Want your business to have the flexibility and agility needed survive over the long haul? Then cut your workers some slack, advises consultant Tom DeMarco. "Change and reinvention require a commodity that is absent in our time as it never has been before. That commodity -- the catalytic ingredient of all change -- is slack. Slack is the time when reinvention happens. It is time when you are not 100 percent busy doing the operational business of your firm. Slack is the time when you are 0 percent busy." So, if you're willing to trade a small dip in efficiency for a big jump in effectiveness, give this contrarian work a look.
Highlights:
Examines the "unfortunate tradeoff" between efficiency and flexibility. DeMarco's basic argument is that organizations get more efficient only by sacrificing their ability to change -- and that slack is the best remedy for overcoming the latter shortcoming.
Explores the four major benefits of slack: increased organizational agility; better retention of key personnel; an improved ability to invest in the future; and a capacity for sensible risk-taking, instead of risk-avoidance.
Targets knowledge managers and workers who believe "the slack that has been squeezed out of your organizations over the last 10 years now has to be reintroduced, or no further meaningful progress will ever be possible."
Advantages:
DeMarco believes his book will appeal to those who are overworked and extremely busy. Consequently, he structured it to be a "very fast, very pointed" read.
The author is a high-profile consultant who has worked with such companies as Apple, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft. Drawing from those experiences, DeMarco writes in an authoritative and accessible style.
Related Titles:
While exploring the tradeoff between efficiency and flexibility, DeMarco offers this quote from Microsoft's Bill Gates: "In the past, only the fittest would survive. Today, only the fastest will survive." For more on Gates' beliefs. DeMarco praises Scott Adams' "Dilbert" cartoon for offering "insight and wisdom on nearly a daily basis ... with a delightful twist of humor." If you can use a dose of Dilbert, try The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Stupidity in the 21st Century and Dilbert Gives You the Business . DeMarco is author or co-author of seven books on management and technical development methods, including Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams The Deadline: A Novel about Project Management and Why Does Software Cost so Much? And Other Puzzles of the Information Age .
Reviewed by MH - April 17, 2001
Change has become the organizational mantra in today's fast-paced and increasingly global marketplace. But too often this need to change and adapt is confused with keeping employees busy all of the time and achieving total efficiency. Constant overtime and aggressive schedules are symptomatic of the "Hurry Up" organization. Efficiency is pitted against effectiveness, minimizing cost against minimizing time. Middle management has been squeezed so that there is less management and more "on task" efforts.
What gets lost in this "Hurry Up" organization is the time it takes to think up new procedures or products; in other words, slack. In today's knowledge-based economy, unlike the factory-based model of prior centuries, creative management of slack is essential for a healthy, growing organization. Tom DeMarco explores some of the most common, diehard management theories and shows how they are inappropriate for today's knowledge-worker-based economy. He then shows organizations how they can create productive slack.
Today's economy is based on knowledge workers; their needs are fundamentally different from the factory work force, or even the office work force of more predictable times. DeMarco writes that forcing knowledge workers to conform to an overly efficient work flow system is detrimental to their effectiveness - and, eventually to the overall ability of a company to be flexible enough to meet the demands of a constantly changing, increasingly global market.
In a typical day, employees change tasks any number of times. With downsizing, fewer employees are expected to do more work, thus increasing the amount of daily task-switching. While fewer employees might look cost-effective at first glance, what is often overlooked is the true penalty that task-switching incurs with knowledge workers. DeMarco writes that this task-switching penalty is usually higher than any projected cost savings.
Creative work involves a few intangible phases, such as conceptualizing and immersion. DeMarco explains that conceptualizing provides the base for knowledge work, and immersion involves the time writers, researchers, inventors, analysts or programmers need to mentally prepare themselves for their work. He writes that interruption of these intangible phases adds to the task-switching penalty.
The Myth of Fungible Resources
Besides time slack, DeMarco writes that knowledge workers also require "control" slack. Unlike previous blue-collar work forces, today's knowledge workers value challenges in their jobs as much as pay. They want to be constantly growing their careers. Managers must find ways to motivate these workers beyond pay. DeMarco writes that managers need to find ways to offer knowledge workers choices that will not only achieve the corporation's goals, but also their own growth needs.
Knowledge workers have an intrinsic need for slack time for the conceptualizing and immersion process phases. According to DeMarco, using slack to give knowledge workers room for these intangible needs is nothing less than an investment in your human capital. Without slack, your employees will not have time to adapt to changes in the marketplace, and your company can lose its inventiveness.
In the knowledge-based economy, all employees matter. Not every employee is a star performer and some employees will always need to be reassigned or even fired, but the costs in time and money of replacing any employee can be staggering.
The Price of Aggressive Scheduling
Today's knowledge workers by definition spend much of their time thinking. Routinely staying late to meet unrealistic deadlines robs them not only of needed sleep, but also their own private time. DeMarco reminds employers that tired, grumpy employees do not think as sharply as well-rested employees. In fact, studies have shown that longer days do not accomplish more than shorter ones. Stressed workers feel used and begin looking for new jobs.
DeMarco writes that organizations that want to change, learn and grow require vision, leadership and timing. Slack is the lubricant that makes all of these possible.
He writes that the key role of middle management is to lead the company through change. While change initiatives do need direction and support from the top office, if managers at the next level down are not empowered to work together or are not given the time to work on the change, change will wither on the vine. Managers who are isolated and overworked on day-to-day tasks cannot lead change initiatives and help the company to reinvent itself. Companies need to allow some slack time for managers to devote to reinvention.
Why Soundview Likes This Book Slack provides numerous examples to back up his ideas about efficiency, flexibility, change and growth. Copyright (c) 2002 Soundview Executive Book Summaries
Soundview Executive Book Summaries
