Stop Treating R&D as a Luxury

You agree with the general concept of having new products and services to offer your customers. After all, a company that relies on stale stuff is likely to fail. But how do you put together an effective R&D plan when budgets are limited?

It sounds like something only the biggest companies overseas do. Most think that “Research and Development” are two luxury items to be indulged in when times are good. And Jamaica’s economy has not shown sustained GDP growth in years.

But what if R&D is just a fancy name for innovations you cannot afford to delay? Sadly, some only realise this in retrospect. Today, they are out of business because they failed to abandon old, obsolete thinking. How can your firm ensure that it doesn’t destroy value because it’s too slow to learn?

  1. Be Hyper-Curious About the End

Most of us remember when videotape rental companies did a booming business. To most, this appeared to be a great niche, with guaranteed traffic every weekend.

I happened to live in the US when Netflix arrived, offering the chance to rent a DVD by mail. Initially, it was inconvenient to send items through the post. Compared to renting a video from Blockbuster, it took longer and stuff could get lost.

Apparently Netflix agreed and tried to sell itself to Blockbuster…who literally laughed as they left in embarrassment.

A few years later, after they closed 9,000 stores, the smiles were replaced by tears.

In retrospect, it was all very obvious to see what was happening. Today, we shake our heads at their arrogance in disbelief. But are you committing the same mistake in your organisation?

If you accept the fact that it’s just a matter of time before your industry is disrupted, congratulations. You are ahead of the game. Consider that, in your company, a short-term plan, by itself, may not go far enough to show that the clock is ticking.

If you are really curious, you should have a plan for exiting each major line of business. Create a deadline date: the moment when you intend to earn your last dollar from the pertinent product or service.

Alongside this doomsday prediction should be a plan to launch a new category of product or service. Where should these timelines come from? Your long-term R&D plan, of course.

For example, immediately after making a record year of profits in 2000, Fuji Film’s research showed it had a 10-15-year end-game. Kodak also had fantastic sales, but was never curious enough about the future to take the right actions. Consequently, Fuji thrives in a whole different industry. Kodak is just a single tiny business, having destroyed an estimated US$9 billion of value.

  1. Allow Competing Alternatives in Your Planning

How should your company determine these choices?

In your next strategic planning session, ensure that you permit attendees to propose various visions of the future. (If team-members share the same age, gender and background, consider that to be an impediment.)

You want different points of view to emerge for your “Vision 2040”, for example. First, make sure you are all starting with the same facts. Then, invite advocates to describe their preferred future. Even if it makes others uncomfortable. Get them to share details as they paint a vivid picture and draw fellow participants in to expand it.

Do not squelch your colleagues.

When you have a number of candidate futures, stand back collectively and assess them, because it’s time to choose which one(s) to pursue.

In this moment of truth, you should be scared witless. Why? You could easily and unwittingly fall into the path of more videotapes. Or film.

In other words, you could doom your company. Or save it. Agonize if you will, but understand that your decision cannot easily be reversed. It’s just not the kind of choice that can be revisited whenever the breeze changes direction.

  1. Decide and kill off alternatives

Instead, treat this moment of selection as a final verdict which will assign time, money, manpower and other corporate resources. You are making a bet which has an unsure outcome, but understand that the team must be willing to stand by its selection.

However, this means that if major assumptions change, then it’s your duty to revisit the plan. But this should be rare.

Blackberry needed to do this when the iPhone turned out to be a serious threat, for example. Only a dose of humility would have saved it from obsolescence.

Unfortunately, this advice isn’t easy to take. Most shy away from the kind of hard conversations required until it’s too late.

Don’t disappoint your shareholders, employees, suppliers, pensioners, and other stakeholders by being slow or cowardly. Instead, make the difference by investing in your organisation’s future.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.

Planning for Profits vs. People vs. Purpose

How to Be Selfish in Your Strategic Planning without Gouging the Planet

Like most other business-people, you have almost given up on the task of combining short-term and long-term strategic planning.


It’s not that you don’t believe in it at some level. You acknowledge there is value in thinking expansively and inspiring others with BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).


At the same time, things are changing too fast nowadays. You can barely find time to focus on solving short-term problems, let alone anything pie-in-the-sky.


