If my guess is correct, you were probably a kid when you were growing up.

If so, there’s a decent chance you did what most kids do and found yourself running UP the DOWN escalator at some point.

It seems like such a good idea as a kid, but as an adult I don’t need that kind of wasted effort in my life.

And neither do the people you lead.

The next time you feel compelled to ask your people to work harder, I want you to consider whether the effort they are already giving is being wasted by systemic losses.

Are you asking them to run up a metaphorical escalator that is going down?

Are there obstacles like meetings, unclear priorities, interruptions, approval bottlenecks, or poorly designed processes that take their effort and tax it until much of that effort is wasted with no valuable output to show for it?

It’s so easy to get tunnel vision about how much effort your people are giving that you fail to examine whether you are honoring that effort by making it as easy as possible for them to translate it into successful outcomes.

I get it, they are here to work. It’s their job to put effort into the system.

But it’s incredibly demoralizing to see hours of effort wasted in an inefficient system, and then be asked to work harder to get the job done.

If you want to get the best effort from your people, make sure they see you removing unnecessary friction anywhere you can. 

If you can’t make the escalator work for your people, at least make sure it isn’t working against them.

TRY THIS: What is one point of frustration your people are experiencing that you could reduce or remove? Remember: the best leaders don’t ignore the frustrations of their people, they get curious about them. They probe and ask questions like “how should it work?” or “what would be better if it worked differently?” or “Is there an experiment we could run to test a different way?”

My free PDF, “The 5 Secrets of Impossibly Effective Teams,” will show you the simple leadership moves that help teams unlock their full potential and deliver outsized results, without burning out. Grab your copy now at geoffwelch.com/secrets