Take a longer view

The US has created lots of jobs since President Tump was elected.  I am sure he will take the credit - and bask in the reflected glory.

President Trump should be careful, though.  America's productivity is not rising.  Any wage rises will be at the expense of inflation.  In a year's time, we may have a better guide to the success of his policies - for now, those in work will be pleased... but may find their wage being eroded.

Short-term gains are often illusory.

The same is true within companies.  When judging your latest quarter results, set them in the longer-term context.  You can grow short-term profits at the expense of longer-term investment - but only improved productivity gives longer-term, sustainable growth.

What are you mesuring?

France takes the summer off.  many factories close down for a month while workers holiday en masse.

Other European countries also take longer holidays than the UK.

Yet the productivity of these countries is higher.

Can anyone explain this - it is intuitive.

I have voiced my doubts about the way we measure national productivity before.

Each time I note something like this, I become more convinced that we need to take a fresh look at what we measure and compare.

Similarly, you should be careful what you measure and compare in your business.

if you measure the wrong things, you will make the wrong conclusions - and worn decisions.

Don't wait for technology

Over the last 50 years, there is no doubt that technology has made significant contributions to GDP and thus to national productivity. However most technology soon reduces in price and thus any contribution is soon lessened. Worse, we appear to be in a relative technology slump - there has been little true innovation in the last few years.

So, technology is not going to come to our rescue. We have to take the 'low road' and pick up all the small productivity gains we can. We need a systematic, national productivity drive with government addressing policy and infrastructure and companies like yours addessing skills and culture. We can create impact but it's not going to be easy.