Productivity is measured as GDP produced per hour worked. The government says:
Between 1999 and 2008 labour productivity in the Manufacturing sector increased 0.2% per year on average. In comparison, labour productivity for the Canadian Economy increased 2.4% per year.
That growth rate spread is widening as the recession has hit the manufacturing sector so hard that it's productivity is experiencing negative growth.
Economic growth predictions have been scaled back across the OECD from the optimistic outlook of earlier in the year. Canada's dollar is now predicted to continue to rise significantly in the next year. This harsh confluence of circumstances will pinch Canada's manufacturing base like never before. The relative strength of the dollar will ensure job losses to the US and beyond.
Now is the time to invest in some of those powerful canuck bucks in world class new equipment, and make the paradigm shift to Lean. The manufacturing productivity gap is a national crisis, and needs to be treated as such.
Is making things a thing of the past? I say that making things is critical to our economic and physical security.
Many intelligent Canadians believe we are an economy of technical knowledge and services, and the flood of jobs offshore is just a natural consequence of how smart we are, and we in the west will naturally continue to retain our rightful place on top of the heap. (Check out my last post where Andy Grove, founder of Intel describes how this is a false hope.) If you take a look at world wide economic growth rates, emerging economies are outgrowing the west and will continue to do so. Productivity means competitiveness, and right now Canada is being left behind. We need to do something better with our manpower besides dig in the ground for non-renewable resources to sell.
The stimulus budget spending has got us this far. Now leadership needs to take a long view of Canadian competitiveness and aggressively pursue improved productivity in the manufacturing sector.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Save Tech Jobs only with Change
Earlier this year Andy Grove, co-founder of Intel, wrote a very interesting opinion article for Bloomberg "How to make an American Job before it is too late: Andy Grove". It is a must read that puts perspective on how allowing tech manufacturing move off shore is a tactic that will be the continued undoing of job creation in America. I find Andy's perspective compelling. What do you think?
Lean Leaders Help Teams Deal WIth Distractions
"I can't get any work done with all these distractions!" All bosses hear it. Especially in creative functions like design, engineering, R&D. I imagine lawyers, writers, nurses and many other professions could also (along with the rest of us) use reasonable periods of time where they can put 100% of their concentration into their work. In these days where "multitasking" is a "skill", leaders must combat the whittling away of their employee's productivity.
I was reminded of my experience as a leader of a custom engineering/manufacturing company. Designers would complain of having no time to get into their detailed design work. Distractions and interruptions from the floor, suppliers, bosses, meetings, would fragment their time. We found that an hour a day (or less) was a common amount to be spent on a project! Since many of these were design and development projects you can imagine that productivity was not as good as we wanted. We arrived at a good solution by establishing daily "quiet hours". For a period each day the engineering department did not answer phones, emails, attend meetings or entertain other interruptions. They were declared "offline" to the rest of the organization. It turned out to be very effective and was widely respected all coworkers. Psychologically it was important that as a leader I recognized the need for the "quiet time", and by doing so I empowered the people to take charge of their working time themselves.
Google search "Managing Interruptions" and you will get a laundry list of good tips you can pick from. In the end effectively managing interruptions is something that the employee has to take on for themselves as part of their daily interactions. Learning to say "no" to interruptions is a learned communications skill for most of us. Often it is an assertiveness issue as well. It is the job of the boss to recognize what habits the worker needs to change and give them the support they need to make the changes. Empowerment can can be defined as "permission and support from the boss to practice new behaviours in the workplace".
The "One Minute Manager meets the Monkey" is a quick read that gets to the heart of the matter for those ultra-committed souls that habitually take on too much.
Ultimately the boss has to guard his people and their time so they are most productive. Controlling the frequency and length of meetings and easing the difficulty of bureacratic processes are a couple of big ones. Set a good balanced example yourself: get results and have a good life. Send the right message Boss!
Points to ponder....
“After you plant a seed in the ground, you don’t dig it up every week to see how it is doing.”
In his 1975 HBR classic “The Manager’s Job,” Henry Mintzberg wrote: “Someone, only half in jest, once defined the manager as that person who sees visitors so that everyone else can get his work done.”
“Guard against the director’s first great vice—rabbiting on, making the same point again and again, getting laughs from your inimitable (and interminable) anecdotes.”
Say to your employees: “My job is to open the umbrella when the crap rains down from above. Your job is to keep me from having to open it too often.”
