Efficiency is the Enemy

Slack is the excess resources, people, time, money or expectations we have that prevent us from being locked into our current state. Without any slack time, we would be overwhelmed and on full capacity, unable to respond or adapt to the changing world outside. 

In the right quantity, slack allows us to handle the shocks and surprises that come up inevitably. It is the buffer zone that we all need to work effectively.

The problem with most organizations that idolize efficiency and minimize slack is that they become less and less effective. They fail to realize that being efficient at all times does not mean being effective.

Slack, which is seen as laziness or lacking initiative is the downtime that an organization requires to breathe, reinvent and make the necessary changes that are not apparent if everyone is busy doing the given tasks.

Total efficiency is a myth and it is actually possible to be less efficient and still improve drastically.

Survival requires reinvention, pivoting and constant adaptation, and slack becomes the main ingredient of change. It is the breathing space between work that makes us look up and see where we are, and what has changed around us. It is the wake time between the sleepiness of constantly being busy.

Slack allows us to sit and think of the future and make the required changes, which we wouldn’t see if we were in a low-level, machine-like state of constant productivity.