The Myth of Perfect Productivity
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In the midst of a fine and helpful article from Forbes titled, "Time Management Secrets Anyone Can Use," I stumbled on the following.
"According to a survey by Salary.com, the average worker admits to wasting 2.09 hours of each eight-hour workday, not including lunch or scheduled breaks."
I've been in business since I came home from the Marines in 1968. By my count that's 42 years. And in every single one of those years there has been at least one well-publicized bit of research that says the same thing.
The "research" is offered to us by accounting firms, consulting firms, and peddlers of productivity "solutions." They all seem to find that we waste two to three hours every day.
Most often (mercifully, not in this case) the study also puts a dollar figure on the wasted time. How they do this is one of the secrets of the Business BS Society.
It always turns out that we workers are wasting several bazillion dollars. Presumably those doing the survey are more disciplined than we, because they know how we can be more productive.
Nuts. It's not going to happen. Not in 1968. Not in 2010. Not in your lifetime or the lifetime of the Milky Way Galaxy.
It won't happen because human beings aren't machines. We don't work well when we work all the time.
That "wasted" time is the time when creativity happens. It's the time when relationships are developed.
Don't get me wrong, I think all of us can be more effective and productive. After a lifetime of working on that issue for myself, I know that there's still room to do better.
Just throw away your notions that you can get 100 percent productivity. It's not human. It's not natural. It won't work.
The poet Robert Frost addressed something similar in his poem, "The Hardship of Accounting."
"Never ask of money spent
Where the spender thinks it went.
Nobody was ever meant
To remember or invent
What he did with every cent."
Boss's Bottom Line
Strive to help your team members be more productive and to be more productive yourself. But recognize that people are at their best when they're allowed to be human and not just productive.
Hi Wally,
Outstanding post! I agree with you 100%
Some productivity experts may think that you wasted your time years ago thinking about things. I believe you were using that time to build a fieldstone wall. Thought by thought you fitted things today. Today that work looks like a burst of productivity, but actually it's the culmination of years of fitting those thoughts together.
Thank you for sharing your work,
Steve
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Thanks for those kind words, Steve.
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Hi Wally:
As usual, your observations and insights here are spot-on. The myth of 100% productivity is precisely that - a myth. While the number varies from industry to industry, maximum sustainable productivity is usually found in the 65% - 75% range. When you attempt to work people full throttle morale declines, productivity wanes, and mistakes actually increase. The only thing that happens by stretching a rubber band too tightly is that it will eventually snap. Great piece Wally.
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That's a great summation, Mike. Thanks. Your numbers match what I've found, both with clients and from tracking my personal productivity for a bout forty years now.
I worry about what our "always connected" workplace culture will do to long-term productivity. Personally, I've found that I can be productive up to about ten hours a day. After than productivity falls off and errors increase. And I wonder about what, for want of a better term, I call the multi-tasking culture. I watch people who are out for dinner with their family stop to read a message on their Blackberry, then respond, then return to eating.
Any thoughts?
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Again I concur as there is much to worry about in this regard. Multi-tasking is often confused with being productive when it normally has a dilutive impact on productivity. A laser focus based upon clear priorities will always yield greater benefits. These principles apply particularly in the area of personal and family relationships. Great thoughts Wally...
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Thanks for stating some important points so well, Mike.
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Being 'human' at workplace is so important to ensure that people are inspired to work productively, and not coerced.
I worked in an organization once where people were coerced (through HR policies) to spend minimum 'x' hours in the office. Number of hours they burnt in the office went up, but the team performance went down. Hours burnt is not always equal to hours productively utilized
In a knowledge intensive workplace, people have a 'choice' - they will only exercise their choice of staying productive if they are inspired and happy. That is where leadership plays a crucial role.
In my view, best way to manage work and be result oriented is to 'manage agreements with people' rather than 'managing people'.
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Thanks for those great comments, Tanmay. What you're describing is what Fred Smith calls "discretionary effort." It is truly discretionary and after a certain point, people won't make the effort. I hope we're heading for more human-friendly workplaces, but I'm not sure we are.
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I work now in an organization where we prove loyalty by spending 45-50 hours a week. Staying that extra couple hours when I'm tired or when work has run dry degrades my output the next day even when I intend to be productive. But I used to work with some great folks from France who turned out an amazing quantity and quality of work in spite of their 35 hours a week and long vacation rules. Perhaps 8-10 straight hours a day isn't optimum for knowledge workers?
