An ancient Chinese proverb reads: “ If you want a year of prosperity, grow grains; if you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees; if you want a hundred years of prosperity, grow people. " Ancient wisdom that does not go out of style…
Although it is true that, at all times, productivity at work (understood as a result of the relationship between production and the means employed) has taken the dream of committed managers and collaborators from sleep, this obsession reached a truly scientific rigor in the 1960s, when a revolution called QUALITY began to take place in Japan that gradually conquered the markets, forcing companies around the globe to align or die.
Edward Yourdon, global guru of information technologies, in his research to reconcile productivity and process automation, brilliantly clarified the fundamental variables that make up this aspect, stating:
“ The human factor is a critical part of the triangle of productivity. Good tools increase productivity by 30 percent, good processes can increase productivity by 50 percent; but the best people are 10 to 20 times more productive than the average... »
Thus, the good tools would be the "hard" inputs that intervene in all productive activities of goods and services: machinery, equipment, materials, etc.
Good processes, on the other hand, are understood as the effective methods to achieve the expected results.
However, what does Yourdon mean when he talks about "good people"?
The answer can be found in modern competency theory, which defines a " competent person " as someone who effectively combines knowledge, skills and attitudes towards the task; given the fact that there are people who want and cannot do things well due to lack of knowledge or skills, and there are others who can and do not want, even when they have these capabilities.
This is evident from all points of view, because the human factor, due to its condition and the possibility of combining knowledge, individual capacities, skills, experience and inventiveness, is the only one that can set in motion the other resources, which without it remain inert.
Along these same lines, William Ouchi, with his Z Theory, since 1981 confirms that productivity is much more a matter of people management than of technology or other factors.
However, it is not only about having good people, but also creating the conditions for them to unleash their full potential.
In our days and at the operational level, The Great Place To Work Institute has objectively revalidated, through surveys of collaborators worldwide, the very close relationship between economic growth and the generation of working conditions so that people can produce at levels never seen before.
What occurs at the microeconomic level is also reflected at the macroeconomic level, since multiple investigations conclude that there is clear evidence that both the educational level of the population and the investment effort in R&D activities are important determinants. of the rate of technical progress.
Finally, the field evidence indicates that, although investment in human capital can, at times, be used by workers as the basis of individual productivity; It is also true that the increase in human capital is directly and positively related to the increase in company productivity.
This somehow justifies that people, organizations and States dedicate an important part of their budget to increasing the educational level, since an adequate combination of people's educational level together with significant effort in tools and methods seem to be the most important determinants of the growth of a country.
For now, we say goodbye remembering an ancient Chinese proverb that has not lost its validity:
«If you want a year of prosperity, grow grains;
if you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees;
if you want a hundred years of prosperity, grow people »
