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America doesn't do vacation because of a mistaken understanding of the meaning of the word "productivity". As long as you have management consultants who speci
by Vivtek 15y ago
America doesn't do vacation because of a mistaken understanding of the meaning of the word "productivity".
As long as you have management consultants who specialize in the single metric of productivity (i.e. number of dollars of profit vs. number of dollars spent on people making the profit), you will have miserable people.
- bartonfink 15y agoAmerican corporate culture seems to live by the motto "Don't think - measure!"
- Vivtek 15y agoWell, in general, I'm in favor of measuring - "thinking" is often a buzzword that means jumping on whichever fad bandwagon you just saw in the airline magazine. It's picking what to measure where some thought is required.
- billswift 15y agoThere is also the problem that with an emphasis on "measurement" there comes an associated emphasis on values that are easy to measure. The current example is the difficulty of measuring programmer productivity, especially the weaknesses of LOC as a metric. The classic example of this is the rule of the management dweebs in the Defense Department during the Vietnam war and the near collapse of small unit cohesion and esprit de corps during that time.
- drblast 15y agoI've witnessed this. Counterintuitively, I think it's a side-effect of not understanding math. To those without a good understanding of statistics, numbers and graphs are a mystical, magical way to easily improve just about anything.
- marshray 15y agoIt's also a way to avoid personal responsibility and human judgment.