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I think that teleworking will give us a better idea of what optimum is. My (unsupported) observation is that a period of work in the morning, a siesta after lunch, and another period of work that runs into the evening seems like it might fit our natural ultradian rhythms.
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Those times correspond to when I get the bulk of my work done. Are you hiring?
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Sorry, Jason, there's only enough room in my office for me. But I can tell you that when I was in corporate and later running my own company, I found it very productive for everyone to accommodate individual ultradian rhythms and preferences as much as possible.
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Horrors! Are you telling us that wasted time - which may be (but we don't know for sure) - the time spent building relationships with others in the organization? Or imagining what could be done better at work? Creating the next billion dollar product? Or (gasp) taking a break or even using a restroom?
There was a time when the giant company I worked for had a campaign to make us more "productive", all the while merging with other companies and laying off thousands. I was afraid to be seen reading the news monitors in the halls and made sure that my time in the restroom was under the norm. Too much time being human meant I was "expendable".
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Your company was not the only one to do that, Mary Jo. A dirty little secret is that Theory X is not dead. It lives on in (among other things) the haunting belief that your workers just might not be giving you every minute that you pay them for.
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Excellent point, Wally. The goal should be optimal levels of productivity, not maximum levels. Squeezing every last drop of productivity out of employees may pay off in the short run, but emphasizing this quarter's returns at the expense of employee well-being and the long-term viability of the organization is short sighted. Like other "bubbles" that we're all too familiar with, productivity will burst if pushed to unsustainable limits. When productivity losses are measured, it should be done from baseline, not from a fictional 100 percent.
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That's a great way to phrase it, David. It seems to me that a psychologically healthy workplace would be one aiming for the optimal and taking human capacity into account.
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Absolutely. It's about producing optimal outcomes for ALL stakeholders.
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You've stated better than I could have. Thanks, David.
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For all of my "employed" working life I worked with firms where timesheets had to be completed for onward billing to clients. The discipline of accounting for your time in 5 minute chunks is not one that I miss now.
Looking back I realise that I have always been a keen networker - and getting to know and chat and share with people created new ideas and as a result I often found myself having to explain why my chargeable time target was low!
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As Jay Shepherd has written more eloquently, the billable hour can be a dangerous influence on behavior and the quest for maximum billable hours can be positively unhealthy. Many researchers have noted that creativity doesn't result from high-pressure situations, it happens when you're relaxed. Using those beta waves in your brain to concentrate is not the same thing as the relaxed alertness of alpha waves. Thanks for adding your thoughts to the conversation.
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Brilliant! I completely agree, Wally.
Interestingly, I've having some conversations this week with corporate people lamenting their own lack of productivity as more and more functions that were once catered for (eg secretarial and admin things, HR processes...) get dumped on them to manage for themselves in addition to the core thing they were hired to do.
Consulting firms etc need to stop pointing the finger at workers and look instead at some of the lunacy that exists in their own thinking.
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Great thoughts, Christine. It's easy for outsiders to point out "lack of productivity" that's actually natural human behavior, but as you note it's often "lunacy." I love that word in this context.
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Wally:
As usual, you are right on the money (though I don't know how much time and money was wasted in coming up with such a good blog idea). On a serious note, it amazes me how we think people are supposed to work 100% all the time without considering that there are more than just achievement needs operating in the workplace. Interesting, though, how many people actually think about the time wasted by disruptions (which cause a loss of focus), not to mention the time wasted doing unnecessary work. Your takeaway point is a terrific one! At the end of the day, people should be concerned about making sure they are achieving results. However, I dare say that achieving results is a lot easier when you are having fun doing it.
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Thanks for the kind words, Matt, and the insights. You reminded me of Peter Drucker's point that bosses need to be conscious of the things they do that waste the time of others.
I also want you to know that no time was killed in crafting this reply.
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I liked your post even before the Robert Frost reference, and now I love it! I have to say, though, that I just don't buy it that most people waste a quarter of each day.
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I can't say what that number would be for you, but after forty years of tracking my actual time worked, I can tell you it's right for me. I just don't like the word "waste." For me, somewhere between two-thirds and 80 percent of my time is the most I can manage where I'm actively doing productive work. The rest of the time isn't "wasted." But it's not "productive" in the common meaning of the term.
