While productivity is relatively easy to measure on a factory floor, or on the farm, we have yet to develop good metrics for measuring the productivity of the knowledge workers of the Exponential Era. Regrettably, we continue to largely rely on hours worked and face time in the office—or in virtual spaces—as markers for effort, which I consider a pseudo-productive work. The harsh reality is that with the advent of technology and the ability to work remotely, being connected and responsive at all hours is the new face time.

In business, we have been universally using productivity to account for the amount of work completed, the quality of that work, and its worth in terms of organizational objectives. For over two centuries, productivity has been related to the number of hours worked or the money invested. In this way, productivity is almost always quantitative. Notionally, companies are looking for the highest possible outcome for the minimum amount of input/resources.

At the dawn of the Information Age, aka Digital Age, about 60 years ago, it was the first time we could depend solely on our cognitive abilities instead of our physical ones to produce work. However, we stubbornly continued to define productivity based on units processed per time period.

Measuring productivity in the Exponential Era seems to be an elusive target. Companies are not necessarily tracking hours for salaried employees. Truth is that knowledge work is less standardized and structured, and time spent working is increasingly blurred as a mobile workforce integrates their professional and personal lives. Moreover, outputs are intangible and difficult to define; the results often based on team output rather than individual.

It is an accepted notion that the most valuable assets of a 20th-century company were its production equipment. That said, the most valuable asset of a 21st-century ecosystems, whether business or nonbusiness, are the productivity of their knowledge-workers—those that “think for a living.” Which makes productivity challenging to define and to measure.

That makes coming up with applicable KPIs very difficult or even impossible. Some suggest that measuring knowledge worker productivity is situational, since outputs and how to calculate them varies widely across an organization. Fact is that unless we have a very good and accepted definition, measuring sustainable productivity and subsequently improving it, will be almost impossible.

The paradigm, hence, is that productivity in today’s Exponential Era must mean something different for the organization—at the individual and team levels.

Productivity in today’s world must focus on quality, adaptation, innovation, critical-thinking, interpersonal awareness, teamwork, and collaboration.

It is about working on what matters most: value-adding activities, in alignment with the business objectives and strategies.

In today’s ecosystems, individuals are more autonomous, with enhanced socio-emotional skills, with sharp critical-thinking skills, hyperconnected, creative, equipped with a myriad of tools, with acute social and cultural expectations. Their roles and responsibilities are more fluid. Moreover, today a high amount of work is produced in teams and in collaboration.

This begs the big question: how to measure employee productivity? Well, there is no single straightforward answer to that question. Yet, before attempting to define metrics and KPIs, there are some principles to be observed:

• Employee’s productivity can mean different things to different people. Clarify to them!
• An important factor to consider is whether an employee’s job focuses on quality or quantity. That’s why it’s important to remember the focus of an employee’s job when measuring their productivity.
• The definition of employee productivity varies from industry to industry, form organization to organization, from country to country, and from culture to culture.
• Since productivity is now based on even more specialized cognitive functioning, we need to factor in different abilities and create new metrics.
• It’s up to the organization to come up with the way to define, to measure, and to reward productivity.

Organizations need to embrace a more organic view of productivity in value-creation processes in ecosystems. The change from the old way of measuring productivity to the new won’t be easy or quick. Our current habits and standards were built for the past, not the future. Moving to a new paradigm might feel weird and challenging, but it is essential if we are going to build the future we want.

We need to banish the idea that more time in the office—or logged in—equals more work. Breaking the strong connection between work and time is crucial.

We need to counter our deeply ingrained mental model that human workers should be paid per hour or that their pay is tied to sitting at a desk—or logging in from home—for long hours. Instead, we need to foster a model that rest on the importance of rest and disconnecting. A model that factor-in working smart, taking breaks, vacations, family leave, getting good sleep, and not responding to messages after hours.

Empowering great work throughout the organization will actually empower a different type of productivity. Productivity aimed at creating value for stakeholders, delivering new and innovative solutions, and fostering a high-performance culture that strengthens teams and boosts sustainable organizational success. 

Odd enough, in these days that we claim and complain we don’t have enough time, most of us seem to wait until the last minute to do certain tasks. And we do that because we don’t like the task at hand, or simply because it’s too challenging.

Same happens when we are afraid of consequences and negative results. Oftentimes things get done and no real consequence is suffered; or we may suffer consequences, but they are usually not substantial. In the words of Dr. Ramirez Basco, “the number one reason we procrastinate is because we can.”

Procrastination is a challenge we have all faced at one point or another. For as long as humans have been around, we have been struggling with delaying, avoiding, and procrastinating on issues that matter to us. Procrastination usually involves ignoring an unpleasant, but likely more important task, in favor of one that is more enjoyable or easier.

When we procrastinate, instead of working on important, meaningful tasks, we find ourselves performing trivial activities.

