You know, our whole concept of productivity was built for production environments, assembly lines, factories, places where more output, faster, was the only measure that mattered.

But most of us today aren't in those environments.

So what does productivity actually look like for the rest of us?

Today, we're going to reframe it and take a few

cues from one of nature's most surprisingly sophisticated creatures, the octopus. Hey, it's Rachel Cook,

your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help leaders rethink how the work

actually gets done so that results stay strong and people stay well

and engaged in the process. If your team is ready to work smarter and build something more

sustainable, I'd love to come speak at your next offsite or event. Reach out at leadabovenoise.com

slash connect. Okay, on to today. So I have these close friends who run a day camp, and a huge part of

their work every year is hiring all the counselors and lifeguards it takes to run the show.

Many of these hires are young adults, late teens, early 20s, and every year my friends have a

few banger stories to share about the parents of

these counselors and lifeguards, parents who show up with their adult kids for the interview

or who call my friends to request a day off on behalf of the staff member.

Listen, parenting is hard, and my point is not to judge. These parents have only the best of intentions. They're really trying to support their kids and help them land great jobs. But if we're honest, they're showing up like this is doing a disservice to the young adults who are missing out on the chance to learn to advocate for themselves. So what does this have to do with productivity? Well, a lot,

actually. Like those well-meaning parents, we too are often making choices designed to serve us

that are actually in the end working against us. We're robbing ourselves of opportunities to work

smarter, and that may be the truest key to productivity.

I recently came across this concept in a Harvard Business Review piece, published by

Jana Werner and Phil LeBroon, called Become an Octopus Organization.

The octopus is genuinely a fascinating creature. Its arms have kind of a distributed intelligence, and each one

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