Doing enough is never going to be enough Personal Speak

‘Are you productive enough?”

When I read that Harvard Business Review (HBR) article title, it made me wonder: what do they mean by enough? Is it as much as possible, or simply as much as required to get by?

“Enough” is a tricky word to understand unless it is fully defined or heard in context. There was enough food for everyone can mean everyone had something to eat and no one got left out. It can also mean that people weren’t stuffed, but at least there was enough to go around.

Or, it can mean there was sufficient food for everyone to eat all they wanted.

When it comes to productivity, this ambiguity can be particularly problematic. To my despair, the author of the HBR article defined enough as “as much or as many as required”, implying nothing more than a satisfactory amount. To him, as long as you satisfy the minimum requirement, then you’re productive enough.

That’s a risky proposition which I hope you’ll never accept.

The writer says you should ask yourself “Am I meeting expectations?” That’s an acceptable, or should I say “good enough” question, if you’re interested in being average.

But to be truly productive, you should ask, “Am I exceeding expectations?” The former may be enough to keep your job and get by, but it’s woefully insufficient if you want to move ahead in the pack.

There is a productivity spectrum and sitting at the midpoint is the kind of productivity that sees you deliver the requirements of the job. This should really be a given, yet many people — dare I say most — view it as the end goal.

Fulfilling the minimum requirements is what they strive for, when in actual fact, it is the bare minimum for survival. The fact is, too many people confuse being productive enough with being productive.

The questions that the author of the HBR article uses to gauge productivity include: Did you meet the project milestones? Did you reply to customers within the specified times? Did you hit your sales targets?

If someone can answer yes to these key responsibilities, then they are productive enough. That thinking conditions you to live up to — but not beyond — the expectations of others and it doesn’t allow for the most important comparison of all. That is, you versus your own ability.

Rather than setting expectations in the context of how productive others are, organisations should encourage their people to do all they can. Currently, that’s not the reality on the ground. At least that is what the statistics say.

The average working day means that eight hours of productive work are theoretically possible. After all, that is the number of hours that an employer “buys” from an employee. This, however, is a far cry from reality.

Let’s face it, people can’t actually be productive every minute of every day. In fact, research suggests that our productivity capacity on any given day is more like 80 per cent, or 6.5 hours. If that doesn’t sound like much, then here’s the bombshell: studies reveal that, theory aside, just three hours out of eight are actually productive — that’s 37.5 per cent of the day! Here, it’s important to not confuse hours worked with productive hours.

Hard or time-consuming work is different than productive work. It’s simple really: productive time is the time that produces a result.

Herein lies the flaw: since the majority of employees are productive for less than 40 per cent of a workday, that has become the new norm — the benchmark. It is acceptable to be just productive enough.

There is a spectrum of productivity and people are positioned across the range. Your maximum — the most you are able to produce — is very different from that of another person, so why would you allow their “enough” to be your limiter?

You are only productive enough, when you’re producing your maximum. Unless “average” is your goal, never settle for less.

Dr Tommy Weir is CEO of the EMLC Leadership AI Lab and author of Leadership Dubai Style. Contact him at tsw@tommyweir.com.

Rather than setting expectations in the context of how productive others are, organisations should encourage their people to do all they can.