But what if the popular conventional wisdom, that long-term strategic planning is dead, is wrong?


What if there were huge gains to be made in the following areas from an interwoven short/long-term approach?


Area 1 – gaining competitive advantage by planning for horizons just a bit longer than others. (Amazon)
Area 2 – inspiring staff with commitments that create an irresistible future. (Unilever)
Area 3 – becoming a sustainable organization that takes care of its own, organic ESG concerns first. (CVS)


These areas could be the keys to unblocking multiple goals at once, while bypassing the worst tendency of companies to fall into short-termism.


In this webinar, you’ll be exposed to a practical method of doing interwoven short/long-term strategic planning. You’ll find out how to invest two or three days (rather than weeks) in a way that returns game-changing results. But maybe most importantly, you’ll be well-informed.


Register today.
Time: Thursday March 30 2023, 12:30pm Eastern
Join Francis Wade, two-decade veteran of 50+ interwoven short/long-term strategic planning retreats in this one-hour introduction.
NB – Space is limited

Planning for Profits vs. People vs. Purpose

You need to add a widget, row, or prebuilt layout before you’ll see anything here. 🙂

Like most other business-people, you have almost given up on the task of combining short-term and long-term strategic planning.


It’s not that you don’t believe in it at some level. You acknowledge there is value in thinking expansively and inspiring others with BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).


At the same time, things are changing too fast nowadays. You can barely find time to focus on solving short-term problems, let alone anything pie-in-the-sky.


But what if the popular conventional wisdom, that long-term strategic planning is dead, is wrong?


What if there were huge gains to be made in the following areas from an interwoven short/long-term approach?


Area 1 – gaining competitive advantage by planning for horizons just a bit longer than others. (Amazon)
Area 2 – inspiring staff with commitments that create an irresistible future. (Unilever)
Area 3 – becoming a sustainable organization that takes care of its own, organic ESG concerns first. (CVS)


These areas could be the keys to unblocking multiple goals at once, while bypassing the worst tendency of companies to fall into short-termism.


In this webinar, you’ll be exposed to a practical method of doing interwoven short/long-term strategic planning. You’ll find out how to invest two or three days (rather than weeks) in a way that returns game-changing results. But maybe most importantly, you’ll be well-informed.


Register today.
Time: Thursday March 30, 2023, 12:30pm Eastern
Join Francis Wade, two-decade veteran of 50+ interwoven short/long-term strategic planning retreats in this one-hour introduction.
NB – Space is limited

Personal Productivity Glossary of Terms: Why Is Personal Productivity Terminology Sometimes Confusing? (Part 1)

Today, the ProductivityCast team talks about terminology, that is, what are the terms that we use in the personal productivity space? And why is there so much confusion around those particular words that we use? (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/140 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Why Is Personal Productivity Terminology Sometimes Confusing? from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Why Is Personal Productivity Terminology Sometimes Confusing? Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Why Is Personal Productivity Terminology Sometimes Confusing? Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Raw Text Transcript | Why Is Personal Productivity Terminology Sometimes Confusing? Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode. Today, we are going to be talking about terminology. That is, what are the terms that we use in the personal productivity world, and really, why there is so much confusion around those particular words that we use the importance of them. And then we'll talk about some of the terms that we all have defined over time. Some words, we've created some terms, or phrases we've created, and why. And then, of course, what we can do to make this a little bit more useful for everybody. And so let's start off with why is this important? What's the importance of the productivity terminology, the personal productivity, terminology that we use every day, Augusto Pinaud 1:11when, when I begin working into personal productivity and researching into practice, personal productivity, one of the things that surprised me was the definition that most people have off time. Mostly because the definition has nothing to do with time and everything to do with scarcity. Actually, if you pull a dictionary, the definition that most people have of time is actually the definition of viscosity. So as you look and begin from the wrong definition, to build personal productivity, the only thing you can do is build a rock model. You know, when you start with wrong assumptions, it's hard to build something that actually works. And that works for you. And that is the problem. And that happened was so many of the definitions plus invented work that some experts for color in some way are so people who study to spend time and study and decide to create to define things that it makes sense on the sale of the book that they're trying to do, but not necessarily on the definitions that people manage. And all that create. Over the long term is confusion. Francis Wade 2:28I think it's an unavoidable confusion because we are talking about psychological objects, not physical objects.

