Govt action

All governments and their electorates need a National BSC – Balanced Score Card

One which focuses on the few key result areas that matter most at national level to the people at large

One such as proposed in the diagram below

Clearly, well-being and productivity take centre stage here, with a government’s priority being national productivity improvement i.e. getting more goods and services out of existing labour, indigenous and imported materials, and capital resources available

Not only that, national productivity is not even measured well:

• The GDP/ Labour or Hours worked measures are both seriously flawed –  their focus is on labour productivity alone,  and significant errors in quarterly GDP figures are well-known and rife making any claims of a 0.1%  change versus last quarter, say, less than credible

• And, given the enormous cost of compiling them,  they never seem to be disputed by leading academics, economists and newspaper editors – they even use them as a firm basis for justifying their many, various and often differing theories and/ or headlines

So what use are national productivity measures?

• They mean nothing to managers on the front line

• They offer ministers no clues as to where best to act and who to support given the data are aggregates of aggregates of aggregates – it seems they only interest politicians when they make them look good and so more electable

The conclusion is obvious?