CIPD 2016: What HR can learn from chickens

Those looking to increase productivity within their teams can learn a thing or two from chickens it seems. 

Entrepreneur, CEO, and author, Margaret Heffernan opened this year's annual CIPD conference with a keynote speech about how businesses should be tackling productivity by ignoring the pursuit of high-potential talent. 

She made a comparison to the geneticist William Muir's experiment with chickens and their egg-laying productivity. 

Muir studied a flock, identified the highly productive, and then separated them in to two groups; normal chickens and 'super chickens'. He then continued to monitor their productivity for six generations. Surprisingly, the result was that the group of normal chickens increased their productivity, while the super chickens barely even survived.