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Our Productivity
A set of KPIs is put for all countries to assess their economic status & general development progress. One of those KPIs is the labor productivity of each country. Simply, it’s calculated by dividing the output of production by the population number. The maximum labor productivity index reached in Egypt in 2017 was 3.3, which puts us way below the topmost productive countries as seen in the graph below. The last available value for our productivity now is 6.057 by the 1st of September 2019. How is that even possible!? Or why are we so behind? Does that mean that no one in Egypt works hard? Not really, it only means that the majority of the population, unfortunately, doesn’t.
This blog isn’t about the reasons behind that fact, yet I have made a couple of observations that have a great impact on some people’s behaviors at work, and that’s from where I want to start.
Our Culture
Our backgrounds, cultures & education shape the way we perceive the world, our behaviors, & values. I recall in an old Egyptian movie, where a man who was living in the suburbs moved to the city for work. He was shocked by how people were hustling all the time for work. I can’t even believe that to him, that was hustling! Anyways he went back to his village & told his mother, how busy all people are in the city, and how work & competition are tough there. His mother replied with something that caught my interest. She told him, why are they doing that? Don’t they know that no one will take someone else’s living or sources of income and that it’s all in god’s hands! What’s meant to be will be anyways? So the mother told her son not to work hard for that doesn’t make sense, work hard not just doesn’t pay off, it’s a waste of energy. Apparently this is something cultural that has been engraved into some people’s minds long ago; to settle.
Healthy competition always boosts people to bring the best out of them & push themselves to their limits. If that didn’t pay off; the term gamification wouldn’t have been introduced. By transforming every situation into a game, to make people engage, compete & do their best. If we don’t believe in competition, even against one’s self to bring out the best in us & stretch our capabilities, because of this old cultural belief of what’s meant to be will be anyways, we wouldn’t have developed an inch. We would have starved till death.
Settling is one of the success killers. Once you get used to settling down, slacking behind & accepting low quality, you can never pull yourself back together; no matter how young, old, or successful you were. If you were the most successful in your field or team & started to settle or slack back for a good amount of time, it will be very hard, and for some people impossible, to get back on track. We’ve all witnessed that on people around us & many celebrities. They put great effort, make a successful breakthrough, then they decide to slack & chill for some time. The problem is when their ego gets in; it makes them believe they’re invincible. Along with chilling for a long time, people forget how they used to make it work.
We always need to hustle & never stop exploring, evolving & developing. Working hard & hustling isn’t really a hard thing to do. Especially when the effort is put into something you are passionate about. Reading this blog already makes you a hustler, someone who doesn’t settle for the knowledge he previously acquired. See it’s that simple.
Our Education
Education in Egypt has evolved & transformed drastically in the last 20 years. I was born in a world that only had either public or private national schools. Where we all study the national education curriculum. The national education system in Egypt focused on the technical content only, totally ignoring the interpersonal skills and our differences & diversity. We’re all assumed to be alike, who process information the same, and can communicate back well by nature. If someone couldn’t grasp that, he was considered a failure; which leads to a negative direct impact on one’s confidence. That resulted in a generation who is brilliant in terms of academic experience, yet lacked all the basic soft skills capabilities & emotional intelligence. So a person could have the most brilliant idea, yet lacks the confidence & don’t know how to communicate it.
Then the international education system started to emerge. With totally different and more developed teaching techniques that put people’s development first, and academics second. Unlike the first system, this one produces a generation of very confident & competent people with almost no real academic knowledge. They know they’re better & more privileged than the elders; they have all the skills needed to succeed, and as for the information, they can google it.
The national system generation requires lots of work on their interpersonal skills to develop & shine. The good news is, they have the knowledge, & it’s always easy to help someone in need, for they already feel behind since day 1. The hard thing is to convince them that they need that change & that they can actually change, not that it’s too late. In addition, this generation is already old enough, what we’re dealing with today is the international system’s generation; that’s where the real challenge is. They’re already full of themselves, participated in lots of activates & witnessed lots of events that made them feel more accomplished. Moreover, they grew in a world, where everything is just a click of a button away.
Imagine a person who had to go to the library whenever he needed to find info about any topic he’s looking for. If he was lucky, he would find what he’s looking for at the first library visit, after spending several hours. Then he would write or photocopy that, take it back home, they start writing it down for his usage. When that same person needs to search for anything, he only needs to google it from his phone, copy & paste, and voila. Although his life became much easier, his behavior & perception must have changed forever. He will appreciate google every time he searches anything.
Compare that to someone, who never struggled to reach for info or resources. That’s a different mindset, behavior & perception. That doesn’t make him a less competent person, not at all, it means he’s different, and that’s not a bad thing at all.
The Digital Transformation
Another drastic change that happened not only to us but across the globe, is the digital transformation in the media & social influence. We, humans, seeks nothing in this entire life, but appreciation. That was augmented after the emergence of the social media platforms & the magical “Like” button. We only create content just for others to like, the more likes I get, the more I feel accepted & loved. What’s alarming, is when people feel that the number of likes resembles their worth. This made people focus on developing their virtual profiles’ content more than their real characters. I care about posting & sharing whatever content that will give me enough likes, even if that content is of no real value or what’s worse, is fake. This likes craze has led to a dramatic change in our perception & definition of things.
When we were little and asked what profession we would like to pursue when we grow, the answers could be an engineer, a doctor, a football player, an officer, a teacher…etc. All professions that need some college degree and lots of studying & hard work. Yet today, with all the social media capabilities & how you can reach millions with a click of a button, we see the emergence of a new profession; social media influencers. They’re as famous as movie stars, although they don’t even get out of their bedrooms. They’re people with no specific degree & only experience in posting on their social feeds. We all perceive them as people who became very famous and rich with almost no effort, unlike the previously mentioned professions. So why go through educational & professional hell, when I can be famous & rich with a click of a camera button? We all have smartphones, so why not give it a shot? Although for influencers to be successful & to sustain their influence, fame & reach, they need to have a great strategy which will require them to work for it too. Yet, that’s not what we see, we don’t have access to their “behind the scenes” preparations, yet we built that perception, that it’s an easy money hit that only requires luck. This too has a great influence on every one of us.
With all that being said, what’s right & what’s wrong?
Well just like anything in this life, there is no ultimate right or wrong; simply different directions for each situation & circumstances. The key is in taking the most suitable direction for our capabilities & values in each situation. All the above factors have a great influence on every one of us. What’s important is to be aware of that influence & impact of any external factor or change we go through; to be able to decide wither to embrace it or not.
In this blog series, I will try to help you in knowing how to develop that.
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