Falling digital subscriber counts at the Washington Post cause CEO Fred Ryan to investigate low productivity in the newsroom. It sounds like a simple cause and effect.

Meanwhile, Katie Robertson of the New York Times reports this concern increases monitoring of meetings, badge swipes, and activity. Here's why this is a flawed approach!

If you want greater productivity, the activity doesn't matter. What you do doesn't matter if the results aren't aligned with business objectives. Measuring activity doesn't increase productivity.

Do you make these same leadership mistakes? Without a clear picture of the desired outcome, more activity only burns resources. In the modern business world, it doesn't matter if someone is in an office or not, as long as the work is done.

Two reporters can have different productivity habits to create the same quality work. How you measure productivity matters. If one reporter takes three hours to write a story and the other four, but both meet the deadline, should it matter?

A manager's approach is "more output in fewer hours means potential to increase output." Meanwhile, a leader understands it is the output requested that is achieved. It takes more than an activity to increase outcomes.

With cognitive work pushing the faster writer into more stories burns them out. Asking the slower writer to go faster reduces quality. Measures of story quality have more value than the speed of writing. Or even stories the subscribing audience wants to read.

Producing results is more complex than managers and leadership perceive it. The right approach acknowledges individual ability as well as defined outcomes. The wrong process wastes time and resources.

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