Creating the Future

Have some people in your company become reaction-machines? In other words, do they run around all day responding to the latest crisis? Deep down, you know they are inefficient, but what can you do to shift to a culture in which the future is created rather than feared?

There is a debate raging within C-suites about the way companies should be led. Some believe that the world has become more VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.) As such, it’s not possible to plan for the future.

Instead, all you can do is react to the latest disruption. And if you have any energy left over, look ahead…but only for no more than five years. COVID has made this opinion popular.

But I think it’s an excuse.

The opposing point of view is that individuals and companies need a vision of the future.

If you believe in the latter, and prefer to create the future, here are ways to persuade others who feel the activity is a waste of time.

1) You can’t stop creating the future

Fact: in any company, the leadership team is always shaping the future. It may be disjointed, muddled, and hidden from view, but there is a destination being realised with every decision. This can’t be helped.

The only question is, is it being done well or badly?

In essence, a future being realised badly is one that lacks definition, so no-one can put words to it. In fact, two managers might say opposite things when asked. “Survival” may be the only commitment they have in common.

So it’s a free-for-all, with some people playing football while the rest are playing cricket.

As such, there’s a lot of drama, with balls flying everywhere. At the end of the day, when everyone is exhausted, the action stops. Some balls will be near the boundary, others lie in the back of nets, but no-one can tell the score.

Consequently, when good employees sense that the vision is poorly defined, they leave.

2) Things will always change

Another excuse given to avoid planning for the future is that conditions alter too often. Why create another disappointment? Instead, desist from planning because it would only add to a string of prior letdowns.

I think our experience in Jamaica with Vision 2030 is instructive: a country which is “the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business.” Even though governments have changed, and mishaps have occurred, it remains a single point of focus for our citizens.

Even though we have much to accomplish with limited time left, the reality is that it is still our shared goal…whatever comes to pass.

This puts things in perspective, and allows us to lift ourselves from the most recent shooting, drought or political conflict. As a leader, you can also give your workers a sense of purpose.

They need not surrender to the latest drama unfolding in their email inbox.

3) You don’t know how

But perhaps the most salient reason companies get stuck in the short-term is that long-term planning is too hard. It takes too long.

Furthermore, they see the end-product as overly detailed and rigid.

In my firm, we recently began a study of 50 past long-term strategic planning retreats. Based on two decades of experience, I am able to declare that the old point of view is outdated. Fortunately, both short and long-term strategies may be completed together in a few days.

This means that with the right skills, there should be no obstacles.

But don’t take my word for it. Chances are, you belong to an organisation which does not have a 15 to 30-year strategic plan. It could be your place of work, church you attend, or even an alumni group.

Make this practical – gather people together in a meeting to create a big vision, and a multi-year strategy to underpin it. As you engage in the process, follow the steps outlined in my Gleaner columns from February 5, 2023, and November 3, 2019 as guides.

Remember that the point is to inspire your team with the possibility of a breakthrough result.

This exercise will take you one step closer and help reverse the myth that life today is more uncertain than ever. It’s not true. In fact, the end of World War II was more hectic, but it led to the creation of a number of long-term institutions such as the United Nations and World Bank.

Our challenges in 2023 pale in comparison. Take practical steps to give your organisations an inspiring future today. Don’t hold back because you are scared or misinformed.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.

