to 5% - let's split the difference and say 4%. 'Industry Experts' (whoever they are...) suggest that of that total inventory shrinkage, 50% is due to external theft; 30% is due to internal theft; and 20% is due to 'messed up paperwork'. Other reasons for business losses, such as breakage, robbery, and vandalism, are separate problems that we're not going to deal with here. Do the math… 4. Get It Done! Soft Skills not Hard Tools are Required By Chuck Yorke If your organization has people, then interpersonal skills are needed.I work with companies that are on a path they call the lean journey. Whatever you call it, it’s based on the Toyota Production System. Some manufacturers embraced it and it became known as Lean Manufacturing, expanded into the Lean Office or Lean Enterprise. During this transformation the approach became focused on tools, but Toyota’s approach is about people.The focus of Lean Manufacturing training has been on technical ski… |
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