Have We Reached Peak Productivity?…It May Be Killing Us.

How much better can we get at work?

TED Talks can be provocative. That’s what the best ones are. That’s what the best ones are supposed to do. Some might argue that it’s more like popcorn than a proper meal. That these talks don’t really do that much to either change the world, or to spread great ideas. I don’t agree. I would argue that stimulating your brain to think in different ways about issues that lie on the periphery of the work that we do – day in and day out – is what makes our own creativity expand. It’s where innovation sparks. I would also argue that spending about twenty minutes watching/listening to someone talk with passion about the work that they do, is time much better spent that re-watching some movie on Netflix. 

I wasn’t sure about this one.

What makes a business work? Efficacy? Productivity? Yves Morieux focuses on this, exact area. He’s a senior partner at BCG (Boston Consulting Group) in DC. Morieux’s work is related to what it takes for employees to solve long-term problems. This is not about minimizing mistakes or increasing profits, but rather how the teams are engaged – at all levels of the company. His TED Talk is called, How too many rules at work keep you from getting things done. It turns out, that all modern work (everything from being a waiter to a bean counter) require employees to  solve problems, be flexbile and collaborative. With that, we have set up our organizations to follow a very specific formula, process and rule book. How does that intersect? It turns out that productivity (as we have known it to date) is, actually, keeping us from doing our best possible work.

Watch this: How too many rules at work keep you from getting things done…