Are you a pyramid, a frustum or an irregular polyhedron?
Over the last few weeks I've been describing the four main productivity cultures within organisations. If you haven't yet read those, you might want to start here before reading on.
The most productive companies understand their economic engine as Jim Collins refers to it, and have it turning faster and faster. Those running them can make decisions quickly and are energised by their businesses rather than shackled by it.
So, how does an organisation cast off the lethargy and move its culture up the curve from problematic, through systematic, to automatic? The culture of an organisation is concerned with the behaviours that operate within it. As Jim Whitehurst writes in his article on Culture for the Harvard Business Review:
“For me, organisational culture is defined by how people inside the organisation interact with each other. Culture is a learned behaviour - it’s not a by-product of operations. It’s not an overlay. We create our organisational culture by the actions we take; not the other way around.”
Recognising that we are concerned with behaviours and the behaviours define organisational culture, it naturally follows that to increase productivity requires differences in the way people act before it leads to a shift in culture.
Many organisations invest in productivity training – they train people on how to manage their inbox, how to reduce distractions, and generally improve personal productivity. However, no matter how the individual performs, they operate within a broader context – the business as a whole, and it is when the entire organisation takes strategic steps to improve productivity that things can start to grow.
In my view, these organisational behaviour changes are required in four key areas – each one forming one side of what I call the Productivity Pyramid™
promise
people
price
process
In order to reach the productivity peak, all four areas require focus. Companies that are unable to reach the peak on each side are left with a frustum rather than a pyramid, which sounds incredibly like frustration to me. Companies with inequal efforts across the four areas are left with an irregular polyhedron which lacks a distinct name as far as I can tell. If you know what it's called I'd love to hear!