Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Innovation means less productivity

I was reading something recently that struck a chord within me. This leads me to the conclusion that to be innovative, that will mean you will be less productivity, at least by the definition the government uses.

Why? Based on the article that I read, when workers focus on a specific task, they may find better ways of doing it. They might better schedule their days or invent something entirely new, be it software code written to expedite repeated tasks, or a machine that automates portions of a task.

This is exactly what I did back in my previous company. As I was focusing on a specific task, I grew frustrated with the limitations of the framework I was using so I created a whole new framework to automate tasks that will allow me to skip some of the repetitive work that I am doing. I could do it because at that point in time, I had the luck to only focus on a specific task.

As I think back to those days, now it seems that I can never find such luxury. The work nowadays seem to be that the bosses will force down ever increasing amount of work onto you so that you cannot even breathe. How can you innovate if you don't even have time to breathe, let alone think?

Seriously, I don't understand all that drive towards productivity. What happened to "More Haste, Less Speed"?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Perceptive. Glad you see this idea.
To innovate, one needs to "think different" (I'm a Steve Jobs fan) and do different. To achieve this, you need to time-out from routine and take time to ponder. This could mean a period of hiatus without results, since nothing (tangible) would be moving during this period. But this is needed to reach the "Eureka!" moment when you see how to do something better. Not incrementally better, but a whole lot better 'coz you see a totally different approach that goes beyond the limitations set by the current one.
Of course, working with govt typically doesn't afford such luxury as the boss needs to see you working...
I used to tell some people "Activity does not equal to productivity".

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