What the heck is productivity?

You hear the terms such as productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, overhead etc, etc quite often from people who've no idea or several ideas of what they are talking about! Ever wondered what they mean to you? Any individual performs several roles in life - engineer/manager, husband/wife, son/daughter,mother/father, friend/foe, superior/subordinate, individual/team-member etc, etc Asking oneself what their productivity in each of the roles they perform could be a true barometer for one's realization of true potential! Because - it is a well known fact that you can't control/improve something you don't measure. But, how the heck do we measure productivity?

Productivity in its basic definition means output/input - contribution vs consumption, price vs performance. So, the first step is to define what are you important outputs and inputs in a certain role. For instance, one's output as a friend is to see how many times you've helped your mate without being approached or otherwise. Input could be time spent in cultivating that friendship or no. of quarrels between each other etc, etc - You get the idea! It is up to you to see what are important inputs and outputs for you in your role.

Next step is to see if you can quantitatively measure the output and input to arrive at a metric that can be tracked over a period to gauge the trend of how you are doing as a friend :) You need to have a value measure and observe the trend to see how you can improve! In addition, you can set the goals and peform against such expectations as you go along.

My first impression to this thought of applying productivity to all the roles we play seemed absolutely absurd and ridiculous- because there is so much subjectivity and emotional quotient associated with certain roles that it is almost impossible to put a number. As they say, some relationships are invaluable that you can't put a value to it. Agreed!

However, how do you know that you are becoming a better father as years pass by? Should subjective comments or visceral impressions guide you in that crucial role? Many of the roles are the new roles we start in with zero experience - father, husband etc, etc We've no clue of how to treat a new-born infant and be the best father on this planet. So, what I believe and propose is to have a quantitative measure of your performance without ignoring the fact that these roles/relationships are invaluable.

I know it is a very, very tough exercise - but the hard part is only finding the magic formula of your own productivity. But, once you find it, it is easy to implement and follow the routine!

Tata...Satish