by
Konstantin
Monastyrsky
I help companies to
boost profits and shareholder value through increased productivity.
Performance nutrition elevates the physical and mental wellness of
knowledge workers, which is the sole ‘foundation’ of sustained
productivity and creativity for high IQ organizations.
If you are running a high-tech venture, or law firm, or
investment bank, or professional sports franchise, or symphony
orchestra, performance nutrition also brings down your medical expenses,
reduces burnouts, and cuts down on the turnover of key personnel.
Consider me your interim Chief Productivity Officer.
In this context, the return on investment of my ‘salary’ will exceed all of your other
productivity investments combined many times over, and here is why...
Superstars bring profits, weaklings bring down the
superstars
Organizations are very much like individuals, only much
more exposed — there are as many organizational ‘fault lines’ as there
are key employees. Not that this fact isn’t widely recognized or
appreciated — great companies invest a good deal of money to hire,
retain, and promote the best and the fittest ‘stakeholders.’
They also protect their investments with first-rate
health care, prime working conditions, outstanding compensation,
congenial atmosphere, superior workplace catering, splendid exercise
facilities, and whatever else it takes to nurture their income-producing
‘assets’ and leverage competitiveness.
For some enterprises these productivity investments
perform like clockwork; for others — they kind of works. For most — they don’t
make an iota of difference, or even counterproductive. When corporate gurus are trying to figure
out what gives, they invariably conclude: motivation, stupid…
I beg you pardon?
— Can even the indomitable Antony Robbins, the author
of Unlimited Power, implant his enthusiasm into a vice president
of sales who is suffering from chronic insomnia? Or…
— Can the iconic Dr. Stephen Covey, the author of
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People instill these habits
into a personnel manager who is silently suffering from chronic
migraines caused in part by the stresses of her job? Or…
— Can the ebullient Dr. Martin Seligman, the author
of Authentic Happiness, imbue with happiness and creativity your
vice president of marketing who is suffering from irritable bowel
syndrome? Or…
— Can the exuberant Dr. Deepak Chopra, the author of
countless feel-good books, sweet-talk a PMS-suffering public relations
officer into an effervescent charmer?
I doubt it. Even if you can afford to hire all four at
once, and sequester them along with your top troops at a magical
paradise retreat for a whole week, your company will gain precious
little, because the insomnia, the stress, the irritable bowel, or the
PMS can’t be ‘motivated’ out of existence, period.
And that’s where I come in… The economics of my
contribution into your company’s upside are simple to grasp. If your
core team's productivity goes up 20%, it's the equivalent of hiring 2
staff members at no cost for every 10 employees you already have. Factor
in not just salaries, payroll taxes, and benefits, but lost opportunities, time spent hiring,
recruiting expenses, training, orientation, equipment, space, etc. Or,
if you don't need more people, the same team delivers 20% more or 20%
faster at the same cost.
What do I know about productivity?
I learned advanced programming in C language on
my own back in 1982 for the sheer fun of it, and, later, despite the
absence of a formal computer education, enjoyed the robust career of a
senior systems analyst and technology consultant at major investment
banks in New York City along with the best and the brightest graduates
from America’s top engineering schools, such as MIT, Stanford, Carnegie
Mellon, and so on.
Obviously, one can’t get away in that environment on
chutzpa alone — the programmer’s productivity is measured along the
lines of code delivered, products completed, and bugs squashed, — not
talk or charm. To compensate for my relative inexperience, I simply
worked non-stop during my allotted workday. Nothing less, nothing more —
just worked as one is supposed to do by avoiding disruptions, skipping
long lunches, not making personal phone calls, ignoring stock market
tickers, and so on.
That little tactic — simply working — earned me the
reputation of a genius, even though I wasn’t remotely close to being
one, but was just doing what I was paid for. In the process I became one
of the top developers of maddeningly complex computer programs for Microsoft Windows — so
much so that in May of 1990 I was invited to introduce Windows 3.0 to
the world along with Bill Gates and two other software industry
luminaries. Quite a feat for someone who taught himself to program in
his spare time in 1982.
In 1991 I became the founder and president of
Okna Corporation, a small,
but prominent software company. Soon I was running a large — over a
million-and-a-half lines of programming code — software development
project. Our sole product — the very first personal information manager
for Microsoft Windows — consistently won all major editorial reviews and
awards for four years in a row, ahead of Microsoft, Lotus, Borland,
and the other top-tier software publishers of that era. The
functionality, design, and depth of the program remain unmatched by any
other product,
even today.
Not surprisingly, my hand-picked team of software
engineers was one of the most productive in the software industry. And
not only productive, but also astonishingly sophisticated — the program
we completed back in 1998 still runs for thousands of customers under
Windows XP and Vista, an unheard of feat for software with so much code
and complexity.
