The Productivity Paradox

The media is alive this morning regarding the long standing issues we have on productivity. Emphasis is on how lack of productivity is restricting income growth which is restricting the economy. First port of call is whose fault it is, and the default route that it's all about low cost labour.

Probably, all of these things have a degree of truth to them, but in the scheme of things are secondary.

Productivity is low because we are still trying to improve the things we have been doing or making, rather than doing or creating new things.

at GrowHouse, we understand the power- and the limitations - of improvement better than most. We keep our process excellence ninjas keen and hungry, but in the end, improvement is an exercise in diminishing marginal returns. Get even close to six sigma measures, and getting incremental improvement on 97%+ levels of efficiency is an exercise in rock breaking.

Innovation on the other hand creates a class of activity that resets the game. Not only do we start …