The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.
“‘Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this “play-it-safe” who won’t go out on a limb.

~Jesus Christ

B

alance is a great word and aspect in life. In my trainings and coaching, I normally deploy the common “Wheel of Life” test to determine the all roundedness of our lives. In nearly all the trainings and coaching I have conducted over the past 7 years, the best performed sphere of people’s lives (regardless of age, race and nationality) has always been the spiritual sphere.

Purpose and Productivity

Purpose of course is firmly a spiritual thing. Please note that I am not saying that it is religious. There is a heaven and earth difference between spirituality and religiosity. I have seen highly religious people that are not even half as spiritual as those that you would not consider spiritual…but I digress.

There is a lie that if you are a good and spiritual person, you are destined to excel. The lie continues to posit that God gives you favor, grace and blessings in order to prosper if you are a highly spiritual person. That is just half the truth.

• If you are highly spiritual and lazy, God is not going to partner with you
• If you are highly spiritual person but undisciplined, God is not going to partner with you
• If you are highly spiritual and disorganized, God is not going to partner with you.
• If you are a highly spiritual person but lacks consistency, God’s blessings will not make up for that

You get my point.

Why God is Particular about Productivity

Therefore, once purpose has been identified, for us to be successful, it immediately follows that we must be productive. If anything, God rewards productivity equally if not more than he rewards spirituality. In fact, spirituality is supposed to be the foundation upon which our productivity is built. In other words, God expects, commands and rewards productivity.

One of the favorite words in the Bible is Fruit and Fruitfulness. Over 208 times that word appears in scripture. In comparison, the word “prayer” appears 118 times when you search the Bible. That is interesting. So important is productivity to God that 69% of the parables of Jesus dealt with it more than they dealt with heaven and hell…even those parables of heaven and hell had productivity embedded into them.

In one parable, an unproductive servant was called wicked and slothful…and was cast away, losing what had been given to them. Now, I am pretty sure that this guy was a spiritual guy. Otherwise, he would not have had a relationship with the master, but I digress again.

Why Productivity

I believe that for purpose to be fulfilled, one has to live a life of productivity. Of course purpose ought to come first so that the productivity is put in focus and context. Steven R. Covey talks of the futility of climbing the corporate ladder, reaching at the top only to find that the ladder was leaning on the wrong wall.

I have identified what I consider the 20 biggest pillars of productivity that I will discuss or have already discussed on this blog. Today, we shall look at each pillar briefly. In the subsequent posts throughout the year, we shall discuss all these pillars in depth.

1. Purpose:

As already discussed, productivity must be pointed towards something. Identifying the purpose of work must be the first step in being productive. If anything, lots of time must be put into discovering this purpose before getting started.

2. Leadership:

Great leadership always delivers great productivity. It is so hard to find sustained productivity governed by pathetic leadership

3. Planning:

This goes a step ahead of identifying the purpose and vision of productivity. If anything, it is one of the greatest pillars of productivity. If you find instances where productivity is wanting, for the most part someone has not thought it through.

4. Management

This is different from leadership. Management is the efficient use of available resources in order to meet set objectives in the given time limit. There is no way that you can get productivity without exemplary management.

5. Competence

It goes without saying. You cannot give an incompetent and unqualified person responsibility to be productive.

6. Environment

This means that you provide the right tools for the job. The physical, ergonomical, social and technological environment must be conducive enough for productivity to come forth

7. Technology

This is a great enabler to productivity. It is one of the greatest pillars of productivity in our present world

8. Health

The person who is competent and healthy is more productive than that who is competent and ill. Physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health is a great catalyst to productivity

Clarity

Even after purpose is downloaded, there still is a great need for us to be absolutely clear and sharp on what, who, when, where involved in the project. Nothing is torturers to people than ambiguity in a quest for productivity.

Focus

We live in a world dictated by so many distractions. A person with di-vision or divided attention will not be as productive as that who is focused.

In the next post, we shall proceed with the latter part of the 20 pillars of productivity. The first ten can be easily classified into two major pillars:

• Leadership Pillars
• Environmental Pillars

The next 10 Pillars will deal with internal forces that can be summed up under “attitude”. Fortunately or unfortunately, these 10 pillars are seldom taught in schools for the 20 or so years that children are there. However, they are the silent killers or the powerful ingredients of productivity depending on how you or you don’t deploy them.

What are your thoughts on these?