Efficiency is the enemy? (2021)

The article's central illustration actually contradicts the claimed point. In the illustration, the secretary, Gloria, has slack, but the purpose her slack serves is not to enable change, which is basically what the article claims slack is for. Gloria's slack is just to make sure that Tony, the CEO, doesn't have any slack: he's working all the time on whatever he thinks is highest priority, and never takes a break. And Gloria is not using her slack to think about ways to reinvent the organization to make it better. In other words, this central example is actually not an example of the benefits of slack: it's an example of efficiency--Tony works at peak efficiency and has no slack. So if Tony is doing good things as a CEO, the conclusion should be that efficiency is good, not that slack is good. Paying a secretary to have plenty of slack to support Tony is just part of the most efficient way for Tony to operate.

A much better example of the benefits of slack would be a CEO who delegates the day to day work to subordinates (which includes "making decisions", the thing the article says Tony's main job is), to give himself slack--more time to think about big picture things and consider ways to change the organization to make it better.

Re: Efficiency is the enemy? (2021)

#5

Post by ip26 » Fri, May 06, 2022, 3:27 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #4

The article's central illustration actually contradicts the claimed point. In the illustration, the secretary, Gloria, has slack, but the purpose her slack serves is not to enable change, which is basically what the article claims slack is for. Gloria's slack is just to make sure that Tony, the CEO, doesn't have any slack: he's working all the time on whatever he thinks is highest priority, and never takes a break. A…

It's both - an example of how slack in one system (Gloria) enables higher efficiency in another (Tony) and surmisably higher overall output.

Re: Efficiency is the enemy? (2021)

#6

Post by ngvrnd » Fri, May 06, 2022, 3:38 PM UTC

Ultimately, pursuit of perfect efficiency results in crystalline systems which are fragile.

Slack is the ur-antifragility.

(efficiency pursued for itself is AN enemy)

Re: Efficiency is the enemy? (2021)

#7

Post by tinalumfoil » Fri, May 06, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #4

The article's central illustration actually contradicts the claimed point. In the illustration, the secretary, Gloria, has slack, but the purpose her slack serves is not to enable change, which is basically what the article claims slack is for. Gloria's slack is just to make sure that Tony, the CEO, doesn't have any slack: he's working all the time on whatever he thinks is highest priority, and never takes a break. A…

I don't think Tony necessarily has to be working at full efficiency for this. Say Tony is taking a break when he gets a text from support, "Big Client X is really unhappy, looking for your help on this". He texts Gloria, "grab me previous interactions with X". Maybe he needs financial info that Gloria doesn't have a record of. "Dan, Tony needs to know Y, send me the info?". A chain like this could easily form a graph of tens of people, and will require back-and-forth.

You could imagine a scenario where everyone at the company is taking a break when X has their issue, and that's the best case scenario. Instead of everyone off doing their own thing, they're slacking off but ready to help. The combined context switching in an extreme case like this could be hours or days.