Consultant: The dramatic improvements

Answer choices

1. A

   Reinforces Background7% picked this

   Most companies still try to improve productivity mainly through greater standardization and centralization

   This helps to sustain the background ... "We weren't lying when we said that standardization and centralization are good. Most companies still aim for those things!" But this does nothing to explain the surprising foreground, which is about how companies are going in the opposite direction to boost productivity.

   7%
2. B

   Doesn't Address Paradox11% picked this

   Increased productivity is not the only benefit of giving individual employees greater control over their work; job

   If the paradox were "why are these companies bothering to de-centralize and empower individual employees?", then this answer would add another log to the fire: well, we already heard it boosted productivity, but it also increases job satisfaction But the paradox we're trying to solve is, "how does it boost productivity? We though the opposite (more central planning) led to dramatic boosts in productivity."

   11%
3. C

   No Impact8% picked this

   Most of the increases in industrial productivity that have occurred in recent years have been due to the introduction of

   This doesn't give us any way to explain how giving more control to individual employees led to a boost in productivity. It's about robots.

   8%
4. D

   No Impact6% picked this

   The innovations of the Industrial Revolution are only now being applied in those companies in which individual employees have traditionally been entirely in control

   This doesn't give us any way to explain how certain companies have giving more control to individual employees, leading to a boost in productivity. This answer is talking about companies whose employees have previously been entirely in control. These companies are only now installing the ideas from the Industrial Revolution, so they are starting to become more centrally controlled. Our job is to explain why certain companies who are starting to become less centrally controlled are being more productive.

   6%
5. E

   Correct68% picked this

   Increases in productivity in highly productive companies depend on management's broad application of innovative ideas solicited from individual

   Why this is right

   This gives us a way to explain how an already-productive (i.e. "highly productive") company could give individual employees more decision making power and see a productivity boost as a result. Apparently, once you've got a highly productive company (say, for example, that you've already maxed out all the efficiency gains of assembly lines and central planning), then any further increases in productivity will depend on innovative ideas solicited from individual employees about their work. The management then has to broadly apply these ideas. So by getting a good mix of central planning and some employee empowerment, you get individual employees generating innovative ideas and then sharing them with management who can then broadly apply.

   Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   68%