Working Smarter

“Our research indicates that knowledge workers spend a great deal of their time – an average of 41% – on discretionary activities that offer little personal satisfaction and could be handled competently by others,” say Julian Birkinshaw (London Business School) and Jordan Cohen (PA Consulting Group) in this Harvard Business Review article. “There are many reasons why this happens. Most of us feel entangled in a web of commitments from which it can be painful to extricate ourselves; we worry that we’re letting our colleagues or employers down if we stop doing certain tasks.” In addition, doing less-important tasks gives a certain feeling of accomplishment, and even unproductive meetings provide social benefits. And underlings are often overworked. “I face the constraint of the working capacity of the people I delegate to,” said one executive. 

Birkinshaw and Cohen say, “All you have to do is ask the right questions and act on the answers.” Here are their steps:

• What are the low-value tasks? They recommend looking at all the activities in a typical day and rating them on a sliding scale:

• How valuable is this activity to the organization? Significant; small impact; no impact; negative impact.
• To what extent could I let this go? Top priority; get it done today; if time allows; I can cut this immediately.
• How much personal value do I get from doing it? One of the best parts of my job; I enjoy this activity; it has good and bad points; tiresome; I dislike doing it.
• To what extent could someone else do it on my behalf? Only I can do this; best done by me; if structured properly, someone else could do it; easily handled by someone else; could be dropped entirely.

When executives are asked to do this exercise, most find at least ten hours of activity each week that can be delegated or dropped. 

• What can be dropped, delegated, or redesigned? Birkinshaw and Cohen recommend sorting the low-value tasks into three categories:

• Quick kills – Things you can stop doing now with no negative effects;
• Off-load opportunities – Tasks that can be delegated with minimal effort;
• Long-term redesign – Work that needs to be restructured or overhauled. 

Going through this exercise, one participant in their study said, “I realized that the big change I should make is to say no up-front to low-value tasks and not commit myself in the first place.”

• Where can tasks be off-loaded? “I overestimated my subordinate’s capability at first,” said another participant, “but it got easier after a while, and even having a partially done piece of work created energy for me.” Interestingly, subordinates appreciated being assigned many of these tasks. 

• What should I do with my freed-up time? “The goal, of course, is to be not just efficient but effective,” say Birkinshaw and Cohen. “So the next step is to determine how to best make use of the time you’ve saved.” Jot down two or three things you should be doing and keep track of how you do on them, they recommend. Observe people doing their work and give them feedback. And go home a little earlier and enjoy your family. 

• How can I lock in this plan? It’s important to share these steps with your boss, say Birkinshaw and Cohen. “Without this step, it’s all too easy to slide back into bad habits.”

“Make Time for the Work That Matters” by Julian Birkinshaw and Jordan Cohen in Harvard Business Review, September 2013 (Vol. 91, #9, p. 115-118), no e-link available

From the Marshall Memo #498