Is Your Company Doing the Right Things or Simply Doing a Lot?
Most companies whose growth has stalled do not suffer from a lack of work.
People are working. Calendars are full. Project management software contains hundreds of tasks. Development builds new features, marketing produces content, sales sends proposals, and managers solve urgent problems every day.
Everything is moving.
Only the company’s core performance remains unchanged.
In this situation, the usual question is how to make people work faster or more efficiently.
I believe that is the wrong question.
The first question is whether the company is doing the right things at all.
The company’s biggest problem may not be a lack of capability
When results fail to materialise, the cause is often sought in people.
Employees are assumed to lack motivation, managers to demand too little, sales to make too little effort, marketing to produce too little, or development to move too slowly.
Sometimes execution really is the problem.
But someone can be highly capable and do their job well without their work helping to remove the company’s most important constraint.
A salesperson may make more calls even though the value proposition is unclear.
Marketing may increase visibility even though the company does not know which customer is truly right for it.
Development may build features faster even though existing users do not understand the product’s core value.
A manager may hold more meetings even though the problem is a lack of decision-making authority.
The CFO may cut costs even though the company currently needs to invest in one critical growth capability.
People do what is expected of them.
Management is responsible for deciding which work it makes sense to expect from them in the first place.
The right work is not merely useful work
A company almost always has more useful activities than time to perform them.
The website could be improved. Sales materials could be updated. Processes could be documented. Data could be organised. Software could be enhanced. People could be trained. A new market could be researched. The company could communicate more with customers.
All these activities may be sensible.
But the strategic question is not whether an activity is useful in general.
It is whether this is the most important thing the company needs to do right now.
The right work is an activity that helps remove the company’s primary current constraint or moves it directly towards the chosen outcome.
Everything else may be necessary. But it must not receive the same attention as the work on which the company’s next stage of development depends.
A priority is not a list of important things
Companies use the word “priority” very loosely.
Management often has five, ten, or even twenty priorities at once. When a new issue becomes urgent, it is added to the list.
Nothing is removed.
This does not create priorities. It creates an ever-longer list of work.
Priority means order.
It identifies which outcome matters more right now and which activities must therefore wait.
If a company has not decided what it will not do, it has not truly decided what it will do either.
It has expressed preferences, not made choices.
A great deal of work can conceal indecision
Activity creates the impression that the company is moving.
Making a decision is harder.
If management cannot choose one customer, the solution is developed for several segments.
If it cannot choose the most important product feature, development begins on several.
If it does not want to say “no” to certain customers, exceptions are added to the process.
If it cannot decide which channel works, it does a little of everything.
If it lacks the courage to end the wrong project, the project is allowed to continue at a lower level of effort.
As a result, the company has a great deal of work in progress but few completed changes.
An abundance of activity may be management’s way of postponing uncomfortable choices.
Work in progress is one of the most expensive invisible costs
Every new project initially looks like an opportunity.
It brings meetings, objectives, tasks, files, decisions, and people. Even when a project is not moving actively, it consumes attention.
Someone must remember where it stopped. Someone must answer questions. Someone must keep it visible in systems. Management must occasionally decide whether to continue.
When a company has too many initiatives in progress, its attention is spread thinly.
People constantly switch context. Critical work waits. Decisions drag on. Projects move in small steps, but none reaches an outcome quickly enough.
The company does not lose only working hours.
It loses momentum.
Often, there is no need to start a new project. There is a need to end three old ones.
Eight signs that a company is doing a lot, but not necessarily the right things
1. Everyone is busy, but important work is waiting
Urgent customer questions, internal meetings, and small fixes fill the working day. The most important strategic change is postponed until next week, next month, or next quarter.
If important work has no protected time in the calendar, it is not a real priority.
2. New projects are started faster than old ones are completed
Every initiative has a sponsor, but few have clear completion or closure criteria.
The company’s capability becomes fragmented across an ever-growing number of activities.
3. The same problem keeps returning
A customer complaint is resolved. An error is corrected. A project is rescued. An employee receives new instructions.
After a while, the same problem reappears.
This shows that the company is addressing incidents, not the root cause.
A great deal of work is done so the system can continue operating in the same way.
4. Success is measured by the number of completed tasks
Completing a task shows that something was done.
It does not show whether the necessary outcome occurred.
If the team completes more and more tasks but sales, margin, customer outcomes, or process speed do not improve, a greater volume of work offers little benefit.
5. Work is assigned according to who is available
A new task goes to the person who appears to have time or who never says “no”.
That does not mean their capabilities, working style, or authority to decide match the required outcome.
The right work in the wrong person’s hands can become slow.
The wrong work in the right person’s hands wastes capability.
6. Management constantly changes direction but does not stop old work
Every new priority is added to existing commitments.
People do not know whether the old work has lost importance or must simply continue with less attention.
Strategy then becomes an additional burden on the company, rather than a framework that simplifies choices.
7. Departmental metrics improve, but company performance does not
Marketing produces more leads. Sales holds more meetings. Development completes more features. Customer service responds faster.
If these results do not form a functioning value chain, every function may be locally efficient while the company as a whole remains stationary.
8. The manager constantly resolves urgent issues, but not the company’s primary constraint
The manager is busy with problems involving employees, customers, projects, and partners.
The day ends, and the company’s most important strategic question once again remains unresolved.
The manager is neither lazy nor incompetent.
They have become part of a system that favours urgent activity over an important decision.
The bottleneck reveals the right things to do
A company does not need to improve everything at once.
It must find the constraint currently holding back the rest of the system the most.
For example, the problem may appear to be a lack of sales. Its real cause may be an unclear value proposition.
It may seem that more development is needed. In reality, the company has not decided which customer’s problem to solve first.
