How Culture Enhances Productivity | Anschuetz on Leadership

Episode 20 | Combatting Declining Productivity

The Big Themes:

• Declining rates of productivity: For five consecutive quarters, productivity rates in the United States have been steadily declining. In the most recent quarter, it was down nearly 3%. "It's very clear worker productivity is in jeopardy, or so we say as corporations."
• Work from home may be a factor: Employers are facing economic and market pressures. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed that remote work styles are contributing to the lack of productivity. Is this the case?
• Culture and engagement: What creates increased levels of productivity? Christian suggest that deep engagement and investment in employees can combat declining productivity rates. Bob and Christian emphasis the importance of culture, and note the ways in which a strong culture in the workforce can drive empathy, and yield better results.

The Big Quote: "The number one thing that drives productivity is engagement. But why do we not have engagement? Now think about this... why do we not have engagement? Well, why don't we just back up a bit and say, what drives good engagement? Well, if you were to look at some of the studies out there, some of the studies would say, maybe there's three, four things, you know, that really drive engagement. One is a top-down dedicated effort to grow and develop your workforce. Hmm, that's interesting. So you, you're growing and developing, that's not paying a paycheck. That's not growing and developing, everybody that thinks you're doing that. This means developing, you are investing in time, you're investing money... but I can't do that they're already not productive enough. Oh, okay. You see when we get confused so easily? So one of the factors is invest and develop your people. Oh, here's another one. This is really weird. Teach your managers and leaders to manage and lead."