Enjoy the how so much that you make time to improve it.
Why are “Ways of Working People“ so badly neglected in today’s job market? When you “remove the overhead”, what are you really optimising for? Are you getting bang for your buck?
Everyone’s obsessed with outcome. I know, outcome is what changes things, what actually drives profit. But much less emphasis is put on how the team works together, and who should own that part. If you only focus on outcome and not on how you work, you’re also not focusing on learning.
Mike Rother wrote about this years ago, in Toyota Kata: leave a process alone and it erodes. It doesn’t matter if it’s a factory line or a team retro, the people doing it have to keep tending it. Let me repeat: it doesn’t happen automatically, and it’s hard, continuous work. It’s hard because change is hard.
You can’t control or secure the outcome. That’s why I firmly believe you need not only to focus on the how, but also to enjoy it; enjoy it so much that you make time to improve it. How else would you learn?
Easier said when you’re in a stable job. I know that well right now. But cutting the how to save on “overhead” isn’t optimising anything. It’s just shooting yourself in the foot. The bill comes due eventually.