The Quiet Art of True Productivity

A productive-focused mind works best on its own deadlines. The over-the-top excessive / destructive stress is anything added to that. And yet newer managers, and those older ones who have learned little, believe that imposing ever tighter deadlines and pushing employees for ever greater production is in fact the job of management. They take pride in such injuries to solid work. It takes a bit of maturity to understand that the toughest task master is buried deep within each of us. And the great manager helps us develop a healthy relationship with that inner task master, while eliminating all external barriers and inefficiencies.

This truth has been recognized for centuries. In The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith observed:

> “This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and, lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.”

—Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter 1

Smith’s core idea: Productivity grows not from harder pushing, but from better organization, specialization, and the intelligent use of tools.

Nearly two centuries later, W. Edwards Deming distilled the same insight into modern management terms:

> “Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and process rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better.”

—W. Edwards Deming, quoted in Out of the Crisis (1986)

Deming’s core idea: The manager’s role is to improve systems so people can excel, not to intensify pressure on individuals.

Together, these perspectives form a single, timeless principle: effective managers amplify what people can do by designing environments where their natural drive can flourish unimpeded. The best leaders make performance and progress  visible, and remove friction, waste, and fear—trusting that, when the path is clear, the “inner task master” each of us carries will take care of the rest.

This is not only how sustainable change is produced, but also how great organizations are built. 

And time and history have proven the truth of this over and over again.

Take any two managers each with the same number of employees. In the course of a year one of these managers, without having pushed the hands that work under them at all, will have produced much more work, better results, sustainably, reliably, of higher quality, with greater patient satisfaction, higher morale and retention than the other.