Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency

If your company’s goal is to become fast, responsive, and agile, more efficiency is not the answer—you need more slack.

Why is it that today’s superefficient organizations are ailing? Tom DeMarco, a leading management consultant to both Fortune 500 and up-and-coming companies, reveals a counterintuitive principle that explains why efficiency efforts can slow a company down. That principle is the value of slack, the degree of freedom in a company that allows it to change. Implementing slack c...