Fatuous forecasts and getting things done

Getting things done

I try to keep abreast of what readers of the more prestigious business journals are blogging about. In the process I am always amused to find that they are rarely about how to market the products and services the bloggers are responsible for, but almost invariably about how to market themselves - or at least how to work more efficiently and progress up the promotions ladder faster. It is no coincidence that Stephen Covey’s book, ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’  has been on the business book bestseller list for over 20 years. But I think to myself that blogs are personal things and maybe these personal concerns with career advancement aren't so surprising.

Imagine my surprise to see in the list of 10 favourite feature articles, pieces with names such as: Navigating the Cultural Minefield (about office culture); To Create Change, Leadership is More Important than Authority; Why I Tell My Employees to Bring Their Kids to Work; The Behaviours that Define A-Players; Female Executives Make Progress, But Mostly in Support Functions.

All very interesting no doubt, but all about ME.

In one of these articles a distinguished behavioural scientist observes that we have never been so inefficient at work. What an irony that the promised new technology has had virtually the opposite effect. I blame it on democracy which exacerbates the need to include absolutely everyone who has had the slightest involvement with a project on all emails. Of course this makes it incumbent for the recipient to continue to earn his or her place on the project by adding a comment that sets off yet another blast of emails.

All of those fatuous forecasts about how technology would make life easier (remember the paperless office) are based on a zero-sum model of human behaviour,  the same zero-sum analysis that led to the forecast of modern household appliances giving people acres of leisure time. What leisure time? The time-filling power of creative destruction that powers capitalism so effectively seems to work in many areas of life, but with very much less useful outcomes since there are, after all, only 24 hours in the day and 7 days in the week.

But back to the problem of how to work more efficiently. This actually may be THE subject of our times. There are no doubt millions of self-help books on the subject but one came my way recently which made sense. And which I shall extract an excerpt for an issue of Market Leader – assuming that UK executives are just as interested in working effectively as US executives are. We are, after all, gripped by the same technology.

The clue is in the title: Get Things Done by Robert Kelsey. And if I give you some of the chapter headings you’ll see the appeal: The Unproductive Mind; Organisational Incompetence; Procrastination, Clutter and Self-Sabotage; Managing Time, Persuasion and Influence – and more along these lines.

More on this in coming issues of Market Leader.


Read more from Judie in our Clubhouse.

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