Less is often more.
Most of us know this. Yet, most leaders end up “adding” more things to do for their organizations, rather than getting rid of things. Research shows we are “wired” this way. When humans are asked to think of ways to improve things, we fall into “addition bias.”
We can be much more effective if can focus some of our time on a “stop doing” list. A recent article in Harvard Business Review provides excellent ideas on how to proceed. One of the authors’ primary ideas is to employ a Good Riddance Review:
1. Ask colleagues and customers to identify unnecessary obstacles. The Hawaii Pacific Health system launched GROSS: Get Rid of Stupid Stuff. They asked nurses, docs, and assistants to nominate anything that was “poorly designed, unnecessary, or just plain stupid.” They ended up saving thousands of hours in staff time by implementing suggestions.
2. Calculate the burdens of performance measurement. KISS: Keep It Super Simple. Only measure the most important stuff. I know one organization that cut its performance dashboard from 32 metrics to eight.
3. Assess the burden imposed by meetings. Cut meeting time by a third. There should probably be fewer and shorter meetings in your organization. And they definitely need to be better run – including agendas for every meeting (See here for more ideas.)
4. Catalog email overload. Or don’t catalog it – just get rid of as much of it as you can. Many organizations have guidelines to limit email between 10PM – 6AM and on weekends. Rethink all of the CCs. Challenge people to limit the length of each email.
5. Count how many people report to each leader. You think you are being efficient by having more than six people report to each leader, but you are actually drowning them in meetings. They don’t have the time to do their own work or manage people well.
This is just the beginning. The article is chock full of additional ideas on how to get rid of the BS and I encourage you to check it out.
What do we do with the time we save? How about having a more balanced life? Or devoting some time to being really strategic (vs reactionary) in your planning? Cut out the BS. Save time, frustration, and make even more of a Mission Impact.
*Ideas for this blog taken from: Sutton, R. I. & Rao, H. “Rid Your Organization of Obstacles That Infuriate Everyone,” Harvard Business Review, January – February 2024, pp. 100 – 107.
