“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.” –attributed to Albert Einstein
Do you have stuff at your job that just drives you nuts and doesn’t make sense?
We can all probably think of several things.
Why do some companies continue to do things that drive their employees crazy?
We’ve had some of those over the years. But I am happy to report most of them are now gone. I’ll explain.
A few years ago we had to train our team to work with an external software program that was cumbersome and not user friendly. Everyone felt it was unnecessarily complicated and inefficient.
But we felt it was something we had to do, as if we had no choice, so we continued to try to train them month after month, year after year.
We had endless protests. I could even hear a member of our data team on the phone for hours with our team almost every day, patiently answering questions and troubleshooting.
We tried training videos, specialized classes, in-house trainers, certifications, and peer navigators, but nothing seemed to stop the barrage of time-sucking complaints we received every week.
People lost passwords, lost access, and generally just couldn’t navigate the system. And we had little control over this because the tech support was outside our organization. They had to fill out tedious bureaucratic forms. It stole precious hours away from their most important work (writing highly detailed legal reports for the courts).
I’m embarrassed to say we tried this approach for more than three years, just gently and positively encouraging people to keep at it.
One day, a team member suggested we train one person really well to pull all the data from the system and email to every team member and thus limit access to the system to just one or two people.
Our leadership team quickly agreed to try this approach, and I can honestly say we may not have had a single complaint since that day.
It was like a miracle.
Sure, we had to dedicate a single staff member to do this job almost full time, but that one individual (along with a backup person) was able to save a massive team of experts a ton of time and frustration.
The sheer number of hours and emotional energy everyone got back with this simple fix is incalculable.
Why hadn’t we figured this out sooner?
The brain can get tunnel vision very easily. People can get invested in things they created even when they have outgrown their utility. Groups of people can get stuck in group think. Leaders can stop listening to complaints and just tell their team to suck it up.
Over the years, our boss has developed a sort of mantra that has become a part of our leadership culture: “We fix stupid.”
That means, whenever we encounter a process that doesn’t seem to make any sense, we have permission to challenge it and push back.
I can think of many more examples where our team or our boss has simply refused to continue a process that irritates everyone and could clearly be improved.
I take great pride in my work as a civil servant, but we may have a target rich environment when it comes to opportunities to fix processes that are slow or frustrating.
Organizational psychologist and author Robert Sutton has been teaching evidence-based management practices at Stanford since 1983. A recent article of his (co-published with Huggy Rao) was entitled Rid Your Organization of Obstacles that Infuriate Everyone. The research team spent eight years studying organizational barriers that damage the health and productivity of companies. They call their work “The Friction Project.”
Organizations typically focus on the new things they can add to make their company better, but they often overlook the things they can eliminate. The brain has a bias for additive solutions and a blind spot when it comes to subtractive fixes.
But the payoff in removing ridiculous and frustrating systems or tasks, can be huge.
After all, removing ineffective or inefficient processes from the organization can help to reduce burnout, improve morale, increase productivity, and give people more time to focus on meaningful and important work. Logically, these things would usually translate into higher profitability as well.
For example, we do job surveys every year with our team. When they complain about something, we generally take it seriously and try to fix it. Often, this involves correcting processes that don’t make sense.
I was working on something last week (unrelated to my job) that took about five hours when it should have taken 15 minutes. I was about to lose my mind. The barriers I encountered were unnecessary and the customer service was severely lacking.
When you begin trying to fix these things, the first answer you will often get is “That is the way we have always done things, and that is our policy.”
Well, if the policy or the process is stupid, don’t make this excuse and don’t take no for an answer when trying to fix it. Go all out and diplomatically challenge the process.
If you are a leader and your team is constantly irritated, take the time necessary to begin removing the “friction points” they encounter regularly so that they can be more focused and less agitated.
You will see great rewards as you work to eliminate these things.
One caveat however is that not all work should be frictionless. Sutton reminds leaders that some work should be deeply challenging or creative, not efficient and shallow. The wise leader will not seek to eliminate friction in every area, but only in those areas that frustrate and delay without need.
Turn information into action
Take some time this week to put this information into practice. Do a quick anonymous survey (if you want real answers) to ask your team what the most frustrating parts of their job are that take away from their overall job satisfaction?
Then take the information and make it a priority to fix the obstacle and make sure you report back to your team what you are doing (surveys without follow up can be damaging).
For bonus points, track the number of hours saved or create a measure of improvement to demonstrate visual impact.
Have a great weekend!
Parker
Want more resources?
- Harvard Business Review—Rid Your Organization of Obstacles that Infuriate Everyone
