Where the waste lies

Dan Collins, the Australian ex-Olympian multiple medalist famously says, "Front load your effort".

He is speaking of the idea of committing high levels of effort and resource to a project at the very beginning. This helps us gain momentum so the 'meat' of a project can be nailed and overcome with ease rather than with struggle. This is why Monday mornings and the first week of a month or quarter are critical moments for professionals and leaders (Why starts matter, The Boot Room Dec 2020). It is also why I fight my instincts throughout my entire body and jump on the tasks I need to do in the first hours/days when engaging with a new client project. Like many, I have many excuses for myself to kick the can down the road, but Dan's words ring loudly in my ears - get going, now is the time to exert your energy!

It is this sort of interpretation (effort) I like to focus on when talking about resources. The sort which is highly malleable and highly controllable all at the same time. Things like head counts, expenditure budgets, and market share are all existing sets of resources. They can be influenced but will not change dramatically in a week, month or year no who you put into a management position. The resource of Effort is very different. It is a resource with great flexibility. The volume and intensity can be raised or reduced, spread or intensified. In a group scenario it can be compromised or synergised. The effect a given manager can have on this metric is HUGE!

Where are the effort leaks in your business? In a world of burnout (...not the bogan kind) where the most accomplished seem to get chewed up and spat out (Jacinta Ardern, Mark McGowan, Naomi Osaka, Damien Hardwick, Arianna Huffington), we must ask ourselves - how can we sustain our effort and that of our people?

I know as a fast bowler in cricket that tension was my enemy. When things were going bad the worst thing I could do was raise my intensity to try and bowl faster or harder. This would tend to cause the opposite effect (bowl slower with less accuracy). It seems to be similar in our workplaces. Working harder and longer are simply not paying off. In a post-pandemic world business is in 'catch up mode' with learnings from lockdowns a distant memory and the costly ways of working pre-pandemic coming back with interest.

Can you feel it? I can. I also hear it every day in workshops I run. The pressure is ratcheting up and it doesn't look like changing trajectory.

This is where the Return on Effort scale can be helpful. I encourage people to plot themselves and their team giving them an expectation of why performance is where it is and what the pathway looks like to a performance level they are striving for. Knowing where you are currently at is immediately helpful. If you are expecting to win a Formula 1 championship with anything other than an Adrian Newey designed car driven by Max Verstappen (Red Bull's current Formula One combination obliterating all competition in the current 2023 season) then you're only going to be disappointed. Strategising on how to beat them in the coming years is a more worthy conversation.

Knowing where you are in the ROE scale helps us to take the appropriate steps for our current reality. Stop fighting the irrelevant fights and start working on the high-impact-low-effort areas you will gain momentum and progress from
Image Source: The Rhythm Effect, Paul Farina

It is the same with our teams. Taking over an under-achieving team will likely begin with them being wary of you. There will likely be factions and infighting of some description. There will be protectionism and battles of ego. Talk about wasted resources! To me, this is the job (and tremendous opportunity) of a leader. To study the individual and group dynamics for understandings of where time, energy and company assets are being wasted. This line of thinking opens up constructive dialogue and focuses a leader's mind on the high-impact-low-effort (HILE) areas. Most of the HILE opportunities start with self:

Learn Early
Where are your blind spots? Often we do not need a fancy diagnostic to figure this out. What are the things we are scared to be asked? This tends to uncover plenty of areas to go and school ourselves on. Not sure about the company's disciplinary policies - get on the intranet and read up. A bit hazy on your company's market share or new legislation in your industry - better go look it up. Unable to pin point the strengths and weaknesses of each of your team players - time to spend some time together and do some polite digging. I like to encourage people to deliberately pick a topic to learn in direct relation to their job/industry every 6 months. It is a wonderful practice to stop the leakage of wasted time and energy we suffer through anxiety, ducking-and-diving, and even incompetence. Imaging if you set up this practice across your team. I call this Capacity Building.

Strategise Always
We are reactive by nature. We have a biology wired for survival (How do I motivate them? - The First Lever, July 2022). Staying alive is good, but often we are trying to achieve more than just survival. To elevate our thinking it is imperative to develop the critical thinking in ourselves and others and build strategies. This is not happening as often as we may think. Senior leaders are coming to workshops I run on a weekly basis to learn how to build strategies. This tells me a lot of junior and mid-level managers are not being taught how to do this. It is not a part of our business cultures and is not valued. And, many Strategic Plans being submitted to boards are often operational plans rather than strategic documents. Building a practice to approach challenges with a strategic process creates acceleration. Better decisions make for less mistakes, greater buy-in, and general clarity for all (the savings on waste reverberate wide and far). But, even if our strategies end up going sour, at least we have done some considered thinking. In my experience, this creates a general sense of confidence for self and how you are perceived by others.

All In Leadership
Col Fink is an engagement expert who once said, "there is nothing harder than being 99% in". He is talking about commitment. Are you in? Are you all in? Or, do you run the script in your mind that this is a stepping stone. A job for now. Something you are doing until something better comes along...

I see this in younger people all the time. Recently, I got chatting with a young guy (late twenties) working in a shop I frequent. He has a marketing degree and ambition. He wants to be a general manager. But no idea how to get there and is scouring the market for his next opportunity. I wanted to sit him down and say:

"hey man, list down all the things in the shop you feel need improving. Come up with solutions you think would help. Respectfully discuss them with the manager. Take ownership of all the work needed to be done for each of the actions he/she agrees to putting into action. Then go do with everything you've got. And don't forget to have fun while you do it."

We all know only good things (and opportunities) are going to open up for this guy if he puts the blinkers on and rolls up his sleeves to create positive change. On the flip side, wouldn't it be a great idea for the leader to be fully committed to creating an environment where team members feel empowered to bring their full skills and abilities to work? There may be an idea in this...

I teach the HAT methodology for this from The Rhythm Effect. It is proving more powerful than my initial research in the book. I am finding more and more applications for this with every client engagement. It is a great way to get your mind into a frame where there is no other place you'd rather be. This mindset tends to be so powerful due to its contagion.

With these elements in place every asset a leader has at their disposal can be leveraged with less waste. Lowered waste means more time and energy for getting stuff done. More stuff done means more progress. More progress creates a competitive edge. This is attractive and creates affinity. Things come easier at less cost (and risk).

This is a way of working all our businesses need in the modern environment.