Improving Efficiencies: How Do You Work?

Improving efficiency isn’t always about thinking outside the box—it’s about refining what’s inside it. With a steady commitment to collaboration, intentional evaluation, and incremental improvement, you can reshape how you work into something leaner, smarter, and more resilient.

Three Practical Strategies to Boost Efficiency

1. Process Mapping

Visualizing workflows helps teams clarify current operations and design improved, future-state processes. This practice:

• Identifies delays, redundancies, and waste
• Enhances transparency and communication
• Supports training, development, and continuous improvement
• Establishes benchmarks to track progress over time

Key Tip: Document. Document. Document.

That said, documentation alone won’t drive change unless your team understands the why. Be prepared to share the vision or point to success stories to build buy-in. Your “why” could be scalability, a new market opportunity, a revised target, or simply improving the bottom line. Without a compelling reason, the process may seem burdensome rather than beneficial.

2. Cross-Training & Leveraging Strengths

Cross-training isn’t just about coverage—it’s a proactive investment in agility, engagement, and resilience. It:

• Reduces bottlenecks and improves team flexibility
• Enhances productivity, morale, and retention
• Builds a culture of shared ownership and growth

Match training efforts to individual strengths using tools like the Kolbe Index, CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsFinder), or CDR assessments. Doing so ensures that employees not only feel seen—but are also empowered to perform.

Start long before a crisis. Formalize expectations, provide a clear structure, and gather regular feedback to fine-tune the process. The result? A team ready to pivot when needed.

3. Maximize the Marginal Gains

Inspired by Sir Dave Brailsford’s “aggregation of marginal gains” philosophy, aim for just a 1% improvement across various areas—processes, habits, resources—for a powerful cumulative impact.

Start by reclaiming time from low-value tasks (like excessive social media scrolling) and reinvest it in purposeful activities such as:

• Organizing digital assets
• Streamlining documentation
• Cleaning up workflows
• Improving internal communication tools

Never underestimate the power of small wins. True progress is built not in leaps, but in layers- one thoughtful adjustment at a time. Challenges are catalysts for refinement. Stay focused, cultivate accountability, and embrace the momentum of incremental growth.

Efficiency, much like the workflows you aim to improve, isn’t a one-time fix—it’s an ongoing process. Take time—ideally off-site—with your core team to step back, review workflows, and identify bottlenecks. This focused investment not only streamlines operations, it communicates that you care about how—and why—your team does their work.

Bonus: A Quick Guide to Process Mapping

1. Choose a Specific Workflow: Focus on one operation or area at a time.
2. List Every Step and Role: Capture all people, tools, and actions involved.
3. Identify Pain Points: Where do things slow down? What causes confusion or frustration?
4. Draft a Future-State Map: Reimagine a leaner, more effective version of the process.
5. Test, Refine, and Implement: Pilot the new process, collect feedback, iterate, then roll out.