Innovation is better than labor division

We all know that labor division will greatly improve the productivity. like what production lines has bring us cars, electronic products. Let individuals leverage their personalized advantage will increase output greatly.

For example, in a team, let the UI team focus on UI, backend engineer focus on server side service and architecture; database engineer focus on data; security engineer focus on authentication. the team will perform better than a bunch of engineers work on everything.

However, labor division will reach to a productivity maximum. it follows logarithmic curve, increase fast in the beginning, then reach to a ceiling level someday.

Year over year, we actually found that the world did not reach to a ceiling at all. economic is still growing. productivity is still increasing fast. The growth should be attributed to the power of innovation. innovation goes in the exponential curve way.

That is why Apple design its products in California, while assemble in China. product assembling follows the “labor division” curve, while design follows the “innovation” curve. Apple is smart and visionary.

So, as a team, how should we organize members and produce the most? my answer is let employee spend 50% on the routine work(labor division), while spend another 50% time on things that require more skills and imagination(innovation).