Contingencies Online - July/August 2011

End Paper SAM GUTTERMAN
Slow Down, You Move Too Fast
DO YOU SOMETIMES FEEL LIKE THINGS ARE MOVING TOO FAST?
Join the club! I like to sit down with a cup of tea and read the newspa-
per (yes, I still read the print version). But as I wait for my tea to cool,
I often find myself thinking about all the things that I should be doing
instead of just reading the paper.

Ever since my days at the Univer-
sity of Michigan’s business school, I’ve
thought about efficiency and produc-
tivity—both measured by the amount
of output divided by a unit of input.
But what’s the best measure of the
effective use of inputs to produce out-
put? Productivity is just a benchmark
against which we sometimes compare
progress—but it can produce counterin-
tuitive results because it can’t measure
changes in technology or resulting qual-
ity (or stress). Have we been placing too
much emphasis in recent years on im-
proving quantity and speed?
Take communication. In just a cen-
tury we’ve moved from face-to-face
meetings to telegrams, telephones,
faxes, conference calls, emails, instant
messages, video conferences, texting,
social networks, Skyping, and tweets.
In customer service, we have gone
from home visits and personal rela-
tionships to automated phone menus
and voice mail. While we’ve increased
quantity and speed, these are only im-
portant for certain services. In some
cases, human interaction, teamwork,
and convenience are more important
than speed and cost control.