Productivity Overview

Productivity is a broad topic that varies for each organization and individual. It's important to define what productivity means to you and your team. People often lack self-awareness about their own productivity. To coach and improve productivity, identify the attributes and actions that contribute to it. Follow-through and meeting deadlines are important attributes. Employees may change their job description without notifying you, so clear communication is essential. Define specific expectations for productivity. Now, when it comes to a topic called productivity, that's again, much like communication, it's a pretty big topic. And so we're going to use the term in a very general sense, yet we're going to give you the tactics that really each and every leader in an organization can make their own if that makes sense. So when you think about productivity, I think it's really wise to have a definition of what does productivity mean to you? What does it mean to your team? So, you know, it's a lot like the concept of teamwork. When you think about teamwork and you ask your group, you know, what makes a great teammate? You will have different interpretations of that. Now here's the funny thing. Most people lack self-awareness. Somebody is not going to knock on your door and say, boss, I got to tell you something, I am really lacking productivity. They're not going to do that. Now I bet you're chuckling a little bit, but when you think about it, productivity is by doing what? That's the formula and that's the technique that we always encourage, especially with big topics like productivity or teamwork or communication, which can really encompass a lot of attributes. Productivity is fill in the blank by doing what? And then you list the attributes and actions and those attributes and actions should be written out as well. Once you have that, you have a concept to coach to. So let's talk about something that we'll utilize, which is, you know, follow through. Always finishing projects on time. So we'll use those two attributes as our frame of reference as we go forward. Now I'm going to make a little bit of a joke. We're going to talk about follow through and finishing work on time within the deadline consignment. A lot of times employees will change their own job description to suit their needs. They just won't send you the memo. How often do we have when it comes to productivity, oh, sorry, a couple of things came up and they start to give themselves permission. Now sometimes those are valid reasons, yet you also want to have in your definition thoughtful, proactive communication before the deadline. So again, that's why those definitions make sense. So make sure you have a definition of specific expectations of productivity.