Episode 252: Robert Pozen
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Increasing Productivity in a World of Remote Work
No matter what industry we all work in, productivity is key. Not only is managing our time properly good for getting all of our tasks done but also spending time doing things we love. In this episode of unSILOed, Robert Pozen shares methods to creating priorities for your time, ways to protect your time, and making sure you’re spending each day addressing your priorities.
Robert Pozen is the author of Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours as well as Remote, Inc.: How to Thrive at Work…Wherever You Are. He teaches at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Episode Quotes:
Is a billable hour system a bad idea?
07:22: A billable hour system is an input system, and in a knowledge-based economy, the idea that counting the inputs is the way to look at it is just crazy because people shouldn't be congratulated for spending more hours on something if they have a bad result.
08:56: The only way to get organizations off hours and into a results-oriented output system is to provide them with an alternative system of accountability.
What increases job satisfaction and productivity?
11:33: It's that flexibility and autonomy that increase job satisfaction and productivity. So, that's a long way of saying we've got to get off hours and inputs. We've got to move to outputs and results, and we've got to show managers and bosses that we can have a system of accountability that's based on results.
Hybrid setups will always be the dominant way to work
46:03: Hybrid will be important because certain work, certain teams, certain aspects of jobs are always going to be done better in person, where people get together, and others are not. And that's why the hybrid is going to be the dominant form.
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