How productive are you, honestly?

We often feel the need to go full pelt at the start of the year, full of ideas and energy, in the name of feeling productive. But consider reshaping your concept of high productivity around the nature of your high-leverage activities:

Andy Grove, the legendary former chief executive and chairman of Intel, described the productivity (“output”) of a manager as “A manager’s output = the output of her organization + the output of the neighboring organizations under her influence”.

Let’s imagine you are seeking to increase the output of your own organization (part one of the equation). You could try to speed up your own work, but that’s likely to lead to burnout. Option 2 would be to increase your managerial leverage. So how would that look?

1. Many people would be affected by your presence and/or
2. A single person’s behavior would have changed over time by one brief encounter with you.

The above might come about thanks to training – “one of the highest-leverage activities a manager can perform,” in Grove’s yes.

Grove was an engineer. He made Intel deliver microprocessors with doubling computing power every eighteen months. Like clockwork.

When you invest time in training your own people, you get to delegate more with trust. But don’t think that’s you being unproductive; it is in fact another way for you to further increase your leverage.

Now for part two of the equation: “How can I increase the output of neighboring organizations?” Grove recommends you supply them with a unique key piece of knowledge or information. A good example would be a data-driven suggestion – an emerging trend of what works and what doesn’t. This stops predictions without seeing the full picture.

Put another way, a summary report given can quickly change the day-to-day practice of employees. That’s leverage.

Further Reading: High Output Management, by Andrew S Grove