What is ‘Productivity Theater?’

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“Productivity Theater” has been around as long as there have been bosses and workers. When under the thumb of control, workers cleverly learn how to fake or politicize productivity. I remember an engineer telling me that he used to ask his wife to pick him up in their second car on Saturday mornings. Why? It was common knowledge that the president of this now famous construction company would drive by the office parking lot to see who was “there,” working extra hard Saturday mornings. He never did catch on that a lot of people parked their cars while off on other Saturday activities, like kids sports games, errands, etc. Another well known story is how people in the headquarters of this well known Minnesota organization would have an extra jacket at work to leave on their chairs to indicate they were working overtime. Of course, they had already left the office in their second overcoat. We should not be surprised then by the following insight from an extensive Slack survey:

“Surveying more than 10,300 employees globally, Slack found that more than a third (37%) of employees said they work after hours at least once a week. Some claim to do so because they want to, perhaps to catch up on lost tasks or get ahead. More than half (54%) do so because they feel they have to.

But pressuring employees to stay late creates a paradox that makes them less effective—workers who felt compelled by their employer to stay after hours reported 20% lower productivity throughout the day, according to Slack. They also reported more than double work-related stress and burnout, as well as lower levels of satisfaction with their jobs, than their counterparts who clock in a normal nine-to-five.

Those who work of their own accord during post-work hours, on the other hand, actually have slightly greater productivity and wellness scores, per Slack, and don’t report the same amount of negative impact that their pressured-to-work peers do.

Perhaps, then, executives’ fixation on forcing productivity in the form of long nights and weekends (in the manner of Musk and Solomon) is set to backfire, creating a more dissatisfied and therefore ironically less productive workforce.”

Most people who make it to the C Suite get there because of a fortunate variable combination of hard work, timing and luck. It’s somewhat odd that they often extrapolate -and overplay the “hard work” component. For example, “if you just worked extra hard like me then…” So, the expectation and message is, “be like me and put in 100 hours a week.” Too often that expectation becomes formal or informal policy. That’s when, as reinforced by the Slack survey, Productivity Theater goes up and actual productivity goes down. It’s in our nature to resist being manipulated or forced to do something. On the other hand, when we believe in a purpose and given reasonable discretion and autonomy that humans gravitate to, we usually increase our contribution and commitment.

Demands associated with command and control are limiting and even diminishing. Connecting, engaging and providing reasonable autonomy is freeing, and promotes greater contribution. Leaders, people are THE SOURCE of sustainable success, not an expendable piece of inventory to control. Why can’t we apply this way of thinking and leading more often than not?

I love the arts, but it’s time to dramatically reduce the need for Productivity Theater.

Think Big, Start Small, Act Now,

- Lorne

One Millennial View: We all only have so much capacity for putting our heads down and mentally grinding. I’ve always been fascinated with my finance friends who started their careers with those internships in NYC. They will spend all day and late into the night in the offices on Wall Street, doing what? Mostly sporadic errands, and not much else. Then you have Hollywood actors who tell us all on the Tonight Show that they spent 14 hour days working on a movie set. Insiders learn that the film business is all about “hurry up and wait,” which means most of those 14 hours were spent in a trailer, napping, hanging out, or in a makeup chair. Maybe three of those hours were spent filming the scenes we see. Sure, they were there, but putting in actual work? Not quite. There ought to be less fiction and more honesty with this policy, otherwise it’s making us believe half of what we see and nothing that we hear.

- Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

What is ‘Productivity Theater?’

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