Many managers today feel overwhelmed, and the common advice they receive is to spread out as many tasks as possible. But what should you do if you have divided everything you can but still have unfinished business? If your team is also extremely busy, reassigning tasks is just a burden shifting and is not a sustainable solution.
We have encountered this situation many times in our work coaching hundreds of leaders and large teams. Fortunately, there are three key strategies that can help you reevaluate and adjust the way you work, freeing up more time and energy.
Make sure the team understands what “good enough” means
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that every job should be perfect. But if you and your team pursue “excellence” in everything, it actually means you may be overly pursuing quality, which will put pressure on the team, waste energy, and slow down overall progress.
We encourage leaders to adopt a fit-for-purpose approach to work. That is, consciously assessing the level of energy investment that is reasonable for a job. Do you discuss with your team how well a task is considered “good enough”? Where can it be simplified appropriately?
For example, a CEO client whom Jordan (one of the authors) once coached was very good at managing time and energy, and he knew very well what was important and what was not. He told the board he would send out a weekly email, but that it would be a "brainstorming" of ideas without any editing. In this way, the board of directors can understand the company's latest situation in real time, and the CEO does not have to waste his precious energy on polishing the text.
Another organization we coached had a strong “process-oriented” culture, and the leadership team was accustomed to soliciting employee input on many organizational decisions. You might think that employees would appreciate this high-involvement approach, and in rare cases they do. But overall, employees often complain that the organization's processes are too cumbersome and make work and life increasingly tiring. We recommend that the CEO and team of the organization adopt different decision-making methods based on the importance or risk of different issues and streamline the process as much as possible.
Another executive client is now asking his direct reports to submit rough first-draft plans rather than striving for perfection in multi-page documents when working on less complex or low-stakes work. She also encourages teams to send bulleted emails when possible, rather than long narrative texts, and says she will proactively ask questions when they have questions. The team is also studying how to use AI to reduce work intensity.
If leaders themselves and their teams are already overwhelmed, take some time to rethink and change the way they work.
Which tasks only need to be performed at a "good" level that could take less effort or simplify the process, thereby saving time and effort? For example, could you shorten your weekly updates? Can bullet points be used instead of detailed descriptions? When faced with a simple project, do you really need a complete project plan?
What consensus can be reached with superiors to reduce work output or streamline work processes? For example, can you suggest to your superiors that it would be best to simplify the communication method and reduce the frequency of communication? Is it possible to convey a message using a first draft rather than a finished draft? Can the decision-making process be streamlined?
How can you and your team use AI to do "good enough" work in less time? Ask your team what software they are trying out and encourage them to try more. For example, meeting minute-taking tools are now very mature and can be very helpful when writing a first draft. We recently brainstormed with colleagues and came up with a long list of AI tools worth trying.
When managers and teams stop and evaluate whether there are tasks where the bar can be “strategically lowered,” the answer is almost always yes. Moreover, encouraging the work to be “good enough” can bring more vitality to the team.
Identify and eliminate low-value tasks
We all know to eliminate low-value tasks. However, when working with clients we often find that many low-value tasks have been hidden in plain sight and become unconscious inertia. Some teams, even if they have made attempts to streamline processes, often stop at superficial improvements and miss opportunities for deeper improvements. If you continue to dig deeper, you can often save more time.
Our experience is that it usually takes two rounds of "looks" to identify all tasks that can be eliminated or mitigated.
Here is a simple load-reduction process that leaders and their teams can use:
1. Ask team members in advance to list all tasks that can be eliminated. In meetings, the first thing they think of is usually something that others can do without. That's okay, it's a warm-up.
2. Then guide the team to think deeply: If they work one less day a week, what tasks can the employees not do? This is often where breakthroughs can occur.
Of course, when cutting certain tasks, make sure there is no negative impact on clients, colleagues, or finances.
One of France's (co-author's) clients leads multiple teams of nurses in a hospital. These nurses generally feel that they have too much administrative work and no time to care for patients. She invited the team to discuss how to reduce the workload without compromising the quality of patient care. After further discussion, they decided not to fill out a 100-question checklist for each patient but to simply record abnormalities. This change freed up each team member three to four hours per week, which can be used for more caregiving work.
Information overload is a common source of low-value work. Many times a lot of information is released, but people don’t read it at all, or they don’t respond at all. France encountered this situation in his early years as CEO of a retail company. At that time, the number of reports and communications was overwhelming, and middle-level leaders were complaining. He and his team decided to pause all reporting for the next month and then evaluate what information was essential. As a result, the team found that they could cut their reporting workload by nearly 40%.
Another common source, as shown in the hospital example above, is administrative work, lengthy forms, or complex approval processes. Some organizations have a strong "process-oriented" culture and tend to "over-process" everything, when many decisions, tasks or projects can actually be solved in simpler ways. In addition, reviewing and reworking documents often consumes a lot of time, when in fact it is enough to do the work "good enough". Of course, there are meetings in almost every organization that are either unnecessary or could be significantly shortened.
What efforts could you try to eliminate, optimize, or reduce? Remember, even if you accidentally cut out something really important, you can always bring it back. We've found that teams can more easily eliminate or simplify work if they adopt a two-way door, or reversible, decision-making principle. You can assure the team that if we cancel or change something and later find that the original way was better, we can bring it back.
strategic exit
Many leaders believe they should be “available.” But excessive presence can lead to more unnecessary interactions and make team members more dependent on the leader than they should be. By giving teams more room for autonomy, leaders can free up more time.
We once coached a senior partner in the services industry who often felt overwhelmed by the number of projects she was involved in.
We challenged her past “all in” approach to engagement and introduced her to two new, more sustainable approaches. The first one: Participate once at the start of the project, check once or twice in the middle stage, and finally attend the project summary meeting. The second type: Act as a consultant, participating in brainstorming or proposing solutions only when "requested".
This change in the way of participation is a relief for herself and the team. She took a break from multiple projects, and the team felt more empowered to take charge.
You can think about:
What projects or issues are you currently heavily involved in? Which ones can be completely withdrawn?
How can you reduce your level of engagement without compromising the needs of your colleagues?
Is it possible to use more asynchronous information update methods (asynchronous update)?
Do you only attend those parts of the meeting that are relevant to you, or only attend key decision-making sessions?
Is it possible to have a quick 15-minute catch-up with a direct report or colleague instead of a lengthy meeting?
Decrease your own involvement in smarter ways, stepping away from work (and encouraging your team to do the same), while explaining your reasons to colleagues so they understand your motivations.
. . .
When you're overwhelmed and can't delegate tasks, you can still find other ways to free up time and energy. It’s time to re-evaluate and carefully decide what to do and how to do it. Adopting a fit-for-purpose approach to work—matching the right amount of work to real needs, eliminating habitual low-value tasks, and strategically reducing your own involvement—will help you and your team free up valuable time and energy to focus on what really matters.
Frans van Loef Jordan Stark | Text
Frans van Leeuve is an Amsterdam-based executive coach and former CEO. Frans also serves as Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Amsterdam School of Finance. Jordan Stark is a partner at Next Step Partners, CEO and chief executive coach. He has more than 30 years of experience and is good at helping senior leaders display their leadership effectively.
ChatGPT | First translated by Zhao Weiyi | Translated and proofread by Liao Qijing | Edited
