Should we work less and lower our ambitions ?
A wave is rolling over us these days: We can all be more productive if we reduce our work hours, go for the average instead of the perfect and spend more time to reflect and be creative.
How wonderfull it would be if the world worked like this that everything we dream about actually is also the best for us to do – unfortunately it is not true.
Reality is that Denmark and Europe are challenged by competition from more sides than seen in many years. And no, I´m not talking about low production cost from low-cost countries in Asia even though that competition is still present. The competition has spread to knowledge, science, IT, medicine, cars, weapons etc. We thought we could live from thinking “big thoughts” and let the Chinese do the hard work. It´s actually only 20 years ago that this was the conviction. Today the reality is that China and USA are ahead of us on these areas where we thought we were the champions. Without this competitive advantage in knowledge and industrial expertice, what should then justify that we should work less and enjoy more priveleges than hard working people in these countries ?
The situationen right now is that we need to be BOTH creative and reflective AND be ready to work the necessary hours to meet our goals.
We have all the opportunities in Denmark and Europe but it requires that we accept the fact that we are not on a free ride. We need to have high ambitions and deliver the required work hours to meet them – exactly as our ancestors have done for centuries and thereby created the wealth we are enjoying today.
For businesses the task is to establish a sufficiently high ambition level which can only be realized by combining knowledge and technology with a culture and an organisation which creates high employee engagement, efficiency and flexibility. The good news is that there are proven methods to do this. For example by utilizing Lean thinking, tools and processes.