Plug Your Organization’s Time Leak

Tick tock. Tick tock. Every day, valuable time is leaking out of your organization.

Research suggests that 25 percent of the workday is wasted on distractions and common points of collaborative friction. That two hours of meetings you sat through yesterday during which nothing was accomplished? That’s time leak.

Here’s the thing about leaks – even ones that seem small eventually spread. And the longer you let them go, the bigger the problem you’re going to have. Ever end an unproductive meeting by deciding to schedule another one? Every drop in the bucket gets you closer and closer to spilling over.

Fortunately, to fix a leaky roof, you don’t need to build a whole new house. The key is to understand how big the problem is, and to identify the source. The same is true for time leak. There’s no need to start from scratch. Relatively simple changes in how your organization collaborates can start shoring up the leak, especially if you can pinpoint where it’s coming from.

Ready to find out where you’re leaking the most time? Here’s a few good ways to start:

Step 1: Spot the Symptoms

Time leak manifests in a set of common pain points. Do any of these sound familiar?

• We operate in siloes
• Individuals are scheduled back-to-back most days
• Most meetings include more than 10 people, but only a few attendees participate
• Multitasking is a common practice
• Blocked working time routinely gets scheduled over

Step 2: Dig into the Data

Most workplaces have implemented annual surveys to gauge employee engagement and wellness. This data can also provide insight into the effects of ineffective collaboration and time leak. What you will notice is that collaborative friction frequently shows up in low trust, a perceived lack of transparency in communication, and overload and burnout. When these issues rise to the surface, look to collaboration as a potential culprit.

The data in these surveys tends to be directional, lacking granular-enough guidance on how to address the root causes. We recommend augmenting these annual surveys (or administering a separate one) with questions focused on how the team works together, including meeting quality, psychological safety, and collaborative norms.

Very few leaders have been trained on how to work in ways that create efficiency and effectiveness for everyone. Instead, the higher you go in an organization, the more that people adapt themselves to your preferences rather than asking you to align to a norm.

That means, if you want to plug your team’s time leak, you’ll likely have to go first. To start, try being mindful of the small things that can make a big difference. For example, come to meetings on time and fully prepared, and do your best to resist the allure of your phone to stay fully engaged in the conversation. We’ve seen leaders make a tremendous impact on the collaborative culture in their organization just by staying present.

One thing that can enable higher-quality participation is better breaks and buffer time. Instill a new norm of 45-minute meetings to provide you with a time buffer, and help the meeting host end on time. This gives everyone a few minutes to catch their breath and reorient themselves to the next conversation.

Avoiding time leak is all about intention. When we accept that aimless meetings and endless email threads are “just how work is,” we’re simply setting too low of a bar. Find the source of your time leak, plug up the holes, and enjoy the productivity and satisfaction that follows.