Productivity is Overrated — Seek Helpfulness

  • 1 min read

Everything can likely be improved in some way, shape or form. However, does it need to be?

Does the world really need a faster way to make a pizza? Or clean the carpet? or cook your food?

I think the answer is Yes and No. The reality is that these are processes that have been improved and probably can still be improved a bit more.

Of course,

  • Pre-Made Pizzas and Fast Cooking Pizza Ovens (see MOD Pizza — where MOD stands for Made on Demand) exist.
  • Vacuum cleaners exist and they keep getting better (Think Dyson). We still haven’t seen the fanciful version of houses that clean themselves… yet!
  • Microwaves exist too. So you can get your popcorn fix in 3.5 minutes.

Each of these inventions were developed with Productivity in mind, but ultimately they were built to Help people do more and in less time. Productivity in and of itself is not all bad, but there comes a point when being Helpful trumps Productivity.

Why not both?

This post was inspired by a conversation started by Olivier Blanchard on Facebook. His post was “I don’t want to be more productive. I want to be more helpful.” and it garnered a lot of interaction and responses.

As Olivier said… “I don’t want to be more efficient in producing work. I’m there. Greater productivity isn’t what I’m after.”

There were a few points discussing the idea of why you can’t have both productivity gains and increased helpfulness. I think you can have both, but they don’t need to occur in parallel. While I am all for increases in both, I think there is a much greater need these days for more helpful behavior.

Which brings me to the point

What can you do to help yourself and others? Not necessarily from a productivity perspective, although that would be a bonus.

But really… what can you do to just HELP someone.

Think about it and go out and Just Do It.

Author:

Jeff  is a veteran in the Enterprise Content Management industry. Over the past 20 years he has worked with customers and partners to design, develop and deploy solutions around the world. Jeff is currently the Director of Strategic Alliances at Winshuttle. He has worked for Microsoft, FileNet (IBM), K2, Captaris, Open Text, Kofax and Kodak. He speaks and blogs about ECM and the Intersection between Social, Mobile and Cloud Computing.

Picture of Jeff Shuey

Jeff Shuey

Jeff is an expert in the Enterprise Content Management industry. He brings over 20 years of Channel Sales, Partner Marketing and Alliance expertise to audiences around the world in speaking engagements and via his writing. He has worked for Microsoft, Kodak, and K2. He is currently consulting with Microsoft and partners to drive Community Engagement and Alliances. Follow him on Twitter @jshuey or on LinkedIn: in/JeffShuey

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