How communication, participation and responsibility can turn productivity management into a movement
By Carsten Knappe-Finger
Productivity is one of the most frequently discussed objectives in business. Companies launch improvement programmes, define targets, establish reporting systems and measure performance indicators. Management expects results. Employees are expected to deliver them.
And yet many productivity initiatives achieve far less than originally anticipated. The problem is not necessarily a lack of methods, data or expertise. Often, productivity is treated as a management instruction rather than a collective responsibility. People are told what must improve. They are rarely given a convincing reason to become personally involved.
But productivity cannot simply be ordered from the top.
Productivity Is Not a Spreadsheet
During more than 30 years in international industrial business, I experienced numerous approaches to improving operational performance. Most had one thing in common: they were technically sound. Their weaknesses were often organisational.
Targets were defined, measures documented and progress reported. But the people expected to make the improvements happen did not always feel that the programme belonged to them. An initiative can be perfectly designed and still fail to generate the energy needed for sustained implementation.
Employees do not become more productive simply because a new performance indicator appears on a dashboard. They need to understand what the organisation wants to achieve, how they can contribute and why their contribution matters.
When Communication Became the Starting Point
One of the most remarkable experiences of my professional career was an international productivity initiative called PUMA. The name represented four economic dimensions: Productivity, Revenue, Material and Assets. The objective was straightforward: improve business performance through coordinated measures across these areas.
But the decisive question was not how to calculate productivity. It was how to involve people across an international industrial organisation. We therefore developed a communication initiative called PUMA BOOST.
Communication was the original idea. We wanted to make the programme visible, understandable and accessible beyond the traditional management hierarchy. What followed went considerably further than conventional internal communication.
An international World Tour brought the programme to different locations. A network of local coordinators connected the central initiative with operational reality. Media activities communicated progress and achievements. Local Living encouraged participation at individual sites, while the Boost Award recognised successful contributions. Each World Tour location had its own Local Hero, connecting the overall programme with local identity.
These were not substitutes for economic measures. They were instruments for making those measures meaningful to the people expected to implement them.
Enthusiasm Was Not the Plan
Something happened that had not been defined as an original programme objective: people became enthusiastic. The initiative gained visibility, local activities developed their own momentum and employees began to identify with the programme.
This was not the result of motivational speeches or management slogans. It developed because communication created opportunities for participation, recognition and responsibility. People could see that productivity was not simply another demand from headquarters. It was something they could influence.
Compliance means doing what has been requested. Commitment means taking responsibility for making something better. For productivity management, that difference can be decisive.
The Economic Results Still Matter
Enthusiasm alone does not improve a company’s financial performance. A successful productivity initiative must ultimately demonstrate measurable economic results. Otherwise, even the most popular programme becomes an expensive internal campaign.
PUMA retained a clear focus on its four economic dimensions. The communication activities supported the implementation of operational measures; they did not replace them. The resulting financial contributions were approximately twice those achieved by the preceding productivity programme.
This was an outcome observed in our industrial practice, not a controlled scientific experiment. It would therefore be misleading to attribute the entire improvement to communication alone. Nevertheless, the experience showed how a technically structured programme can gain momentum when communication and participation become integral parts of implementation.
The lesson is not that every organisation needs a World Tour or a special award. It is that productivity management requires more than financial targets and project lists. It requires people who want to make those targets achievable.
Responsibility Changes the Equation
There is a persistent misconception that responsibility must be created through increasingly detailed rules, controls and reporting requirements. My experience suggests a different perspective. Responsibility grows when people understand the purpose of their work, have room to act and can see the consequences of their decisions.
This principle also forms part of my POWER approach to organisational effectiveness: Purpose, Organisation, Wisdom, Execution and Responsibility.
- Purpose provides direction.
- Organisation establishes the conditions for cooperation.
- Wisdom brings practical knowledge and experience into decisions.
- Execution converts ideas into results.
- Responsibility ensures that people take ownership of what they do.
A productivity team can coordinate, measure and support. But actual improvements must happen where value is created.
Less Administration, More Movement
Many productivity programmes become increasingly complicated over time. New reporting requirements are introduced. Additional committees are established. Measures are classified, evaluated and presented. Eventually, administering improvement consumes attention originally intended for improvement itself.
Productivity management should not become a productivity problem.
Management must create the conditions under which employees can identify opportunities, implement improvements and take responsibility for results. That requires clear economic objectives, practical methods and reliable measurement. But it also requires communication that reaches people, not merely their reporting lines.
When Productivity Becomes Everybody’s Business
The most important insight from PUMA BOOST was not that productivity could be made entertaining. It was that communication could change the relationship between an organisation and its improvement programme. A programme that initially belonged to management could become something employees actively supported.
That transformation cannot be guaranteed. It cannot be manufactured through slogans, and it cannot be ordered by a chief executive. But it can be encouraged through openness, involvement, recognition and meaningful responsibility.
The financial objectives, methods and measurements remain essential. What changes is the energy behind them.
Productivity improves when people do more than follow a programme. It becomes powerful when they make the programme their own.
And sometimes, what begins as a productivity initiative becomes something nobody originally planned: a movement.
About the Author
Carsten Knappe-Finger is a German management author and former industrial executive with more than 30 years of experience in international machinery and plant engineering. His work focuses on productivity management, Intelligent Estimating Management (IKM) and the POWER approach to organisational effectiveness.