This kind of productivity and output wasn’t a fiat — I
hired well, created a superb working environment for my associates, and
guarded their productive hours with the same vigor and intensity as I
guarded mine. As a result, our core team of developers had zero turnover
throughout the project lifespan, no individual burn-outs, no group
flame-outs, and practically no delays or detours all along a four year
project.
Eventually, I quantified my project management approach
with a formula that would have made the late Peter F. Drucker proud. The
early version of this formula was concentrated on assessing the
Effective Output of individuals and organizations. Later, I refined
the tale end of it specifically for my performance nutrition group
counseling:
|
Productivity = Effective
Output x Employee Capacity (%)
|
The Effective Output
(score) is a sum of objective and subjective factors, such as
working conditions, depth of management, caliber of direction, quality
of hiring, training, motivation, incentives, and so on. The value of the
Effective Output score is determined primarily by corporate
policies. Influencing the Effective Output is the domain of managers
and/or management consultants.
The Employee Capacity
(ratio, %) is a function of a person’s physical and emotional
health — the factors which determine energy, stamina, creativity, mood,
congeniality, memory, concentration and all other tangibles and
intangibles that differentiate a top producer from a subpar one. As a
ratio, the Capacity factor may range from 0% (sick leave) to 100%
(optimal health). Increasing Employee Capacity ratio to the
‘optimal health’ value is the sole objective of my workshop.
Here is what it all means in real life for two
companies with an identical Effective Output score:
— Company A: Effective Output
score: 400; the averaged
Employees Capacity: 60%;
Productivity equals 240
points.
— Company B: Effective Output
score: 400; the averaged Employees Capacity:
80%; Productivity
equals 320 points.
As you can see, with all other factors being equal,
Company B enjoys a 33% advantage in productivity over Company A
with only a 20% increase in averaged Employees Capacity. It
means that Company B either needs one third less staff to accomplish the
same amount of work, or it uses the same staff and keeps one third more
in profit.
If Company A tries to match the productivity
advantage of Company B, it can choose either of two options: increase the
Effective Output score to slightly below 540 points, or increase
the averaged Employees Capacity to 80%.
If you are the president of Company A, what would you
rather do to increase your firm’s productivity:
A. Increase staffing. Hire
additional staff to compete with Company B on an equal footing (time-intensive, expensive), or…
B. Improve conditions. Invest in better
working conditions for your employees, such as larger personal space,
state-of-the-art ergonomic furniture, and faster computer equipment
(disruptive, very expensive), or…
C. Fire underperformers. Let go
the unfit and unwell, and replace them with younger, more energetic
staff (very disruptive, extremely expensive, time consuming, and may put you
into the courts and out of business), or…
D. Increase Employees Capacity.
Arrange a performance nutrition workshop for your employees, and
increase their capacity to 80% (two day workshop, life-long health
benefits, costs less than recruiting a single executive.)
Well, the decision is a no-brainer. And only after that
— after taking care of the physical and mental health of your employees
— can you increase their Effective Output as well by
moving into new offices, or buying new furniture, or inviting Messieurs
Robbins, Covey, Seligman, or Chopra to inspire and motivate them.
That is, in a nutshell, what I know about
productivity — the productive capacity of employees makes or breaks a
business.
Q. Konstantin, why aren't you a billionaire yet?
Well, back in 1996 I was stricken with severe type II
diabetes, and my Employee Capacity went down from around 80%-90%
to about 5%-10% on good days, and to zero — on bad ones. As my Employee
Capacity went down the drain, so did my Company, and its prospects for IPO
along with my chances for instant
riches.
All of my younger associates went on to build great
careers, and credit their on-the-job training for their respective
successes. In turn, thanks to performance nutrition, I fully recovered
from otherwise ‘unrecoverable’ diabetes, and went on a long journey to
rebuild my Employee Capacity back to peak. This site and my books
are good proof of what performance nutrition can do for anyone’s life,
health, career, and business.
As clichés go, 'don’t repeat my errors' and 'learn
from my experience.'
Q. How much? How soon?
The needs of a symphony orchestra with the troupe’s
median age around 45 and extensive international travel schedule differ
substantially from the needs of a high-tech company with younger and
“stationary” staff. For this reason each workshop is custom-prepared to
your organization’s particular personnel profile and needs.
Gender difference plays a role in certain aspects of
performance nutrition. If so desired, you may request a separate track
for female and male employees to account for this difference, and
enhance participation.
To book your workshop or ask
additional questions — you may contact me here.
Please tell me briefly about your organization and goals, audience
profile, number of attendees, the range of desired dates, AV
capabilities, and venue location. I'll quickly respond with availability
information and a price quote.
