Dear Friends of Atzari,
We've all been there - you come in with a to-do list in mind, then the phone rings, e-mails come in, your boss comes in, employees come in, and all of a sudden its lunch time and you wonder where half the day went. Other times, we lock our doors and try to focus - while everyone else complains that we are inaccessible. Then the FDA walks in - and its amazing how quickly priorities become very clear!
We live in a culture that glorifies multi-tasking. It is common to see job postings that include, "must be able to multi-task," as if that were in the same league as "self-starter, organized, and disciplined."
Many of us have the perception that the person who is always busy and has a cluttered desk must be the most productive. However, we seem to have a bit of schizophrenia over this point! We also somehow feel that the person with a clear desk must be the most intelligent, especially if they have managed to delegate everything. Sometimes either or both are true! Yet many other times both perceptions are flat wrong! How can this be?
I remember a few years back, that Company "C" hired "efficiency experts" to straighten out individual offices. From a distance it was comical to watch. The efficiency expert would camp out for one week at a manager's or director's office. As each day went by, we saw large trash bags of shredded or waste paper accumulate outside this person's door. When the efficiency expert was done, the person's office had had an extreme makeover. The desktop was clear and everything was filed and organized - for a couple of days that is! A couple of weeks after the efficiency expert left - and several crises later - the office was back to its usual clutter.
In another experience a few years ago, at Company "B," we found another interesting phenomenon. We knew that everyone was busy, but some people seemed to be more effective than others. As a way to gauge what was going on, the Directors at the plant asked me to create a huge matrix. Each column header listed a project and each row header listed a person. We asked each person to report in on what was on their plate. We then constructed the huge matrix. What we found was astounding - everyone was working on multiple projects - everyone that is, except for one notable person. A particular R&D manager was the only person in the plant that had only 1 project. Was she perceived as lazy, or someone who could be replaced? Quite the contrary! She was consistently held up by management as an example of the project leader that always got her projects done on time and within budget! Of course, in doing her projects, she kept a lot of other people busy supporting her efforts. However, she consistently won the recognition of the management. Few people took the time to notice that she was the only one carrying a single project (and not a major one at that). However, her project always came in on time, so she was awarded the plum projects.
So, what gives? Which one is correct? The multi-tasker with the messy desk? The efficient delegator with the clean desk? Or is it the person with only one project? In fact, the answer may be "non of the above." See, it depends more on WHAT they were working on rather than HOW they were doing it. The principles of LEAN teach us to eliminate waste and clutter. However, TOC teaches us that working on the constraint and on the critical path is the most important thing, while being efficient at a non-constraint is a mirage.
Let's first examine the successful person with the messy desk. One reason their desk is messy is that they focus like a laser on the critical path and set everything else aside. So the non-critical items remain in clear view - but they are set aside. That person is successful, not because of their clutter, but because of their ability to focus and to tune out the less important items. However, when the critical path truly shifts, they can quickly change gears.
Next, let's look at the unsuccessful person with the messy desk. This person is just a cog in the system. They readily drop one thing for another, and their interruptions are getting interrupted! They lose all focus and simply allow clutter to overtake them. They just stew in their mess and the days turn into weeks, weeks into months, and they never really accomplish anything. However because of their cluttered desk, it is easy to assume they must be doing something of value to the company!
Now, let's look at the successful person with the clean desk. They have a system, it is a simple system , and things are quickly sorted - Trash, Read/Refer, Act, or File (TRAF). Yes, they have learned the lessons of lean, and have applied them. This is a good thing! However, a more important factor in their success is that they are working on what is most important to the company and to the system. They focus like a laser and every other distraction is kept out of sight and out of mind until the priority is completed. Because they have a simple system, it is easy for them to shift gears - whey priorities truly shift.
Next, let's look at the unsuccessful person with the clean desk (this is the "golden brick" because if they are let go, no one will notice). They are lean, clean, and organized. However, they are working on trivial matters that do not contribute to the bottom line. Worst of all, they become a constraint for others, since their perfect system takes priority over everything else they are asked to do. I remember a lady at Company "N" that had her personal fiefdom of training. No document would ever be released until she had the training records presented to her in good order. It did not matter if the line was down! It did not matter if the company was losing money! "No tee-kee no washee" - if you did not have your training records, the documents were not released. PERIOD. However, she was soon replaced (she resigned) but no one seemed to notice or miss her. The problem is that she created a constraint and a local optimum. She arbitrarily caused all other priorities to be subservient to her training fiefdom.
In Star Wars, Episode I, there is a scene in the Senate of the Republic, where Senator Palpatine comments, "Enter the bureaucrat." At that point, all principles and priorities are set aside for the sake of bureaucratic expediency. Meanwhile, peaceful Naboo is being ravaged by the Trade Federation…. We all see this scene in our work - "enter the bureaucrat" and everything comes to a halt!
In our consulting practice, we are often tempted to split up an assignment - "you work on this and I'll work on that." We find that, even in our small organization, multitasking creates problems. You see, it is very difficult in today's interconnected environment, to work on something without interrupting others. We reward people for getting tasks done on time. Yet, if they accomplished a non-critical task on time and, in doing so, interrupted others, we actually contributed to a delay in the overall project!
This is the reason why so many companies create "war rooms." They lasso everyone into a conference room and nobody leaves until the task at hand is accomplished. Yes, some people are idle, but they are there the second their contribution is required. Hence, no lost time. People are not interrupting each other, because, there is only one priority and task at hand.
We need to stop rewarding and glorifying multi-tasking for its own sake. In fact, projects are often late because we reward people for accomplishing non-essential tasks on time! In doing so, they tied up critical resources, causing a delay in the critical path.
Multi-tasking, like its operational cousin, batch-processing, creates the illusion of speed and the illusion of efficiency. However, what really counts is completing a key project on time, not what the score was for individual tasks.
