What’s the impact of staying where you are? Experienced board member Simon Godfrey shares his approach to productivity and how he helps small business owners to improve.

Simon currently works as a senior director at BT and chairs the techUK Public Services Board, but his experience with the public sector spans three decades. He got involved with Be the Business when he saw the opportunity to enable small businesses to achieve more.

“The mechanisms that small organisations have to go through for public service contract wards are quite onerous and unfair; they haven’t got the resources, time or the capital to invest six months trying to win a piece of business. I wanted to use my experience and knowledge of various platforms to try and change things, and help them to be more successful,” he said.

Productivity is about purpose

Productivity isn’t binary – it has nuance and means something slightly different to different people. Simon breaks it down into three elements: social, economic and personal definitions:

“Socially, or perhaps better still ‘emotionally’, I think that productivity means that your work has resonance and purpose in your life. If it’s easy to put time, effort and energy in, then you’ll naturally be more involved.

“On the economic side of things, there’s the ONS / Atkinson review model, which measures productivity across the various sectors and ends up with a blended outcome which we use as an input to measure.

“At a personal level, it’s knowing that what I do has the ability to transform something that follows on. Yes, I’m happy doing something, but the energy I put in has to have an exponential effect.”

Using benchmarks to drive improvement

Be the Business’s Productive Business Index shows that business leaders in the UK tend to be overconfident about their capabilities, ranking fourth in confidence despite a lack of activity in key areas like management skills and operational efficiency.

This can make it difficult for boards and mentors to raise potential areas for improvement. Simon recommends benchmarking where a business is within their industry, then looking at the practical steps forward.

“If you start a conversation by saying, ‘you’re not very productive, are you?’ then the answer may well be rather curtly ‘well, yes I am’, and you’re not off to a good start. There are international productivity measures for each industry, so you’ve got to find the benchmark: where does that organisation fit in?

“If they’re in the bottom quartile, then what do they need to be more competitive and successful? Is it more machinery? Do you need to invest more capital or hire more people? Do you need to make existing staff work in a smarter way? There are lots of levers to do that.”

Identifying emotional drivers for change

In addition to benchmarking, it’s useful to identify emotional drivers in the business owners you’re working with. These drivers might be salary or lifestyle related, but Simon has found that small businesses are often most connected to their teams.

“Most leaders of small business will be closely tied to their staff, and that’s where their passions lie. So it’s not just about them as a business leader – it’s about the people that work for them that can be a big motivation. If you can harness a bit of that passion, you’re going to do great work.”

Simon’s last advice is to not be afraid to have an “adult conversation”, because sometimes we need to be honest with ourselves.

“The question is, what if we remain where we are? If we look at the UK for example, what if we remain less productive than the rest of the G7 for the next 25 years? What’s the downside? It may be that there’s not a lot of difference in the global economy, but in the psyche of the people, what are we leaving for our kids and grandkids?” he said.

“I think that by doing what we do today, we inspire the people that follow us. Whether that’s next week, next year or 30 years from now, we need to set the tone.”

Want to help a business be more productive?

The Productivity Programme pairs small and medium-sized businesses with advisory boards made up of experienced business professionals.

If you’re based in the UK, have at least five years of senior leadership experience and are interested in offering your support, we’d love to hear from you. Find out more here.