It may seem that an employee does not take responsibility. In reality, decision-making authority still remains with the manager.
It may seem that people cannot complete their work. In reality, the team is dealing with too many customers, products, and exceptions at once.
Once the real constraint is found, the right work also becomes visible.
Not every activity disappears. But it becomes clear which work must move first and which can wait.
Four types of work that must be distinguished
The work performed in a company can be divided into four broad groups.
1. Work that creates value directly
This helps the customer achieve the outcome they pay for.
Examples include solving a problem, selling to a suitable customer, delivering a service, or improving the product experience.
2. Work that removes a constraint on growth
This may not generate revenue immediately, but it enables the company to grow more effectively later.
Examples include refining the value proposition, redesigning a critical process, clarifying accountability, or eliminating the root cause of a recurring technical problem.
3. Supporting and mandatory work
Accounting, legal requirements, security, documentation, and administration necessary for the company to operate.
This work may not differentiate the company, but failing to do it creates risk.
4. Legacy activities
This is work performed out of habit, because of an old decision, a past customer request, or a need that no longer exists.
This group often contains a large share of the time the company could free up.
The problem is not that supporting work exists.
The problem arises when all four types seem equally important to employees and management has not stated which outcome the organisation must protect above all right now.
The value of strategy lies in removing work
A good strategy does not merely give the company new activities.
It reduces the range of possible activities.
It states:
- which customer we focus on; - which problem we solve; - which offer we intend to win with; - which capability we are building; - which projects we will not start now; - which customers we will say “no” to; - which activities we will stop.
If a strategy adds ten new activities to the plan but removes none of the old ones, the company’s workload increases. Focus does not improve.
Strategy must make the company more selective.
The right work must be linked to an outcome, not a job title
A job title does not automatically determine the value a person creates.
A salesperson’s job is not simply to sell. It is to bring the company suitable, profitable customers.
A marketer’s job is not simply to create content. It is to help the right buyer understand and trust the company.
A project manager’s job is not merely to coordinate tasks. It is to ensure that the promised outcome reaches the customer on the agreed terms.
A manager’s job is not merely to oversee people’s work. It is to create clarity in which people can make the right decisions independently.
When roles are described through activities rather than outcomes, people begin filling their task lists. They may not see which part of their work has the greatest impact on the company.
The right people create the greatest leverage when they are in the right roles, do the right work, and understand how their outcome supports the company’s strategy.
AI can make the wrong work cheaper and therefore more dangerous
AI makes it possible to write, analyse, program, prepare reports, send emails, and automate processes faster.
It allows a company to do much more with the same team.
But “more” is not in itself a better outcome.
If the company automates an unnecessary report, the report will simply be produced more often.
If the value proposition is unclear, AI can help send a greater number of unclear sales emails.
If product development is moving in the wrong direction, AI can build more of the wrong features faster.
If a process is poor, automation embeds it in the company’s systems.
Before asking “How can we do this faster?”, ask “Does this need to be done at all?”
AI is making execution increasingly inexpensive.
Choosing the right work is therefore becoming an increasingly valuable management capability.
Seven questions for every important activity
To find out whether a piece of work deserves the company’s time and attention right now, ask:
- Which specific outcome does this activity change?
- How does it support the company’s most important current objective?
- Which bottleneck does it remove?
- What evidence shows that the problem is located here?
- Why must this be done now?
- What happens if we leave it undone for three months?
- Which other important work will be displaced by this?
The last question is often the most honest.
The company’s time, money, and people’s attention are limited. Every new activity means something else will move more slowly.
If nobody can name the sacrifice, resources are probably being treated as unlimited.
How can the company put its work back in the right order?
1. Define one important outcome
What must the company achieve over the next three, six, or twelve months?
Not an activity, but a measurable change.
2. Find the primary constraint
What is currently preventing that outcome more than anything else?
Do not start with the solution. Start with the cause.
3. Describe the necessary causal chain
Which changes must occur for the desired outcome to emerge?
For example:
clearer target customer → more precise offer → more relevant conversations → better sales → repeatable delivery → profitable growth
This makes the point where the chain actually breaks visible.
4. Reassess work in progress
Which projects support the chosen outcome?
Which are necessary but can wait?
Which are based on the old strategy?
Which fail to create enough impact to justify their cost?
5. Stop or pause deliberately
Work does not disappear from the list on its own.
Management must decide which projects will end, which will be paused, and which customers or opportunities will not be pursued now.
6. Assign accountability for the outcome
Being responsible for an activity is not enough.
Someone must be accountable for ensuring that the desired change actually occurs.
7. Review the fit between people and work
Is critical work being done by someone whose strengths, experience, and way of making decisions suit it?
Do they have the necessary information and authority to decide?
Has a strong person become trapped in low-value activities?
8. Manage outcomes, not busyness
Do not ask only what people did.
Ask what changed because of their work, which assumption was validated, and what is preventing the next outcome.
A manager’s most important job is to choose
A manager does not need to know every answer.
But they must decide which problem the company is solving now, which outcome matters most, and what it is prepared to give up to achieve it.
If the manager does not do this, people’s calendars, urgent customer demands, old habits, and the loudest problems will decide.
The company will then work hard, but not necessarily for its own future.
Productivity does not begin with people doing more.
It begins with management reducing the number of wrong and unimportant activities.
Challeng.ist helps reveal which work moves a company forward, which activities merely consume resources, and which single change would remove today’s most expensive bottleneck. We do not stop at an audit, report, or recommendations. We usually deliver a working solution within 48 hours.
If everyone in your company constantly has a great deal to do but the most important outcomes are still moving too slowly, send me that one specific problem.
You may not need more people.
You need less of the wrong work.
Mikk OrglaanChalleng.ist