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busy or productive ?

are created, plans are developed, systems are optimized, and
meaningless projects completed so that middle managers are kept
busy and the basic organizational hierarchy does not collapse.

A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work
at 9 a.m. and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 p.m.
to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished mole-
hill man will often have his mountain finished before lunch.

—Fred Allen (1894–1957), U.S. radio comic

This rather cynical and conspiratorial viewpoint of the con-
temporary corporation does not reflect modern business manage-
ment practices. However, it does appear to be reinforced by the
frequency with which large corporations, in an effort to reduce
expenses and improve their bottom line, lay off a significant seg-
ment of their middle managers and continue to operate, seemingly
without interruption. These events makes one wonder what all of
those middle managers were accomplishing prior to their layoff if
the organizations can get along so successfully (better, according
to their press releases) after such drastic downsizing.

Whether busywork is an operational tool created by upper man-
agement to help maintain the pyramidal organization structure, or
a device employed by the individual to avoid other more important
tasks, it reduces productivity in direct proportion to the time it
consumes. Unfortunately, while busywork may act as a temporary
substitute for higher value or necessary work, it does not replace it.
Those other tasks will still be there, waiting, and probably becom-
ing more imperative and more complicated as time passes. Con-
centrating on tasks of limited value can be a real threat to our
efforts to manage time by preventing us from working on more
important tasks. Yet we feel busy. We feel the stress and pressure
of attempting to fit all of our busywork tasks into their allotted
time slots, but don’t have the sense of accomplishment that would
result from completing essential duties.

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