ProductivityCast – Subjective versus Objective Time

In this week’s episode, the ProductivityCast team debated subjective versus objective time as commentary on the article, “My Fixation on Time Management Almost Broke Me.”Thanks to Brian C. for the recommended reading! (See https://www.personalproductivity.club/posts/14785370.) (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/139 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing ProductivityCast - Subjective versus Objective Time from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | ProductivityCast - Subjective versus Objective Time Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | ProductivityCast - Subjective versus Objective Time Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Is Time Management Really “Real”, Or Is It Just a Misnomer? | by Francis Wade | 2Time Labs | Medium Victim Mentality: Causes, Symptoms, and More The Impact of Temporal Schemata: Understanding When Individuals Entrain Versus Resist or Create Temporal Structure | Academy of Management Review  Ramit Sethi The R Project for Statistical Computing  Raw Text Transcript | ProductivityCast - Subjective versus Objective Time Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to ProductivityCast. Welcome to our listeners. Today, we are going to be talking about objective versus subjective time. And we will be trying to objectively thinking about whether or not it actually even exists. So, for instance, do you want to open this up with regard to this article. So basically, this is an article from hbr.org. And actually, Brian Clark in personal productivity club had brought this to my attention. And the article is my fixation on time management almost broke me by Abby J. Ship. She is a PhD researcher at Texas Christian University. And she has a PhD in organizational behavior from University of North Carolina. And so her research focuses on the subjective and psychological experience of time, including what she's quoting here as the trajectories of work experiences fit satisfaction and burnout, for example, and the nature of mental time travel and attention, and how individual views of time impact performance, well being and coordination in organizations. And so very interesting area of research that she does. Francis, can you open us up in terms of what Dr. Ship talks about? In this article? Francis Wade 1:36The topic of the article is my fixation on time management almost broke me. So it's a bit click Beatty, in the sense that you're thinking that she's talking about what everyone is talking about the respect to time management. But those of us who are in the know, you know, that you probably would want to what version of time management is she talking about? And how did it break her.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All – ProductivityCast Live

Today, we’re releasing this episode which was recording live at the Task Management & Time Blocking Summit 2023 stage. The theme of the conference is “One Size Doesn’t Fit All” and so the ProductivityCast team spent time discussing in front of the live audience what our thoughts are on challenges of one-size-fits-all and some thoughts of solving for it. Enjoy! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/138 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing One Size Doesn’t Fit All - ProductivityCast Live from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | One Size Doesn’t Fit All - ProductivityCast Live Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | One Size Doesn’t Fit All - ProductivityCast Live Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Remember the Milk CrossPlatform podcast Raw Text Transcript | One Size Doesn’t Fit All - ProductivityCast Live Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and a Gousto pinout with Francis Wade and art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:24And Art Gelwicks is with us somewhere in spirit. But he'll be back hopefully, and with us shortly. Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to you all, listening, live, watching live or listening after the fact to the podcast feed. We are here live at the task management and time blocking virtual summit 2023. And the theme for this summit is one size doesn't fit all. And what Francis kind of positioned us to do here on this episode was to talk about really the the ideas behind what does one size fits all mean? Does it really make a difference in our productivity? Can we think about this in a more, I think fluid and dynamic way. And I'm going to play devil's advocate a little bit in this Episode Episode to talk about really the, the fine line between efficiency and effectiveness, when we think about one size fits all methods, tools, and otherwise. And so what do we want to get started here, let's let's talk about one size fits all being a problem, because we're consistently trying to do more. And as Francis talks about task volume, for instance, do you want to kind of talk to us about the number of projects and commitments that you typically talk about with regard to how one size fit all one size fits all really becomes a problem for folks, when they're attempting to do more and more Francis Wade 1:48Sure, is that we're greedy. It's, we fill our we fill our plates in terms of capacity. So we do as much as we can do, and we grow as much as we can grow. And when we get to a particular level, we still want more. So even if we pick up a new app and learn some new techniques and become more productive, because we can manage more tasks, eventually, or capacity runs out, because we just keep adding more tasks, we're really until eventually, we coupled and start to experience problems all over again, it's just human nature,

