THE PRODUCTIVITY REVOLUTION
Professor Tor Dahl
Chairman Emeritus of the World Confederation of Productivity Science

In 1989, I was invited to address the Academia Sinica in Beijing on the subject of productivity science. The members of the Academy had gathered from throughout China, and they were, without doubt, the most impressive group of scholars I had ever faced. I had prepared some rather provocative remarks, so I was a little nervous. The Chairman of the meeting noticed my apprehension. He was the official demographer of China, and he had been with Mao on the Long March. He leaned over and whispered: Don't be nervous. I'm a Minnesota Gopher!

It was there and then I learned that the University of Minnesota was the largest university in the world for Mainland Chinese outside of China. Many of the members were fellow graduates and came up afterwards to hear the latest news about the university.

I talked about how one single strategy could accomplish a number of extraordinary objectives at the same time:

1. Increase wages
2. Reduce inflation
3. Increase profits
4. Reduce taxes
5. Increase job satisfaction and
6. Reduce negative job stress.

That strategy is productivity improvement.

It is the only way wealth can increase for everyone. Furthermore, since wars and conflicts usually are rooted in economic causes, productivity improvement is exemplified in the motto of the World Confederation of Productivity Science: Peace and Prosperity Through Productivity.

At the Academy meeting, I said that, if China used the latest productivity science knowledge, it could achieve growth in GDP of 10% per year, and catch up with the U.S. in one generation. In 1995, China established 500 productivity centers all over China. Today, China is the fastest growing major economy in the world. When Indonesia hosted the World Productivity Congress in 1986, the country became self-sufficient in rice production. When Sweden hosted the World Productivity Congress in 1993, the Swedish economy had been struggling for years. But in 1993, an upward spiral started, and Sweden remains economically successful to this day. Revolutions usually are not predictable. Nobody announced the Renaissance, or the Reformation, or even the Quality Revolution. Revolutions come when the church has become more important than the faith. Revolutions come when progress can no longer be denied.

So far, we have linked some 1,250 diseases to genes in the human genome. Three of these we can cure: We can go in and take out the defective gene and replace it with a healthy gene. The disease is cured immediately, because we have addressed the root cause and changed it.

We have learned that organizations suffer diseases as well - usually five to seven at any one time. Each one of these has a root cause. Each root cause is always a bad idea. When we replace that bad idea with a good idea, we have done surgery on the organizational genome. The cure is immediate and lasting. Amazingly, there seem to be only 23 organizational diseases. That means that productivity science is within reach of a cure to much of what ails this world.

As Margaret Mead once said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."