All I can suggest is that you use timers to measure your "productive" time and non-productive time during several work days. Better yet, have someone else observe you. I'm pretty sure you'll come out in the area that I do and that Mike mentioned earlier.
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Wally, As big a number as it is, I do not challenge the idea that 2.09 hours a day are wasted by employees. I do not believe it is time used being creative. It may be time building relationships. I am reading Daniel Pinks book Drive and I am convinced that if we allow employees to be creative it does in fact increase productivity. We should give employees the freedom to set aside time each day or week to work on finding solutions to problems they encounter in their departments or organizations. We would see that 2.09 daily wasted hours being using more effectively and ultimately increasing productivity.
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That's an interesting perspective. I like the idea of giving people time to develop solutions to work problems. I've given people who work for me "quiet time" to increase productivity and it paid off. But I'm not aware of any research that supports the idea that if we give people time to "be creative" it will result in an increase in productivity. Perhaps you or another reader knows of some.
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I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and am hoping that this is one of the things that many orgs will start to think differently about--we MUST leave time for thinking, for creativity, for innovation--If not, all corporations, to Daniel Pink's point, can get the work they want done cheaper through automation or Asia.
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That's certainly true, Laura. Human beings make the greatest contribution when we use the strengths of humanity (like creativity) and make the weaknesses irrelevant. If your model of how organizations should work involves people as interchangeable parts, you won't get much competitive advantage from them or what or who they know. Thanks for adding to the conversation.
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Well said. There is waste to eliminate but the mythical idea that we can be working on measurable work all the time is silly. And in some work it is even more obvious this is true.
The agile software development world understands this better than any other system I have seen. Agile adopters realize directly countable work in hours is not valuable. You need to leave room for flexibility. And you need to realize countable work is not going to equal some arbitrary number like 40 hours a week.
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Great points, John. Sounds a little like my own mantra that you need "just enough" discipline, structure, whatever to be your most productive, but that "just enough" varies. And, of course, if you don't have some flexibility, you'd better be living in a changeless and surprise-free world.
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Wally,
I think this is a fantastic reminder that employees are people, not machines, and have human needs. Too often we forget that the most valuable aspect of employees is their humanity. It is not only their creativity, which you pointed out, which develops in this "wasted" time, it is also the uniqueness of the person which develops during this time and helps to bring their individual perspective to the table. If not for these distinct and human differences that are necessary to our society, we would all be striving to replace people with machines, which is not the case. Thanks for the post!
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Thanks for the kind words and adding to the conversation, Mackenzie. Alas, I think that far too often we have businesses who do want to turn people into machines, or at least treat them as such.
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Great post Wally! I'm usually the first to suggest that we could all afford to be more productive at work. However, this post does a nice job of putting things into perspective. Thank you!
I've shared your post with my readers in my weeekly Rainmaker 'Fab Five' blog picks of the week so that my readers can also try looking at productivity from your perspective.
Be well!
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Thanks for the honor, Chris, as well as your comments. I think that paradox is that all of us can become more productive, but that the idea of perfection is as flawed here as in most areas of life.
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Dear Mr. Bock,
I completely agree with your position on this. When I was completing my undergraduate studies I did a paper that discussed how we have become a society that focuses so much on using absolutely every minute of our day efficiently that we have taken away the time to just be able to think. It is my opinion that our Nation as a whole is suffering because of this. We are all exhausted, our health is suffering, and obesity rates are climbing. I think the root of this is simply that we have forgotten that we are human - we are not wired to be "on" every single minute of the day. We need that downtime during the day to just simply think and interact with others - once we are able to do that we will find our stress levels diminishing which will have far reaching effects not just personally, but also in the workplace. Thanks for the great blog!
Sherry
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Thank you, Sherry. Welcome to the blog. That's a good point. We do seem to have lost the capacity to "do nothing." If you look at pictures from the Nineteenth or early Twentieth centuries of people relaxing, that's exactly what they're doing. Today they would be reading something worthwhile or checking the Blackberry or engaging in an organized sport. And it's getting worse, I think. When I observe the children in our neighborhood, I note that they have all kinds of scheduled activities, but very little time to just play on their own, without the aid of a technological device.
