P/PC Balance

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P/PC Balance, or Production to Production Capability balance, is a simply yet powerful illustration used in both personal and organizational development.

https://archive.org/download/Podcast001PPC/Podcast%20001%20PPC.mp3

Production refers to any desired result that we want. At personal level, our production may be our degree, our exam result, our work performance, or our goals and milestones in life.

Production Capability refers to the engine, the asset running behind the production. To obtain a degree, we need to be intellectually ready. To do well in work, we need to keep up with the skills required by the job nature.

Simply put, it is a golden egg and goose story. Take good care of the goose, and it will produce golden egg for you every day. Abuse it or treat it poorly may still get you the golden egg (sometimes even more in short term), but overtime the goose died and we lost the ability to gain golden egg.

P/PC requires balance. Here I present two extremes.

1. Bobby worked 12 to 14 hours a day, 6 days a week. He feels that working during weekend is a means to get ahead of his competitor. Sometimes he dismisses family request for quality time on a Sunday, and head back to office for half a day of work Whenever he finds little time he squeeze it to his work schedule. He did a lot of stuff, but his health deteriorates. Relationship suffers. He died a young age of 40 without seeing his children growing to adulthood.
2. Catherine is a yoga-aholic. Though a female, she loves to spend time either in the social club or at home exercising. She also holds a career in financial advisory firm serving as a assistant fund manger. Later she quit, finding that dedicating too much time at work may be too stressful for her at an early age of 28. She is seeking a day job, preferably 4 hours or so, so that she can concentrate in maintaining her shape.

Firstly, there are nothing too serious about the two fictitious examples above. Bobby is slightly into production, while Catherine production capability. Depending on individual’s focus, an imbalance on the P/PC may lead to decreased effectiveness in the long run. Think about what Bobby could do to both his work and his family if he doesn’t neglect both his health and his family now. And think about Catherine who has a promising career in late 20. What more could she achieve if work stress is dealt with properly with balance.

It takes wisdom to strike a balance between P/PC. Yes, sometimes we may in the season of rushing production, i.e., peak time, where we need to dedicate some off-work time to finish up a project or an assignment. And we certainly remembered the holidays we enjoyed back then, where we get recharged and refocused before moving on. But other than these, P/PC can be managed deliberately to ensure its balance will deliver highest effectiveness.

Managing ‘P’ takes milestone planning, or goal setting. Plan each time a year as to what expected milestone should be achieved. Allow buffer for breathing space, but not too much so as to create a challenging goal. Then, further break it down to smaller, measurable goal plans. Focus on these plans will lead us to move ahead to our goal, one step at a time.

Managing PC takes discipline and willpower. Know when to stop working, and know when to bulk up and unleash our highest skill and productiveness. Learn to take care of our physical faculty, as well as the mental, emotional, and spiritual faculties. A still mind, heart, and soul are not something dispensable if we’re talking about PC maintenance. Healthy body certainly helps, and PC renewal should ultimately push us to seek ways to go beyond maintenance, that we will seek ways to stretch our capability. Learn new skills. Learn interdependence. Pray. Build muscles. It’s only when we are better equipped that we will deliver a great P.