Is your time leak a trickle or a downpour?
Research suggests that knowledge workers waste an average of two hours per day with distractions, irrelevant meetings, and other sources of collaborative friction. That means that you’re paying for 100 percent of the work week, but you’re only getting 75 percent of it. Now scale that up to a 100-person organization. If everyone was paid $200k annually, your time leak would cost you $5M each year. Can you afford to forfeit that much time and money?
To put it in perspective, imagine a manufacturing line where only 75 percent of the products made the cut. Or a doctor who misdiagnosed 25 percent of their patients. No one would accept that type of performance as “just the way things are.” In fact, an entire industry was built on wringing every last ounce of efficiency and effectiveness out of manufacturing processes—i.e., Six Sigma. But somehow, because collaborative time leak is widespread, invisible, and hard to quantify, it’s an accepted cost of doing business.
What’s sad about this situation is that the majority of people don’t intend to waste their own or one another’s time. They are trapped in a model of perpetual scarcity such that they don’t have time or energy to prepare for meetings, to read prework, to send a recap, or to reread an email before hitting send. They are working frantically but getting nowhere.
What’s even sadder is that, as leaders, we’re enabling the situation. We’re running on our own hamster wheels, bouncing from meeting to meeting, struggling to stay on schedule or orient ourselves to the issue at hand. Priorities change after each conversation, decisions are made and then unmade, and more time is wasted.
1. FIGURE OUT HOW MUCH TIME YOU ARE CURRENTLY WASTING
You can get a pretty good assessment of how much time you are currently wasting by using an anonymous survey asking questions such as, “What percentage of the meetings you attend are a good use of time?” or “How often are you distracted by intrusions during your working time?” The responses should give you a good idea of the size of the problem. If you want a more precise and objective answer, invest in the data packages available through your calendar and email provider.
2. EQUIP YOUR TEAM TO WORK SMARTER
Our brains are not wired for efficiency. They are too busy scanning for danger and seeking dopamine hits. (Flash sale? Yes!) We have to retrain ourselves to be clear on priorities, to make time for deep, focused work, and to minimize distraction as much as possible. Your leaders will need to role-model different work routines, and you’ll need to build fundamental skills in calendar management, prioritization, meeting design and facilitation, and collaborating asynchronously.
3. SET AN INTENTION TO REDUCE YOUR WASTE
Build awareness across the organization about what time leak is costing your company. Challenge your teams to reduce their waste by working in more efficient and effective ways. Create incentives to reward the teams who make the greatest positive shift. One frame we find helpful is “Work less and get more high-value work done.”
Anyone who has ever been on a diet knows that good intentions are hard to hold onto. In addition to intrinsic motivation, we benefit greatly from external reinforcement. Make time leak one of the business metrics you routinely assess. Your bottom line will thank you for it.