What slows down the moment you leave the office?

If you are away for a day, some things stop. Those get noticed and somebody calls you.

The more interesting category is the things that do not stop. They slow.

The quotation goes out on Thursday instead of Tuesday. The customer gets a careful holding reply instead of a decision. The order goes into production a day later because nobody was sure about the specification. Nobody reports any of this, because nothing failed.

Why slowing is worse than stopping

Something that stops gets fixed, because it is visible and somebody is blocked.

Something that slows is absorbed. The customer waits a bit longer, the team works around it, and the business carries the cost quietly, every time you are not there.

And because it never gets reported, it never gets improved. You could be away one day a week for three years and never find out that your absence costs two days of delay each time.

How to find yours

Next time you are away for two days, do not ask what happened. Ask one specific question when you get back.

What waited for me?

People answer that question easily and honestly, because it does not sound like criticism of them. It sounds like what it is, a question about you.

The list will be short and it will repeat. The same three or four things wait every time, and each of them is a decision that could be a written rule instead.

Turn one of them into a rule each time you are away. Three absences and the list is noticeably shorter.

Next time you return from two days out, ask the office: what waited for me?

Turning the things that wait for you into rules the business can apply without you is exactly the work we do. Tell us what waited last time and we will show you how it stops waiting.