We talked with Emma Browning about her productivity research and framework.

Hello and welcome to our impactful projects and Planning series. I'm Jami Yazdani. In today's session, I'm talking with Emma Browning about productivity. So Emma is the founder of paradox consulting partners, a management consulting company and certified B Corp that aligns talent strategy with business strategy to create high performing, great places for all to work. She has almost 20 years of experience consulting to hundreds of organizations, from startups to Fortune 100 companies, and is passionate about creating productive organizations supporting innovation and changing system. So welcome Emma. Thank you, Jami, thanks for having me. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about your work and your business. What impact are you hoping to create for your clients? Yeah, absolutely. So you gave a great intro. So paradox is a management consulting company aligns talent strategy with business strategy to create high performing, great places for all to work. So what that really means is that we're helping our clients be more productive as organizations, but also be places where people really do want to work and can really do their best work as well. So we help our clients in facilitation, project based consulting and training and development too wonderful. So you recently did some research on productivity. So tell us a little bit about the study and what you found. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm going to tell you a little bit why we did the study in the first place, which was, you know, with all of my clients I was talking to, and just, people and friends that I was talking to, I kept on hearing about productivity, and people talking about, we need to be more productive, or frustration that teams weren't being productive as productive as they could have been, or other people talking about, we're so productive. I don't understand why my manager doesn't understand that, and there just seemed to be a lot of conflict and confusion around productivity. And I realized that, you know, so much in the past few years about work has changed, like where we work, when we work, how we work, the type of work we do, I think our relationship with work has changed as well. And so I started off, I posed this question. It was an HR executive at a fortune 500 company, and I said, you know, with all this change, is your company, you know, defining or measuring productivity any differently than it has in the past? And her answer to me was, you know, that is really the core of what organizations are struggling with. And I don't have an answer. So what that said to me is that companies are trying to measure productivity. They're trying to increase productivity. It's this big tension right now, and yet there isn't really a definition or a way to measure it that makes sense today. So you know, a typical kind of labor productivity measurement is outputs per hour of labor, and that just doesn't make sense in our workplaces today. So the purpose for the study was to try and answer that question, what is a good way to actually define productivity and measure it in our workplaces today with just what work is and what work means today.

Wonderful. So what, what? What did you find? Who did you talk to and what did you What did you find? Yeah, so sue. We went about this. We talked to about 30 leaders in different types of companies, from startups to Fortune, 100 so very wide variety of types of organizations, and we asked them about the most productive team they'd ever experienced, and to describe that to us or the most productive individual they'd ever experienced, and described that to us, because what we didn't want to do was define it for them. We wanted to understand how they define productivity

and what we found, first of all, that was interesting, is that people don't have the same definition, you know, when they think about productivity, there's different things that they that they focus on. And so there really was this need for a better way to really talk about productivity, because I think right now, it's difficult to set expectations when we can't even describe what it is. And so that was one first finding, honestly, that people had different different definitions, but there were a lot of similarities. And so we came up with a new formula for really defining and describing and measuring productivity. And I can share that now or later in the in the chat, whenever it's it's the right time. Yeah. So, I mean, I think we can, we can move to that, that question. So you've created a framework. So what are the elements of that framework, and how can people apply it in their organizations? Yeah, so, so the framework really has three dimensions for measuring productivity.

One is movement, the second is usage, and the third is experience. And I'll break those down. So, so the first one movement, that's about forward progress, on goals and objectives. So that was one thing that we heard as we talked to all these different leaders, is that, you know, it's really not outputs that matter, it's outcomes that.

Matter. But the tricky thing about outcomes is they can sometimes be difficult to measure, like some of us, you know, we're working towards outcomes that can take years to get to, and so measuring forward movement towards goals and objectives is a way to measure that forward progress towards outcomes. So that was the first the first element, the second element is usage, and that is the use or adoption of the creation or product or deliverable that you're working on. And the reason that's important is because if you spend all this time creating something and nobody ever uses it or applies it or engages with it, then you know all the time spent doing that really wasn't as productive as it could have been if you didn't learn something from it and actually apply it. So that's that's the second piece. And then the third piece is experience, and that's people's experience with the worker, work product. And what we found in our research is that the reason experience matters so much is because it impacts future productivity. And so if you're doing those other things, you know, just paying attention to the milestones you're working towards and and the use and things, but you're ignoring experience, then you may be negatively impacting future productivity for the short term. So it's important to keep a Yeah, keep looking at experience as well, which is the team's experience, so maybe your customers experience or another, another team or department within your organization, for example.

So in terms of experience, then, is it about the is it more about the experience as deliverables or outcomes are being created, or is it also about the experience, you know, with the outcome? Or is it a little, yeah, that's a good question. I guess both. I think it's in general, kind of the experience that people are having. So I would say, you know, as a team, is working towards creating some deliverable or working on, you know, some initiative or program. What's, you know, what's their experience? And because that obviously matters for future productivity, because if they have a bad experience, they may not stay at the organization. There's going to be retention problems, and maybe it's not much effort in the future and things. And so you know it matters for the team,

and it might matter you know for your customer what their experience was with whatever you created for them, because it's going to make, you know, sales or referrals easier down the road, you know, for your supplier, maybe, you know, their experience working with you, because if they have a great experience, you know, working with you, then they might be more likely to kind of go that extra mile for you in the future, if you you need some some product, you know, to create something in the future. And so I think it's in general, just people's experience with with the team

and and what's being created. But I think it's heavily on the on the people as well.

