In a recent research study conducted by the Conference Board it’s concluded that in 2009 the global productivity fell by 1% on average which is the first time in 19 years it’s declined as measured as output per worked hour. On a global basis it is expected to grow by more than 2% in 2010.

There are significant differences between different regions that are noteworthy. In the US productivity (in per hour terms) actually grew 2.5%. This was explained by how companies in the US quicker and more drastically reduced their workforce to make the cost side of the productivity equation smaller. Productivity growth in the US is projected at 3%.

It’s interesting to contrast this to the European productivity growth that turned negative in 2009 where output per hour fell 1 percent.

“These are unusually large differences in productivity growth between the United States and Europe,” said Bart van Ark, chief economist of The Conference Board. “U.S. employers have reacted much more strongly to the recession than their European counterparts in terms of cutting jobs and hours. In 2010, both Europe and the United States will see higher productivity growth coming out of recession. However, a jobless productivity recovery is the most likely scenario in both regions.”

It’s also very interesting to see how for example the Chinese market at the same time had a productivity growth of 8.2%.

Good luck with your growth and productivity gains in 2010.

Today it’s been stated that testing your DNA to assess your potential and how you should train to excel in sports is where sports nutrition used to be a couple of decades ago. On the plane the other night I read this article from Bicycling magazine and it’s really becoming mainstream practice to see where your athletic potential lies. Not so much for absolute levels but to find it relatively if you have fast or slow twitch muscles so you’d know better in what disciplines you could get really good and where you just genetically are already capped.

In business as a manager you do whatever you can to hire and develop your folks to grow into roles that you see a great fit for and have a real business need in. I think it’s safe to say that it would be a while before we figure out how to and allow ourselves to DNA test our colleagues and contractors to help assess their potential (pretty scary and far fetching thought right?!) to drive people performance.

But what is really at your hands as a manager though is to drive as much performance from your people as you possibly can no matter their genetic capability. No one wants to leave work feeling completely underwhelmed or go celebrate some work done if you don’t feel that you did your best. You are a coach and a manager that can and should set up for ultimate performance for your team members. Get your people to feel that they left all they had on the field that day. People want to perform and you as a manager no matter at what level – even when you manage and coach yourself – should set up for this.

A while ago I learned about some of the best research into how you actually drive real people performance. Learnings from high pressure organizations, sports, art and other high performance environments. Elkiem who has studied thousands of high performers and SF Research then recently partnered up to help accelerate their research findings into the hands of people that are accountable for driving people performance in their organizations – and who isn’t?

Look at this paper – Leaders Drive Productivity -  and get some insight on how you could drive better people performance from creating high performance environments  in your organization.