Hyper-Scheduling: Commentary on MacSparky’s Granular Time Blocking Method

In a post entitled, Hyper-Scheduling, David Sparks (a/k/a MacSparky) writes about his method of time blocking on a granular level. This week, the ProductivityCast team provides their commentary, challenges and methods on this concept of hyper-scheduling, which will hopefully spark ideas on how you can better manage your time-based work. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/137 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Hyper-Scheduling: Commentary on MacSparky's Granular Time Blocking Method from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Hyper-Scheduling: Commentary on MacSparky's Granular Time Blocking Method Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Hyper-Scheduling: Commentary on MacSparky's Granular Time Blocking Method Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Hyper-scheduling - MacSparky  Unschedule How to Use the Unschedule - Video Tutorial  Google Assistant Time-Based Actions: Events - https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/7678386?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid Reminders - https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/9387035?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid Timers - https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7028899?hl=en Raw Text Transcript | Hyper-Scheduling: Commentary on MacSparky's Granular Time Blocking Method Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to our listeners to this episode, today, we are going to be talking about the calendar and really how to utilize the calendar to be more effective, really related to David Sparks. And some of you may know him as Mac Sparky at macsparky.com and the Mac Power Users podcast, he has been writing about something that he calls hyper-scheduling since 2018. And I thought we would actually tackle this topic in terms of just covering what he is really talking about in his series of articles around this. And so in 2018, he wrote this article that he said he was experimenting over the last month, in essence doing more deliberate scheduling of his time. And so really, what it looks like is a an explanation of what is time blocking the idea of being able to put blocks of time in your schedule. In his particular case, he's calling it hyper-scheduling, I believe, because he is identifying more granular times where he's doing things. So instead of say, large swaths of time for the day, he's putting smaller and smaller blocks of time in the calendar for particular activities. And he defines various blocks. And he gives you the opportunity to be able to think about your own world in terms of what those smaller, more granular blocks could be, for purposes of having a schedule that you can fall in line with, as you make your way through the day.

How to Connect Two Different Generations at Work

As someone born before 1988, you have noticed that newer staff in your company are acting and thinking differently. You suspect it may just be an expected generation gap, but now something seems to have shifted.

You conclude, new technology is powering the younger generation to change norms at an unprecedented rate. But how?

Among the many explanations of this transformation, the one by The Category Pirates stands out. In their books and newsletters on marketing, they offer a refreshing take.

According to them, the world is now divided between Native Analogs and Native Digitals. Here is a definition of the two groups, followed by ways to bridge the gap.

1. Native Analogs

These are over 35 years of age, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers who were born and grew up in a world of relatively limited technology. They remember the first computer they ever saw, and their first email address on the “world wide web”.

Also, when their land-based phones rang, they ran to answer them. Television, radio and cinema screens played primary roles in their entertainment.

In the workplace, many have adapted to a digital reality. However, their primary experience is live and in-person. Consequently, executives from this era don’t question the need for employees to return to the office post-COVID. After all, it’s obvious: this is how real work takes place.

Unfortunately, a return to a single physical location isn’t for everyone. To some Native Analogs, staff who resist the mandate are probably being lazy. Or wilfully ignorant of the historical fact that the company’s success was built on face-to-face contact which Zoom can never replicate.

Their reluctance to confront this reality is thought to be born of slackness. They need more discipline if they hope to be successful.

But what if that explanation so accepted by Native Analogs only makes sense in their world? The Category Pirates offer a revolutionary answer: there is another world which has arisen that Native Analogs cannot comprehend without effort.

  1. Native Digitals

According to the Pirates, Native Digitals represent a new category of human being. Because it’s being birthed in the open, the older generation is missing its significance.

The Pirates posit that this new generation is not “physical first, digital later” but the opposite…”digital first, physical later”. In other words, their primary reality is not physical, but digital.

About a decade ago, I once met a diaper-clad toddler playing with a tablet. After a few minutes, he set it aside to do something on the PC. The fact that the child could barely talk was a shock. How could this be happening?

Obviously, such an immersion in the digital world would have an impact on the individual. But the Pirates explain that this is a generational shift. Today’s Native Digitals tour the foreign physical world, so they can bring their experiences back to share in their online world.

As such, in the US 58% of workers say they would “absolutely” look for a new job if they had to return to the office. And Jamaican companies complain that they can’t find employees.

As a young Kingstonian explained to me, “I quit my local face-to-face job to work remotely for a company in California.”

Apparently, a traditional analog position is what you take when nothing else is available on Linkedin. Instead of rising the corporate ladder, the new generation wants an independent income from a place like YouTube. You can expect them to leave your organization as soon as they believe it’s within their grasp.

But this is more than a change in work preferences. Native Digitals increasingly buy products, services, experiences and transformations in their digital lives instead of their analog lives. Their choices are transforming all kinds of industries at scale. For example, remember when Jamaica had a cinema in every town, rather than one on each mobile screen?

