I don’t know why, but I have worked at many companies that were just amazing with their lack of productivity.
Now this isn’t some overworking, hustle and grind talking I am trying to promote. I am saying that during a typical day, I would be surprised if I saw my coworkers working more than an hour the entire day. I don’t understand that mentality.
In most of the jobs I have had what I have seen is people doing as little as they could to not get fired. It didn’t matter the company size, location, type, or economic outlook. When I was doing my work or in meetings, I saw a continual lack of accountability, transparency, and a general desire to complete work.
Some companies used Jira, or other modern practices that are supposed to fix this issue. It doesn’t. They just say they didn’t have time to do it and it gets moved to the next sprint. Every company that I saw that used Sprints/Jira had slipping times. Many of these tasks were simple. I know because I did some of them myself. Again this is not to make me look good. I honestly don’t care what you think about me. This is just to call the elephant in the room what it is. Most company workers are lazy.
Even if they work hard, then someone in another department slows the progress by taking too long to approve it. Companies love to make things complicated, when it doesn’t need to be. Companies also like to believe things are simple when they are complicated. Rarely does the estimation of how long something will take, correlate with what happens. For example, the time estimate in Jira where you say how long you think it might take is often revised upward/downward. If it is constantly adjusted, and it is in most companies, then what value exactly does it bring? It seems this is another way to waste time “looking productive”.
The bottom line is what gets done. I want to see things get done because I like seeing what happens when you make it work. I like seeing an improvement that helps make things easier or save money. It is hard for me when companies drag their feet for no other reason than they can’t commit to a timeline. No one wants to be responsible so they always try to find someone to blame it on who isn’t themselves to take the heat. I have volunteered to take the heat when I am involved with projects. I say I will make the decision and take the heat if someone doesn’t like it. I’d rather be blamed than endlessly debate about a course of action that when companies finally act is not the right course of action anymore.
We need research and speed to be competitive in business.