Productivity is a late-blooming concept in human society.
Before the invention of at least conceptually accurate clocks
(mid-13th century in Europe) and the subsequent advent of modern
timekeeping, the notion of productivity in terms of work per unit of time was
mostly unknown.
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| Medieval clock tower |
David Landes, in Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of
the Modern World, points out
that in the late medieval period, “the great virtue was busyness—unremitting
diligence in one’s tasks.”
In today’s workplace, “keeping
busy” is most definitely not the acceptable definition of doing good work and
being productive. As anyone who’s read “Dilbert” recently knows, it’s possible
to stay busy without actually doing anything.
When workers and bosses could
accurately keep track of time, they created an inescapable transformation of
workplace culture. If Hans made six shoes while Jakob made five shoes and
Gretel (with six hungry kids) made four shoes, and Hans could do this
repeatedly during measured time periods that everyone acknowledged, then it was
obvious who was doing more work and thus who was more productive.
That is to say, it was obvious
if each of them had the same training, and each of them had the same access to
raw materials and similar tools, and each of them had the same working
conditions, and if….
Source:
David Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of
the Modern World (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 1983), 25 and passim.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.
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