Efficiency, Productivity & Longevity: The survival of an innovation culture

We are constantly asked to facilitate (or train people to facilitate) meetings with creative process to increase efficiency and/or productivity. We do so and are always successful. It's a simple thing really. But.

A provocative book review I was pointed to this morning by dialygood.org got me thinking about a tension that exists between efficiency/productivity and longevity/robustness. It was reviewing a book by Andrew Price entitled: Slow-tech: Manifesto for an Over-wound World  I haven't read it... yet.

The review, published by Resurgence Magazine, starts with the following:

"A central pillar of our society is the drive for efficiency, extracting the most in the shortest period of time is the motivation behind the vast majority of actions in the modern world. As a concept, efficiency is so ingrained in our consciousness that to call it into question can seem counter-intuitive, if not completely ridiculous."

Now that's just the kind of provocation that energizes my innovative brain.

We can facilitate a creative process session that will net gain within a very short time. There is always low hanging fruit, even in the leanest of organizations. But I wonder.

 In the search for the short term gain, do we get ourselves so focused on the quick win that we lose our perspective on long term systems? In the quest to satisfy the shareholder and analysts with quarter on quarter growth, do we end up gutting the system that made our company the great thing it was and feeds its potential to be even greater in the future?

 I think this happens. And its a slow subtle change that we don't notice. One of those boil the frog by gradually heating the water kinds of things. But I think we can do something about it.

"Our 'superficial efficiency' drives out all robustness, relegating such pesky issues as the environment and society to the role of externalities -- a dispensable surplus'."

Let me translate that to business speak:

Our 'get the savings now' drives out all robustness, relegating such pesky issues as an environment that supports innovation and the creative skills of our people to the role of externalities -- something we'll get to someday, just not right now.

Of course this is an over-statement. Any organization with a lot of waste is doomed. I fear however, that once we get on the path where we reinforce/reward people for reducing waste, and measure it as reducing cost, we unconsciously morph our thinking to reducing costs at the goal, forgetting the original intention of reducing waste. Then, accidentally and unconsciously, we begin reducing costs by reducing things that create robustness over the long haul.

So now we're in a challenged economy. When better to "get the waste out?"

Unfortunately, if that morphs to a generalized "get the costs out, and reward people who do it" we might well end up killing the engine that keeps our business fundamentals... our product and service pipeline... from churning out productively 6-12 months from now when the economy is demanding new value from us and our shareholders are demanding new customer revenue, not just Q on Q profit due to savings.

Last week, there was a conference -- attended by over 200 mid-cap companies -- called the Global Growth Conference. Our colleague Jackie Bassett was there and gave her report last night. These companies believe this is the right time to focus on growth, not retraction. These companies see the need to invest in an innovation culture and the creative thinking skills of their people. Were you there? Do you wish you were?

Here's the leadership challenge: Find ways to gain efficiencies while at the same time building robustness into an ongoing culture of innovation and the creative thinking skills of your people.

Comments

[How to Facilitate Meetings]

I really liked your post. Thanks for your effots. Well done

[New & Improved, LLC]

Bob points out the importance of making sure you measure the proper things. It's been said, "you get what you inspect," or "you get what you measure." So true.

Earlier today I was touring the Subaru Indiana Assembly plant in Lafayette, IN. They were the first plant to be "zero landfill," in other words they send nothing to the a landfill. Ever. They recycle, they reuse, they even compost from the cafeteria. And the plant site is also a wildlife refuge (funny stories about keeping beavers from eating wiring insulation were shared).

And by the way, they manufacture outstanding quality vehicles, they reduce the amount of electricity they use year-on-year, and they lowered the price of the 2010 version of one of their vehicles by $4000 because of efficiencies that they found in manufacturing.

Productivity by itself is insufficient. But measuring the many things that are really important can create some outstanding results.

Al Gore, in a WSJ opinion piece in 2008 quoted Robert F. Kennedy this way, and perhaps it's provocative, regardless of how you feel about Gore and Kennedy, "the Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."

A penny for your thoughts?