  1. Adapting to the Change

If there truly is a new category of human emerging, we need to pay attention. This happens only once per few hundred years. But more importantly, the future of your business may be at stake.

At the moment, some 62% of managers are millennials and that number is steadily increasing. At some stage, it will hit a tipping point.

Unfortunately, we Jamaicans like to mentor downwards to younger people still paying their dues. As a result, we suppress young talent to hide old ignorance and incompetence. Obviously, that approach won’t succeed.

A better path is to find some Native Digitals to work with, if you are a Native Analog. And the opposite is also true. Neither side has a complete picture, but working together could predict your company’s success, or even its survival.

Move Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Productivity

You have a serious concern for your personal productivity. It’s annoying to realise moments where you could have done things more efficiently. Why? You are someone who hates to see time being wasted. But when you reach out for help, all you receive is “foreign” advice, far removed from your experience.

At this point, most of us throw up our hands in frustration. I certainly did when I moved back to Jamaica in 2005. I quickly realised that much of what I had learned about being productive didn’t work locally.

It was humbling.

As a teacher of time management programs, I thought I knew a thing or two. Instead, I was struggling to apply a formula I had used for over 20 years of professional life in the USA.

But I decided that I should find an expert to understand my new situation. If there was a “Personal Productivity in Developing Countries” book, I required it.

After searches on Google and Amazon, I gave up. So I tried searching “War Zone Time Management”. Nothing there either.

But what I wanted seemed obvious to me. I needed to manage my task-load productively in ways that fit my hectic circumstances. And culture. This meant I could not simply mimic what experts in New York or London were doing.

Therefore, I had to dig deeper for some answers. Here are the main findings which became part of my second book, Perfect Time-Based Productivity, and today shows up in training and conferences.

Finding #1 – We teach ourselves the art of task management…but haphazardly.

We all know we learn how to run at an early age. However, it’s not the sprinting Usain and Shelly-Ann practice as professionals. That has to be learned, which means that several habits must be unlearned.

The same applies to task management. After we are shown the concept of time as eight-year-olds, we begin to create tasks. At the start, it’s mostly a memory game.

Finding #2 – Challenges to Becoming Better

Improving your skills in this area isn’t easy. Unlearning old habits is hard, and this topic is just not taught in school. Instead, it’s sink or swim for students.

Also, task management is not an occasional obligation. Unlike sprinting, you are doing it all the time, every single day. Therefore, you just cannot pause to step back and reflect in order to improve. You must develop while you are executing.

Furthermore, this isn’t an optional activity. We are required to use one technique or another so we can be fully functional adults. The only question is, at what level will we perform? And should we do so consciously or not?

Finally, if you have a knowledge worker’s role, you must adopt digital technology. The most common are email and WhatsApp. Some also employ task management software, perhaps supplemented by paper – the most ordinary technology of all.

This all makes the job of becoming a better task manager hard. In this case, being smart or experienced doesn’t help. The playing field is level and anyone can ascend to greater heights with the right knowledge.

Finding #3 – The Key to Improvement is Not a Guru

While great sprinters need coaches, you probably don’t have one for your task management. Therefore, you must mimic what they do and become an expert at diagnosing your current performance in this area.

The best place to start is with the defects – moments when you notice a problem which indicates you have fallen below your desired standard.

For example, each time you forget a task, find yourself late, lose track of an email message or feel overwhelmed…these are all helpful signs that your system has broken down. To determine the best solutions, you need to engage in conscious self-diagnosis.

Do so with the leading tools available. Some are described in my book, but there are self-diagnostic tools offered in workshops, webinars and articles. Their intent is to help you get to the source, so that you can fix problems and effect improvements.

Unfortunately, most of us are satisfied way too early. We look around at others in the office and decide what the average performance might be. Then we set our aspirations accordingly. We end up being mediocre.

However, if you are committed to world-class achievement, there is a lot to choose from. While local role models may be hard to find, they should also be envisioned from case studies. They’ll assist you in departing from one-size-fits-all answers to crafting custom solutions.

In summary, unlike the mid 2000s when I returned to Jamaica, this challenge can be met. “Jamaican Productivity” need not be an embarrassing joke. We are faster on the track than anyone in the world, and can also become just as individually effective.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.