FEMI TAIWO: SECRETS OF WINNING AT WORK (II) – ELIMINATE UNNECESSARY WORK
STRATEGY WITH FEMI TAIWO ON MONDAY
Michael is a first class chemical engineering graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, and a PhD holder in same discipline from the University of Arkansas, United States. He works in a multinational energy giant in the United States.
Secrets of Winning at Work: Eliminate Unnecessary Work
The last time we talked about work being of three types: grunt work, value added work and personal initiatives. The most successful workers spend more time with personal initiatives and less with grunt work. They have learnt how to be hyper efficient in doing their grunt work such that it takes the minimum time possible. It is the aim of this article to highlight one method of gaining this efficiency. The next articles will treat other methods.
The first step in mastering how to complete one’s tasks in the shortest time possible is to look for what to eliminate altogether. Eliminate work that doesn’t need to be done by you. The key phrase in that rule is “by you.” The work may need to be done but does it absolutely have to be done by you? At first blush, this may appear impossible but it is possible to cut out work without appearing lazy or taking unethical short cuts. For example you can have a discussion with your manager about the need to stop doing some work if you can show it doesn’t add value to the company. We do some things really out of tradition or because of ignorance. There is no need for archiving newspapers in a special room if older editions are readily available in the local library or on the Internet. The more of this type of work you can cut out from your daily routine, the more productive you can be.
Another elimination tactic is to transfer the work to others by using the economic principle of comparative advantage. An example should make this clearer. Suppose I am an engineer being paid $100 per hour and suppose I can type 100 words per minute. Now does it make sense for my company to employ a secretary that can type 50 words per minute for $10 per hour? Yes! Suppose I have a document to type that will take me 10 hrs. The cost to the company is $100/hr * 10hrs = $1,000. If a secretary is employed, the cost will be $10/hr*20hrs = $200. So even though I can type twice as fast as the secretary, it still pays the company to employ the secretary because they pay $200 for a work that would have cost $1,000. The 10 hrs I save from not typing can then be spent on valuable engineering work. Comparative advantage generates value for everyone.
Obtain permission to delegate the work to interns or more junior staff or even outsource it altogether. Frame the discussion not in terms of trying to make your own life easier but in terms of returns to the company in exchange of your time/skill. Let the discussion be about comparative advantage: more value is created if you do work commensurate with your skill. You can say something like this “I am happy to keep filling the tax forms if you think it is absolutely necessary but I really think we should give it to X. That will save me about 10hours a week and I can use that time to design the company’s website and attract more customers”. Few managers will say no to such a request. The more drudgery you can cut from your work, the better position you are in to win. What you are doing here is applying the economic principle of comparative advantage.
To cite a personal example, my mom was a biology teacher. She would come home with tons of biology papers to grade. Part of the work was to grade multiple-choice questions. This is the perfect definition of grunt work. She eliminated that part of the work by giving it to me! And I was always eager to do them! To me, it is not grunt work, it is fun and I am helping my mama! Think about it, it is not optimal for a University graduate with many years of teaching experience to spend her evening marking 1 – C, correct; 2 –A, correct; 3 – B, wrong…when her smart eight year old could do the job just as accurate.
Conclusion
Successful workers are brutal about eliminating unnecessary tasks. One way to cut out unneeded work is to question its relevancy to the bottom line. A second way is to use the principle of comparative advantage to argue for the transfer of the work to someone of lesser skill.
Of course, even with the two methods described above, you would not have eliminated all your grunt work. That is not possible and it is not even the aim of the article. Our aim is to cut out the fat. After you have eliminated what you can, the surviving grunt work will have to be simplified. And that is the topic we discuss next: simplify what is left.
