Companies use less than 11% of the technology they are paying for. What would be possible if your team could increase that to 25%?
After a busy Saturday I usually finish the night watching movies with my family. Over the last few months a couple have stood out to me; Limitless and Lucy. Both are fictional stories depicting what can happen if we enhance more of our brain power.
Without any spoilers – In Limitless the main character played by Bradley Cooper experiences the effects of a new nootropic drug and experiences the effects of utilizing more of his cognitive power than any other human can. In lucy, Scarlet Johansson is poisoned by a similar drug and eventually unlock access to all her cognitive abilities.
I’ve worked in tech for more than 25 years and during that time there have been dozens of studies and papers released showing that companies only use between 7-11% of the technology that they invest in. What would your team’s productivity and abilities look like if they could double the average?
About a year ago I was preparing another report for some of our stakeholders and realized that I was spending about the same amount of time – four hours – every month creating a new report based on current info and results. There had to be a better way. I took a self-directed course that was about 20 minutes long, and spent another 40 minutes working through their practice tutorials. Since then my monthly time commitment to create an updated report takes me less than 30 minutes a month.
Utilizing only public-school level math skills: 4 hours per month equals 48 hours per year or 2880 minutes. Investing 1 hour or 60 minutes reduces the annual time spent to 6 hours or 360 minutes. That’s a reduction of 42 hours spent every year from a 1-hour investment in learning – more than a whole workweek – on just one task.
In Chapter 16 of Andy Grove’s essential management guide “High Output Management” he breaks down the ROI of training your people.
“Training is, quite simply, one of the highest-leverage activities a manager can perform. Consider for a moment the possibility of your putting on a series of four lectures for members of your department. Let’s count on three hours preparation for each hour of course time—twelve hours of work in total. Say that you have ten students in your class. Next year they will work a total of about twenty thousand hours for your organization. If your training efforts result in a 1 percent improvement in your subordinates’ performance, your company will gain the equivalent of two hundred hours of work as the result of the expenditure of your twelve hours.”
One of our core ideals at Summit Technology is to enable every person at every client to achieve more with technology. A key component of that ideal is training and enablement. For all of our clients that outsource their IT to us, we provide unlimited access to curated training direct from Microsoft as well as the QuickHelp platform from Brainstorm. Aside from technology related enablement the Quickhelp platform also provides a simple system for organizations to upload and assign their own specific content and measure the results from that training. We do this to enable every person working at each of our clients to create better results, outcomes, or enhanced quality of life by unlocking more value from the technology they have available to them.
Every organization has the power – and in my opinion – the responsibility to equip and enable their team to achieve more with the technology they are provided with to produce the results they are accountable for.
While training your team may not produce results as instant as Eddie Mora taking NZT, consistent focus on enabling your team will produce better results and outcomes faster than you realize.
