This week I attended a fantastic lecture organised by Trinity Horne delivered by Professor Shlomo Maital.The lecture centred around productivity, which I feel, is an underused measure of success. My key takeaway from the lecture was how we should all be working on being more productive – this will lead to growth and innovation.
Let me explain....
UK productivity
Professor Maital began the lecture talking about the productivity of the UK. For 2010, the UK ranked only 46th (out of 59 countries) in overall productivity growth and ranked 18th in labour productivity. This puts us behind the US, Ireland, France, Italy and Spain. Manufacturing jobs will move from China to Vietnam, not back to the UK or the USA. So, the debate moved on to what managers and business leaders can do to drive productivity...
Asking the right questions
Prof. Maital talked eloquently about what he called a "Strategic Operational Innovation revolution". When most people think of innovation, they think of product innovation but the key to success is constant operational innovation.
The questions we should be asking in business are...are we asking the right questions? Are we doing the right things right? What can we do quicker, smarter, slicker whilst generating more? How can we do MORE with the SAME?
Prof. Maital ended the talk asking managers and workers to take the responsibility to drive this revolution in productivity through operational innovation as we face times of capital scarcity and lack of clarity on productivity growth.
A productive approach to your career
Bringing this back to Freshminds, think of productivity as your career progresses, what can you be doing to innovate constantly. Always ask the question, is there a better way to do this? Even if you are searching for a new role and you are looking to hire someone new for your business, if the methods you have used in the past aren’t working, act quickly and do something different.
The Japanese definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. At FreshMinds, innovation is core to everything we do. We employ creative sourcing methodologies to find and engage with the most exceptional candidates. However, Prof. Maital’s talk has reminded me that there is always more we can do....the strategic operational innovation revolution is far from over, it is just beginning....
Soraya Pugh is the Head of the FreshMinds Talent Graduate team.
