The Incentive Economy: Part 4 – The Business of Productivity

The Incentive Economy

Part 4 – The Business of Productivity

Working Harder So the Spreadsheet Feels Better

Dad’s Test

Did I have this problem five minutes ago?

Who benefits if I believe I do?

What happens if I simply say… “No thanks.”

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Please complete this mandatory learning module before continuing.

Estimated completion time:

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Actual completion time:

47 minutes.

There will also be a short quiz.

Nobody knows why.

Productivity has become one of those wonderful words that everyone supports…

…until you ask what it actually means.

Apparently productivity means doing more.

With less.

In less time.

For less money.

While smiling.

Somewhere along the line we quietly stopped asking,

“How do we help people do great work?”

and started asking,

“How much more work can we fit into the same eight hours?”

They’re not remotely the same question.

Imagine buying a ute.

It comfortably carries one tonne.

Excellent.

Then management notices.

“If it carries one tonne…”

“…surely it can carry one point two.”

It struggles.

“But look!”

“It survived.”

Soon it’s carrying one point four.

Then one point six.

Eventually someone proudly announces,

“Our productivity has increased by sixty percent.”

No.

Your risk has increased by sixty percent.

The spreadsheet simply hasn’t caught up yet.

Healthcare knows this story rather well.

Teachers know it.

Public servants know it.

Police know it.

Construction workers know it.

Aged care workers definitely know it.

The workload expands.

The staffing doesn’t.

Somehow the work still gets done.

Management concludes the system is coping.

Staff conclude they’ll skip lunch again.

Those are very different conclusions.

One of my favourite management phrases is,

“We’ve streamlined the process.”

Translation:

“We’ve given Sharon two extra jobs.”

Poor Sharon.

Every organisation has a Sharon.

Then comes technology.

Every new software package arrives with exactly the same promise.

“This will save everyone time.”

Has anyone ever measured where all this saved time actually went?

Because I’d quite like some back.

We now have:

Software to manage meetings.

Meetings to discuss the software.

Emails summarising the meeting.

Teams messages reminding us to read the email.

Calendar invitations to discuss the Teams messages.

AI to summarise the meeting nobody had time to attend.

Another meeting to verify the AI summary.

Progress.

Apparently.

Don’t misunderstand me.

Technology is extraordinary.

Electronic medical records are vastly better than illegible handwriting.

GPS beats unfolding paper maps in the rain.

Video calls save enormous amounts of travel.

AI will undoubtedly improve many jobs.

But…

Technology often makes one mistake.

It assumes that because something can be measured…

… it therefore should be measured.

Peter Drucker famously said,

“What gets measured gets managed.”

True enough.

But something else also happens.

What gets measured gets optimised.

Even if it isn’t actually important.

Imagine a hospital.

One nurse spends twenty minutes comforting a frightened patient.

Another nurse clicks fifteen mandatory boxes confirming the patient has been comforted.

Guess which activity appears in the dashboard.

KPIs are wonderful servants.

They’re terrible masters.

They tell us whether we’re achieving what we decided to measure.

They say nothing about whether we chose the right thing to measure.

I’ve become increasingly convinced that organisations often confuse productivity with throughput.

They aren’t the same thing.

A sausage factory values throughput.

Healthcare values judgement.

Education values understanding.

Emergency services value outcomes.

None improve simply because the spreadsheet has become greener.

This is where incentives quietly sneak back into the story.

If managers are rewarded for activity…

they’ll optimise activity.

If executives are rewarded for reducing labour costs…

they’ll reduce labour costs.

If politicians are rewarded for announcing savings…

they’ll announce savings.

Whether the work still fits inside the working day somehow becomes…

someone else’s problem.

Usually Sharon’s.

I remember talking to colleagues who somehow managed to meet every target.

Management pointed at them.

“See?”

“It can be done.”

Then you actually speak to those colleagues.

They quietly admit they skip breaks.

Finish documentation at home.

Start early.

Leave late.

Do unpaid overtime.

The KPI wasn’t achieved by the system.

It was achieved by the goodwill of exhausted professionals.

That’s not productivity.

That’s borrowing against tomorrow.

Eventually the bill arrives.

Burnout.

Resignations.

Vacancies.

Agency staff.

Recruitment campaigns.

Wellbeing seminars.

Resilience workshops.

Curiously…

very few organisations hold seminars on reducing unnecessary work.

I sometimes wonder whether we’re measuring entirely the wrong thing.

Instead of asking,

“How much work did we complete?”

Perhaps we should ask,

“Could competent people complete this work safely, well, within paid hours, without sacrificing their own wellbeing?”

Now there’s a KPI I’d like to see.

Douglas Adams would probably have designed the perfect productivity app.

Its only function would be displaying one message.

STOP CREATING MORE WORK.

The update would introduce a dashboard.

This series keeps circling back to the same idea.

People respond to incentives.

Systems amplify them.

Reward managers for reducing headcount.

Headcount falls.

Reward organisations for impossible efficiency gains.

Work intensifies.

Reward unpaid goodwill.

Eventually goodwill runs out.

None of this requires bad people.

Just ordinary people responding to the incentives in front of them.

Perhaps the most dangerous sentence in modern management is:

“Everyone else is managing.”

Maybe they are.

Maybe they’re quietly paying the difference themselves.

Skipping breaks.

Missing family dinners.

Taking work home.

Absorbing stress.

Keeping the whole machine running through professionalism rather than sustainability.

If that’s the case…

the spreadsheet isn’t measuring productivity.

It’s measuring sacrifice.

So here’s Dad’s Test for this month.

Before announcing another productivity initiative…

ask three questions.

Did the work actually disappear?

Or did it simply move?

Who is carrying the hidden cost?

And…

what happens if we stop relying on goodwill to balance the books?

Because goodwill is like credit.

It works wonderfully.

Right up until the day it doesn’t.

Homework (Entirely Optional… But Highly Recommended)

• The Men Who Made Us Spend – Jacques Peretti
• The Century of the Self – Adam Curtis

If you’re a manager, here’s a challenge:

Walk around your workplace tomorrow.

Find the person everyone says is “coping brilliantly.”

Don’t ask them how productive they are.

Ask them one question.

“What are you no longer telling us?”

You might discover your most productive employee has actually been subsidising your organisation all along.