SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 160,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: How much of your team’s work is irrelevant or a waste of time/efficiency?
- Less than 5%: 15.5%
- 6% to 15%: 33.04%
- 16% to 25%: 31.14%
- 26% or more: 20.32%
Stop doing stupid stuff. More than 50% of you believe you’re wasting more than 15% of your team’s time on irrelevant work. More than 20% of you said it’s 25% or more of your time. Imagine how much more work you could get done if that irrelevant stuff went away. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to dictate the work your team does or doesn’t do. This comes down to making hard choices and holding both your team and your partners/customers to supporting those decisions. The good news is there are easy ways to decide what to stop doing. For 2012, let’s all get more efficient.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”