Thanks. So how, how can folks apply this, this framework? So if we've got these three things, what can we be doing to, you know, support, better productivity and all in those three areas in our organizations. Yeah, well, I think the first step is to start using this formula and this definition to describe and talk about productivity in your organizations and with your teams, because right now, there isn't a definition, and so people are kind of throwing around this where, like, oh, we need to be more productive, or we're not. Productive, or we're not being productive, or you're not being productive, but we're not actually defining what that means. And so because of that, people aren't really having real conversations about productivity, and there's a lot of confusion, and there's a lot of mixed messages happening in organizations right now. So I think that's the first step, is actually starting to talk about productivity using this formula or this framework, because it enables people to actually talk about what real productive work even is. So I think that's a starting point. And then I think it's looking at productivity of your team or your organization or even yourself, and thinking about when I evaluate how productive I am. You know, it's not just about kind of the busyness. It's not just about, you know, how much I've gotten done. It is more about thinking about these three dimensions. And so, you know, am I making forward progress towards the goals that matter?

Are people actually engaging with what I'm creating, and if not, what's preventing that? And then, you know, what is the experience of everybody, including myself, in the work that I'm doing? Because all of that's going to impact the future productivity as well. So I think it's actually beginning to use the new framework to talk about productivity in this way. And then, if you're trying to increase productivity, you know, understand where, you know, what parts of those dimensions maybe is not as strong as it could be. And then thinking about, from a resource perspective, are you directing the resources that your organization or your team has to really increase that productivity? So if you're you know, if it's experience that's that's not going as well, or if it's the.

A forward progress towards schools that's not going as well. How can you direct the resources you have, time, energy, money, towards the investments that will help increase those wonderful Yeah, I mean, I think the assessment piece of it is really interesting. And if I I was just sort of kind of thinking about my own work and work with clients that, you know, I think we have so many tools that measure, sometimes that forward progress, but the other two elements aren't as

Yeah, aren't as easy to measure, aren't as apparent, or they're happening when we've moved on to something else. For a lot of people, right? You know, did the outcome make a difference? Well, I'm already three projects ahead. What does it? You know, nobody's really looking at that. So that's that's really, really interesting. So one of the connections, of course, I saw for my work was that, you know, you identified strong project management as a characteristic of productive teams. And so could you talk a little bit more about what you found and why that was included? Yeah, yeah, that was a really big theme. And it definitely did come out that one of the kind of top six characteristics that we that we heard during the interviews we conducted of productive teams, of the most productive teams was was strong project management. And it was interesting that the way this often played out in the conversations we had is that it was often kind of, you know, one individual within a team who had really strong project management. That was that individual would share that with the team. It would become the norms of just how they operated. Other people would learn, you know, how to apply strong project management to the work. And that just became how they how they did things. It became kind of what good looked like for that team. And so everybody would then apply those same processes or techniques to the work they did. And it was just kind of how, you know what was expected. So that definitely came out as a strong theme, I think some other areas where it came out as even some of the other characteristics of very productive teams is related to project management. I know you're an expert in this, Jami, the things about, you know, having clear roles and responsibilities, or having that collaboration,

you know, all of those types of things that the communication. You know, things that project management really helps with,

all of those are aspects of productive teams and even thinking about the framework honestly too. You know, if you think about obviously, kind of forward movement towards goals and objectives, if you don't have goals and objectives, if that's not clear, how can you know if you're moving towards them? So that's an important aspect there.

I think you know the experience piece. You know a good project manager helps people have a much better experience as well. It comes out there and making sure that you know what's being created is actually used. So I think project management is super, super critical to all of this, and it definitely came out in the interviews. Yeah, that's really great to to hear, because I often think, you know, people often think of project management more as just sort of monitoring timelines, but it really is much, much broader than that, particularly when done well, you know, I often talk about it in terms of facilitating collaboration. And so, yeah, that forward movement, that experience

and and thinking about outcome, you know, what are the outcomes? What are we actually moving toward? If we're moving but we're not actually going anywhere, or we're not going anywhere we actually want to go, or that people are going to be happy with. And, you know, kind of what's, what's the point? But, yeah, so I was excited to see that. Obviously, I'm biased, and I think project management is is really important and useful and can help in so many ways. And so it was really great to see that. So what would you say? You know, I you have the report on all of this, but what's the best way for folks to kind of reach out to you get access to the results and the report that you've created? Yeah, absolutely. So it is on our website. So you can go to our website, which is paradox, CP for consulting partners.com, and you can access the full report there. You can certainly reach out to us through the website as well. You know, I'm on there, so you can certainly reach out to me, but that's probably the best way to to get access to the report. Wonderful. Yeah. And we can put the link, kind of in the comments after we're done here it Do you have?

Do you have plans to, kind of do additional research to do more with this? So I'm just curious about the next Yeah, that's a great question. So you know, when I started writing this, I would be interested in the turning it into a book, so I haven't 100% committed to that yet, but I, I.

To get the paper out there and the research out there and start sharing it with people and see what the what the reaction was. And so far, it's been a really good reaction. I think that it's a, it's a different way to think about productivity, and I think is really, really needed right now. So, so that's, that's a possible that, you know, it may, it might end up being a book down the road. Well, that would be great to see. I do think it's,

you know, productivity is one of those things where, particularly with kind of work from home and return to off. You often hear about that. And I do think people don't that not having a clear definition. And sometimes I think some folks are thinking about one of those areas of the framework and not the other, the other two. So I think it's obviously a really timely topic, so hopefully that works out for you. Well, wonderful. Thank you so much, Emma, it's been great talking with you. I appreciate your time, and thanks everybody for joining us today or watching the recording, and if you would like to learn more, if you would like to know what, what else we're going to be talking about in our next impactful projects and planning, you can go to YazdaniConsultingandFacilitation.com/IPP

Alright, wonderful. Thanks. Bye.