We procrastinate to cope, by shutting down unpleasant, or even painful feelings about certain arguably hard to do tasks or with perceived negative consequences. Is short, pain avoidance. It is an altered state of reality, according to Dr. Ramirez Basco.

In sum, procrastination is a habit that is so automatic that it does not require thought of planning; a habit hard to change. It is not something we can just decide to give up and then completely let it go. It is our comfort zone, where we feel the most at ease. We know it is happening when we have trouble persuading ourselves to do the things we should do or would like to do.

Behavioral psychology research has revealed a phenomenon called “time inconsistency,” which helps explain why procrastination seems to pull us in, despite our good intentions. It is the tendency of the human brain to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards.

Minor episodes of procrastination can make us feel guilty or ashamed. It can lead to reduced productivity and cause us to miss out on achieving our goals. Even worse, when we procrastinate over a long period of time, we can become demotivated and disillusioned with our work, which can lead to stress, depression, and burnout.

Worth mentioning, procrastination is not laziness. Procrastination is an active process; we choose to do something else instead of the task that we know we should be doing. While procrastination is active, laziness, in contrast, suggests apathy, inactivity, and an unwillingness to act.

Decades of scientific research show that stress and anxiety are prevalent problems at work, contributing to deficits in employee morale, well-being, and productivity. We work longer hours in what appears to be a boundaryless time schedule, repeatedly overcommitting and regretfully underdelivering.

It seems that the norm in our modern society, is to be running errand and whining we are so busy—or bragging about it in some cases. Busyness appears to be a pandemic, occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population.

What is worst, we seem to sacrifice our health, our relationships with our loved ones, and giving up on our dreams. I want you to keep in mind that frantic busyness and chaotic multitasking are not glamorous, and productivity is not about being the hardest worker in your ecosystems. As Stephen R. Covey would say, “busyness is an excuse that we use to avoid doing the first things in our lives.”

Since in today’s organizations, knowledge-worker are more autonomous, with enhanced socio-emotional skills, with sharp critical-thinking skills, hyperconnected, and with acute social and cultural expectations, their roles and responsibilities are more fluid.

These individuals coalesce and collaborate in organic teams in their business ecosystems, where most of the value is created.

In a nutshell, teams are the quintessential social setting for collaboration, value creation, learning, and development.

But what I mean with the expression ‘business ecosystem’? In my recently published book “The Productivity Ecosystem”, I define business ecosystem as a) the network of organizations—including suppliers, distributors, customers, competitors, government agencies, and so on—involved in the delivery of a specific product or service through both competition and cooperation; and b) a governance model that competes with other ways of organizing the creation of a product or service, such as a vertically integrated organization, a hierarchical supply chain, or an open-market model.

Central to this twofold definition, is that each entity in the ecosystem affects and is affected by the others, creating a constantly evolving relationship in which each entity must be flexible and adaptable in order to survive, as in a biological ecosystem. A dynamic system in its essence, where nothing is or should be static.

That’s why a system-thinking approach is needed to fully understand the nuances of what is contained in my Productivity Ecosystem paradigm. As such, it is a fluid, organized setup of elements that all work hand in hand to achieve a general purpose. It comprises parts that make it complete.

Systems thinking in practice encourages us to explore inter-relationships (context and connections), perspectives (each actor has their own unique perception of the situation) and boundaries (agreeing on scope, scale and what might constitute an improvement). In general, a systems thinking includes the willingness to see a situation more fully, to recognize that we are interrelated, to acknowledge that there are often multiple interventions to a situation, and to champion out-of-the-box, innovative interventions.

In my paradigm, three systems are inextricably and dynamically interlinked to form what we call The Productivity Ecosystem: the Core, the Context, and the dimension of Time.

Core – We have found that productivity always is a dynamic combination of three elements: Self, Tools (techniques), and Equipment. This is what we call the Productivity Core.

Context – These intimately interlinked elements are always surrounded by environmental forces, such as, overall socio-economic forces; type of business and industry; organizational culture, climate, and structure; office politics, and the like. This what we call the Productivity Context; also, very dynamic.

Time – Is the one thing that permeates everything and is omnipresent. Time, hence, is the meta-system involving all other systems—there is no other system above and beyond it. Yet, for the sake of productivity, time is a limited resource. What you do in it is what makes the difference. As revolutionary as it seems, I firmly believe that we don’t manage time. Instead, in the quest for productivity gains, what we need to do is to manage all our tasks systematically and efficiently. Eliminating wasteful activities, organizing the most value-adding activities, and communicating assertively.

Is in an ecosystem of teams is where ideation, innovation, collaboration, decision-making, learning, and most of the value is created. What seems indispensable for boosting productivity then, is to equip these teams with the power to execute and implement their solutions with agility and assertiveness.

Increased empowerment is a must; redefined accountability is a prerequisite. It has profound consequences in terms of leadership, decision-making, teamwork, and communication, to mention just a few.