Busy is not the same as productive
My hairdresser always used to ask,”Are you busy at work” as a conversation opener. I usually answered,”not particularly” as I assumed she meant,”hectic “ and my work wasn’t , rather it was demanding and fulfilling despite the long hours. I assumed “busy” was a negative like over worked although as she was self employed she may have meant do you have enough work ?
I worked for a Director who liked to see his AD’s busy the evidence for which was a full dairy, back to back meetings, no gaps. I wondered when he thought all those reports he requested got written. I know he expected the reports for the Monday morning meetings to be read on a Sunday night because they don’t arrive till Friday afternoon.
Both individuals considered busy to be good I was far more interested in whether I and my team were spending their time productively.
I worked in a number of large complex organisations characterised by numerous tiers of management posts. Every manager at every level would describe them selves as busy or very busy but managers would also admit to feeling frustrated about the amount of time spent in unproductive activities. Ten years on and the tiers have been reduced and the overall number of management posts dramatically cut. It would appear that many time consuming activities were not essential to the operation of the organisation. Evidence that whilst undoubted busy managers were not always spending their time usefully.
No doubt today’s in the same organisations managers would also report being busy but hopefully a greater part of their time would be spent usefully.
Or would it? Is there any evidence that fewer managers results in more time spent productively? Is the machine any less demanding? Has the time consuming bureaucracy been reduced? Are there fewer meetings and are the ones that remain more productive? I suspect there are more things managers no longer do but this does not mean that they are any less busy.
Blair McPherson former director author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