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Thank you for the post, Wally! I always thought presenteeism was something out of an old DSM.
The non-productive social media witch hunt of late continues to perplex and frustrate me as well.
Creativity and relationship building all work when you foster personal responsibility.
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Thanks for adding your thoughts to the mix, Kevin. For me, it's a bit like déjà vu all over again. We went through this when people could first surf the web at work. There was the same sort of silliness about how a rule could fix things, the same draconian measures, and the same unwillingness to see the issue of true wasted time as a supervisory issue, not, at least in most cases, an issue of personal character.
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Wally,
Thanks for the post on downtime. One thing to consider is that for motivated employees, downtime is a necessary part of the recharging/switching gears process. But managers need to watch out for employees that are not so interested in the job. Taking downtime when you're no longer into the position usually means escaping from work. This is where the time spent chatting or surfing online is truly wasted time. These are the hours that should really be addressed because they are not fulfilling any purpose other than to distract and lose real productivity.
On a similar note, is the younger generation of workers coming out of college less motivated than older generations?
Thanks for the great insights. I'm tracking this site for my own leadership blog.
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Thanks for coming by and adding to the conversation, Brian. As with so many things, distinguishing between malingering and the natural downtime in the system is the job of the supervisor.
You ask about "the younger generation of workers coming out of college." I've heard people say that they are less motivated than workers in earlier generations. I just don't see it. I do think they're less likely to make work the focal point of their life than many of their elders and far less likely to take 'because I said so" as a valid reason to do something. On balance, I think those are both good things for good bosses and companies.
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As someone in the "younger generation" category and also as someone studying management and organizational leadership at an advanced level, I can see how the landscape is changing and organizations are flattening out. Knowledge is power in our society and the power is being distributed outward much more rapidly than before.
I'm not always sure that it's a good thing, though. Sometimes I can see where it is a help but many think that a little knowledge makes them an expert and this undermines the authority and experience of those who have spent their lives studying and practicing their craft. There are many times when "because I said so" is a good reason. Things cannot always be shown or explained. I must admit, however, that I like to know what is going on before so that I understand my place in the system. If I don't know my place, I don't feel a part of things. If I don't feel like a part of things, I will have a greater tendency toward loafing at a job. I guess that's how I bring this point full circle.
Thanks again.
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Thanks for that thoughtful post, Brian. As someone who's not in the "younger generation" I can tell you with some certainty that there are no coins with two sides. In today's world, information far more easily available than when I was where you are on the career path. Back then, you spent most of your time hunting for good information. Today finding information is easy, but sorting out good and bad can be difficult. In other words, there's at least one downside for every upside and vice versa. What I've found is that, over the long haul, people and relationships matter the most and if you can get that part reasonably right, a lot of good things follow.
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I got confused with "because I said so" being ever a good reason in terms of productivity increase. There are times when it is the only reason; and it is still bad. For other cases I only see it being a figure of speech in order to cut an out-of-control conversation. Such reference would only decrease worker's productivity. Like you wrote, if I don't feel like a part of things, I feel my effort being wasted so it's safer for me to lessen the effort.
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I think you're right. "Because I said so" has never been a good choice. But at least when I was coming up it was a fairly common choice. I've always found it amusing that the Marines gave me far more freedom to think, act, and speak that the big corporation I went to work for later.
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Boy, it would be interesting to hear how they developed this data. Two hours seems like a lot.
I tend to hold myself to high standards -- unreasonably so, it appears. On my past few jobs, I worked hard and a lot -- 50+ hours weekly. I certainly didn't "waste" 2 hours a day. I barely ate lunch! I didn't do things for myself that I should have, like putting off doctors' appointments, all in the interest of job security. And where am I now? Laid off and unemployed. I'm going to seek out more balance next time.
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Thanks for adding to our conversation, Kate. It certainly depends on your definition of "waste," but I've found for myself and many clients for whom we did time studies that the 2 hour figure is about right as time that isn't focused effort. I've never considered it "waste," though, for most people. It's part of being human and at work.
You mention fifty hour weeks. I'm assuming that's five ten hour days, slightly less if Saturday is catch-up time. For most of the client situations I've looked at, ten hours is about the maximum effective duration for a day. After that, error rates and downtime seem to start creeping up.
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