"I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting." -Ronald Reagan, 40th president of US (1911 - 2004)
"There is never enough time, unless you're serving it."- Malcolm Forbes
"Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but is also a disruption of thought." Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 - 1860)
Recommended Reads
I was reminded of my experience as a leader of a custom engineering/manufacturing company. Designers would complain of having no time to get into their detailed design work. Distractions and interruptions from the floor, suppliers, bosses, meetings, would fragment their time. We found that an hour a day (or less) was a common amount to be spent on a project! Since many of these were design and development projects you can imagine that productivity was not as good as we wanted. We arrived at a good solution by establishing daily "quiet hours". For a period each day the engineering department did not answer phones, emails, attend meetings or entertain other interruptions. They were declared "offline" to the rest of the organization. It turned out to be very effective and was widely respected all coworkers. Psychologically it was important that as a leader I recognized the need for the "quiet time", and by doing so I empowered the people to take charge of their working time themselves.
Google search "Managing Interruptions" and you will get a laundry list of good tips you can pick from. In the end effectively managing interruptions is something that the employee has to take on for themselves as part of their daily interactions. Learning to say "no" to interruptions is a learned communications skill for most of us. Often it is an assertiveness issue as well. It is the job of the boss to recognize what habits the worker needs to change and give them the support they need to make the changes. Empowerment can can be defined as "permission and support from the boss to practice new behaviours in the workplace".
The "One Minute Manager meets the Monkey" is a quick read that gets to the heart of the matter for those ultra-committed souls that habitually take on too much.
Ultimately the boss has to guard his people and their time so they are most productive. Controlling the frequency and length of meetings and easing the difficulty of bureacratic processes are a couple of big ones. Set a good balanced example yourself: get results and have a good life. Send the right message Boss!
Points to ponder....
“After you plant a seed in the ground, you don’t dig it up every week to see how it is doing.”
In his 1975 HBR classic “The Manager’s Job,” Henry Mintzberg wrote: “Someone, only half in jest, once defined the manager as that person who sees visitors so that everyone else can get his work done.”
“Guard against the director’s first great vice—rabbiting on, making the same point again and again, getting laughs from your inimitable (and interminable) anecdotes.”
Say to your employees: “My job is to open the umbrella when the crap rains down from above. Your job is to keep me from having to open it too often.”
"I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting." -Ronald Reagan, 40th president of US (1911 - 2004)
"There is never enough time, unless you're serving it."- Malcolm Forbes
"Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but is also a disruption of thought." Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 - 1860)
Recommended Reads
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Canada's Stability and Oil wealth driving dollar to US$1.15?
The stability of Canada will become a safe haven for currency investors as capital flows out of the US. We are headed to $1.15 in 12 months according to economist Patricia Croft. This would represent an unprecedented high against the greenback. Whether it gets that high or not hardly matters, as the trend and fundamentals seem to be in place for the dollar taking a quick trip in the upward direction. Declining and low interest rates and looser monetary policies in the US and the industrial world, will flow investors to the C$. No surprise after our banking system came through the crash of 2008 with (relatively) flying colours. Also not surprising as energy prices and supply have made the C$ a petro-currency: no longer driven by the fundamental forces of labour productivity and value-added exports.
A high dollar is good right? Yes it is if the population is employed at something that earns more of them. A high dollar is well known to cheapen imports and push manufacturing, and even services, to off -shore competitors. If our population's productivity and ingenuity did not 'earn' the dollar's increase, and our prosperity exists only because of the world's insatiable demand for non-renewable energy and resources, then we better buckle up for higher unemployment and more McJobs.
Producers in Canada need to adjust faster than ever. In the next 12 months we could see the dollar increase at about 3 times the rate of the magnificent climb we witnessed in the last 8 years. Like never before the time is now.
Greg's Recommended Reading
A high dollar is good right? Yes it is if the population is employed at something that earns more of them. A high dollar is well known to cheapen imports and push manufacturing, and even services, to off -shore competitors. If our population's productivity and ingenuity did not 'earn' the dollar's increase, and our prosperity exists only because of the world's insatiable demand for non-renewable energy and resources, then we better buckle up for higher unemployment and more McJobs.
Producers in Canada need to adjust faster than ever. In the next 12 months we could see the dollar increase at about 3 times the rate of the magnificent climb we witnessed in the last 8 years. Like never before the time is now.
Greg's Recommended Reading
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)