I’ve learned a great deal from reading Michael Schrage, a scholar and strategist who writes a blog for Harvard Business Review. Consider his recent thought experiment on how to think about productivity in a non-superficial way:

Here’s a simple but illustrative Gedankenexperiment: A small team works with Chinese contractors in Guangzhou to produce a breakthrough product. The team has a translator, a facilitator to run the design meeting, an engineering expert with the requisite technical knowledge and — of course — a representative from top management to make sure the team’s bold designs align with the firm’s strategic roadmap. They’ve got less than two quarters to deliver the goods. Everyone will try to do the best job they can and make sure their contributions are heard.
Now picture an individual fluent in Cantonese who not only is a talented engineer but a gifted facilitator. This person has ready access to top management and moves smoothly from modeling product design challenges to bilingually discussing strategic marketing concerns. This individual seamlessly switches from facilitator, collaborator, designer, technical resource and strategic liaison. Each role informs and enhances the other. Coordination costs have effectively vanished. The ability to translate Chinese insights into technical models and then expand or better focus the strategic intent becomes a natural interactive flow. Re-translating head office feedback into Chinese enables profoundly productive collaborative designs. A single individual is not simply doing the work of four; they’re relentlessly leveraging their fluency, access and expertise to explore more options and opportunities faster.
Do the back-of-the-envelope calculation: a negotiation and design/build relationship that might take six months and produce maybe 80% of what’s originally desired is instead successfully completed within a fortnight with a collaborative design delivering over 50% beyond initial expectations. Or, crudely put, I’m getting roughly twice as much in a tenth of the time. If someone — or some small team — consistently delivers that value proposition three or four times a year, how much more productive are they than “average” or “above average” performers? This is the New Economy of Value Creation inside the enterprise. It’s not about superstars; it’s about internal ecosystems that empower talented teams and individuals to deliver disproportionate value much faster more often.

Now try explaining this concept to people who design compensation schemes for large public bureaucracies.

I mention Michael in part because he recently sponsored a public art project that you might find to be of interest.