"The productivity of a work group seems to depend on how the group members see their own goals in relation to the goals of the organization." (Paul Hersey & Kenneth H Blanchard, "Management of Organizational Behavior", 1972)
"When companies see their productivity drop, they should ask how they can improve jobs, and not merely by setting up new productivity targets but also by sharing gains with workers and responding to their needs." (Jerome M Rosow, "Management", 1976)
"The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager." (Peter F Drucker, "Management in Turbulent Times", 1980)
"Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite." (Andrew S Grove, "High Output Management", 1983)
"Operating managers should in no way ignore short-term performance imperatives [when implementing productivity improvement programs.] The pressures arise from many sources and must be dealt with. Moreover, unless managers know that the day-to-day job is under control and improvements are being made, they will not have the time, the perspective, the self-confidence, or the good working relationships that are essential for creative, realistic strategic thinking and decision making." (Robert H Schaefer, Harvard Business Review, 1986)
"Opportunities abound for linking productivity to business strategy." (John L Grahn, Harvard Business Review, 1986)
"Productivity is closely tied to morale, and morale is a reflection of how people see themselves. If you can improve your employees' perceptions of themselves, you can improve their morale and thereby boost productivity." (Howard Hurst, Personnel Journal, 1986)
"The way to get higher productivity is to train better managers and have fewer of them." (William Woodside, "Thriving on Chaos", 1987)
"A good part of the problem [poor productivity ...] lies with the current accounting system, which sort of makes overhead disappear - it simply gets added into the cost of a product, like a tax." (Paul Strassmann, Inc. Magazine, 1988)
"Even when you have skilled, motivated, hard-working people, the wrong team structure can undercut their efforts instead of catapulting them to success. A poor team structure can increase development time, reduce quality, damage morale, increase turnover, and ultimately lead to project cancellation." (Steve McConnell, "Rapid Development", 1996)
"It's better to wait for a productive programmer to become available than it is to wait for the first available programmer to become productive." (Steve McConnell, "Software Project Survival Guide", 1997)
"Today’s big companies do very little to enhance the productivity of their professionals. In fact, their vertically oriented organization structures, retrofitted with ad hoc and matrix overlays, nearly always make professional work more complex and inefficient." (Lowell L Bryan & Claudia Joyce, "The 21st century organization", 2005)
"Productivity is the name of the game, and gains in productivity will only come when better understanding and better relationships exist between management and the work force. [...] Managers have traditionally developed the skills in finance, planning, marketing and production techniques. Too often the relationships with their people have been assigned a secondary role. This is too important a subject not to receive first-line attention." (William Hewlett, "The Human Side of Management", [speech])
