T5 – Efficiency

This is a draft of the manual for public review. If you have any comments, please email them to info@omimo.org. Please check back for the final version.

Safeguarding, resilience, and efficiency are needed because you want to get certain results by adapting solutions. With efficiency, you want to make the implementation of the solution faster by reducing waste.

Speed vs. direction

Remember that speed is only positive when you’re heading in the right direction. Your direction is set in the solutions category and adjusted in the adaptation category. This is important to remember because some leaders focus so much on speed that they forget about direction.

Governance

One of the contributing factors to efficiency is how some decisions should be escalated, because escalations usually add delays. While you should try to optimize the process, the goal is not always to remove escalations because they’re one of your safeguards and a way to ensure that you’re moving in the right direction. Don’t sacrifice direction for speed.

Shorter path vs. higher speed

You can achieve desired outcomes faster in two ways:

• Shortening the path: You increase business value when you achieve the same outcome with a different output that requires a smaller investment.
• Increasing speed: With a certain output, it’s often possible to move faster without sacrificing quality and endangering the outcomes.

You should make the most of both of the above methods. The first one is the subject of the solutions and adaptation categories, and the second one is what we aim for in the efficiency category.

Behaviors

The following are the leader’s effective behaviors related to efficiency:

1. You don’t mistake efficiency with overwork, pressure, and busyness.
2. You avoid clutter and waste by focusing on the essential aspects of the subject.
3. You adapt publicly available methods and make them your own instead of starting from scratch.
4. You ensure that when a type of work is repeated, it’s done a little better than the previous times.
5. You consider documenting and structuring the workflow of repetitive works and automating them when justifiable.
6. You learn about various types of software packages that can be helpful in your role and use them effectively without being taken in by superficial hypes.
7. You delegate work to the right people and get results by having the optimal amount of oversight (not too much and not too little).
8. You ensure that everything important is documented and stored in a way that makes it easy to retrieve in the future.
9. You structure and present information in a way that makes it easy for the relevant people to understand it.
10. You speak and write clearly, completely, and yet concisely, to avoid misunderstandings, friction, and time-wasting.
11. You spread your attention and energy among things based on their importance.
12. You improve efficiency by having the right amount of parallel work (not too much and not too little).
13. You make sure deliverables are fully completed before closing them.
14. You always prepare yourself for whatever is coming, from a simple meeting to a big project or a crisis.
15. You are always punctual, to avoid wasting time and mental energy and also to respect yourself and others.