314. The Productivity Problem You're Probably Ignoring

Just because your business processes don't seem broken, it doesn't mean they aren't the source of your productivity problems. It all starts with the shovel.

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The shovel was invented 7,000 years ago.

Over that time, it’s safe to say that advancements in shovel technology have been nominal. In a nutshell, small shovels were made for moving small amounts of stuff; larger shovels were made for moving larger amounts.

What I’m saying is that 100 billion people have lived on this earth since the shovel’s inception and not a one thought more about improving the shovel beyond its size.

And then came Frederick Winslow Taylor. (The original TayTay)

Frederick was a mechanical engineer at the turn of the 20th century. His special sauce was to use scientific reasoning as a way to improve productivity. It sounds like a really cool job if you ask me. Which you didn’t, but I’ve finally decided I don’t need your permission anymore to express my feelings.

This is a big step for me. Please appreciate that.

Anyway. It was in 1911 that Frederick turned his attention to the shovel.

While working for the Bethlehem Steel Company, he recognized that the workers were using the same shovels to carry both heavier and lighter materials. Maybe, he thought - just maybe - there might be a better way to shovel.

Frederick conducted a study and discovered that there was, indeed, a more productive way to shovel. A bigger shovel, he learned, is not necessarily better.

In fact, Frederick’s important revelation was that a shovel load of exactly 21 pounds would generate the most productive effort for the average human. Whether it’s 21 pounds of heavy material or 21 pounds of lighter material, it makes no difference. A 21-pound load is the magic number when it comes to shoveling.

So he designed different shovels for different types of materials and educated the workers on how big of a load to move.

The result?

Shoveling productivity skyrocketed nearly 4x, going from 16 tons to 59 tons of material per day.

Fascinating, right?
I thought so too.

The Way They’ve Always Been Done

In my role as a leadership coach, I’m hired by companies to improve productivity. I’m like a modern-day Frederick Winslow Taylor, without the science. Or the shovels. Or the dapper suits.

OK, maybe I’m nothing like him.

The first thing I do when I’m brought into a company is to ask leadership to describe the issues. More often than not, I’m told that a person has either a communication or an accountability problem. The result is reduced productivity.

Then I dive in to figure things out.

Here’s a secret… all productivity problems boil down to an issue in one of three sectors:

• Team

• Leadership, or

• Process

In every instance, at least one of those sectors is to blame.

Here’s another secret, rarely do leaders think they have process problems. Instead, they always believe it’s a team or leadership issue.

Here’s the critical information you need to know:

Because you don’t think the process is broken, it doesn’t mean it’s working well.

For 7,000 years, nobody thought the shovel was broken, but Frederick Taylor still figured out it wasn’t working well.

“That’s our process,” people tell me. “The process isn’t a problem. It’s worked fine for years.”

And they are right. They are telling me the truth. The processes companies use often do work, and have been working for a long time without any obvious problems.

But simply because you can’t see that something is broken, it doesn’t mean it’s working as well as you need it to be.

Businesses evolve. Priorities shift. Team structures change.

A process that worked well before, may now be the secret bottleneck for your current problems. And odds are, you don’t even recognize it.

The Problem With Your Efficient Processes

I guarantee that you have inefficiencies with your work. Almost everybody does.

The question is, which of your inefficiencies are limiting your productivity?

There are a few ways to assess this.

• Is work taking longer than normal?

• Are employees creating workarounds?

• Have you introduced new technology in the past months?

• Has inter-company communication become frustrating?

Each of these are red-flags that processes need to be examined.

One of the most popular issues I’m brought in to remedy is a lack of transparency and a breakdown in interoffice communications. If you have this issue, don’t feel alone - it runs rampant among companies of all sizes.

• Productivity increases by a whopping 20-25% in companies where employees feel connected¹

• But 60% of companies don’t have a long-term strategy for their internal communications²

Effective communication is often thought to be a team or leadership issue. But more often than not, it’s a process problem.

After all, before COVID transformed workplace culture, communication channels weren’t as broken as they are now. Almost everybody was in the office - meetings and emails worked just fine(-ish). But now you have remote and hybrid employees. Maybe you’ve integrated Slack or Teams into your workforce.

Despite these changes to the company culture, leaders are expecting the old ways of communicating to still be effective.

That’s the problem.

Those processes didn’t break. The company evolved and the processes didn’t evolve with them.

The Shovel Moment for Your Business

Nobody at Bethlehem Steel thought the shovel was broken. It was doing its job — picking up stuff and moving it from one place to another. What’s broken about that?

Just because something isn’t visibly broken doesn’t mean it’s working as well as it could. It took 7,000 years and Frederick Winslow Taylor to challenge that assumption and show the world that a simple change could revolutionize productivity.

So here are my questions for you:

» What tasks take longer than they should?
» Where do workarounds happen too often?
» What habits or assumptions are slowing us down?

The businesses that ask these questions — the ones that rethink, rework, and refine — are the ones that will keep winning. Every. Single. Time.

Your shovel moment is waiting.
Grab on.

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Did I miss anything in this article? Is there another point of view you have?

Let me know.
Email me or put a note in the comments.
I may address it later and will give you props.

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1. McKinsey & Company, “Research Says That Companies That Do This 1 Thing Increase Worker Performance By 25%”

2. IABC, “Tips To Enhance Your Internal Communication”