Many organisations over-collaborate in a well-meaning desire to be inclusive: to hear every voice around the table. It’s a noble cause but not every voice has something meaningful or different to add. At a time when businesses need to be at their most nimble, are you restricting productivity with too many layers and opinions?
If your headcount increases but your productivity curve flattens, then you are experiencing what’s called ‘organisational drag’.
This is the term used to describe institutional factors that get in the way of getting things done. These slow things down, block output, clog systems, cause frustration and impact both wellbeing and engagement. It’s not communication with your immediate team that’s usually the problem; it’s the interaction between teams where the workflow silts up. Adding more people means more decision-making nodes, bigger meetings, and more layers of management: the very opposite of nimble.
Over-collaboration and complexity are major causes of organisational drag.
Years ago, I did some outplacement coaching in a communications conglomerate, one that thought it was good to talk. I asked one middle manager what he actually did. “Very good question,” he said. “I haven’t actually done anything for at least a year. I finish one project, find another, hop on it, see if it goes through or is replaced by another and try to look like I am adding value.’’ Obviously he was at risk of redundancy because his role, or non-role, was no longer needed: multiple jobs at his level were going. This is a classic case of managers creating organisational drag. You can imagine all the hot air he produced trying to justify his salary, making extra work for everyone else. His layer was pointless by his own admission. He was far happier when he moved on to a more dynamic competitor.
It goes without saying that:
- This is an extreme example.
- Inclusivity and collaboration are essential for all sorts of obvious reasons.
But are you over-collaborating?
- Are more people involved than are necessary to get the job done?
- Do you keep numbers of decision-makers to the bare minimum or are there too many?
- Has your number of stakeholders gone up, but their value is unclear?
- Has performance declined since you introduced an extra reporting level?
- Does everyone at a meeting have an obvious reason for being there?
- Do people with something valuable to say at meetings not always have airtime to say it?
- Do you need a post-meeting meeting to make a decision?
- Are your reporting methods unnecessarily complex and time-consuming?
- Do you get loads of data but little information?
- Is it increasingly difficult to navigate your way round the organisation to get something done?
- Do you sense a lack of urgency, despite increasing levels of anxiety and longer working hours?
All these are big red flags of chronic drag. Good leaders should be alert to them, cutting out superfluous decision-making nodes and hierarchies, and ensuring that the right voices are heard, not drowned out with unnecessary noise. Make every layer count.