“Get Rid of Stupid Stuff” to Increase Employee and Organizational Performance
Employee attitudes drive behavior.
That behavior can either help you churn a profit or not. What influences attitudes?
Of course, a number of things, and one big one is the stupid stuff that employees (and managers) have to deal with on a daily basis. A good overall measure of “attitudes” is job satisfaction.
Here are some stats to reinforce the business case behind the “soft stuff”:
Companies with high job satisfaction grew 19.4% compared to companies with low and medium job satisfaction, which grew 10%. (pg 132)
Companies listed in the “100 Best” places to work in America had 2.3% - 3.8% higher stock returns annually between 1984 and 2011 than firms not on that list.
It’s not just large companies, though. We can look at the data to come up with a rough idea of how much a dissatisfied employee will cost a small professional services firm:
If they stay:
About 20–30% of their salary every year in lower productivity, more mistakes, and extra time leaders spend dealing with issues.
For a typical $90k–$120k role, that’s roughly $20k–$35k per year.
If they leave:
If it eventually leads to turnover, assume at least half a year of salary as a conservative cost, and up to a full year for specialized, client‑facing roles.
For a $120k senior, that’s $60k–$120k.
Impact on the team:
If that person is in a team of 3-5, assume they're pulling the group's performance down by about 10-20%.
In a group responsible for $500k-$1M in annual revenue, that's another $50k-$200k in lost potential.
So, it makes sense to improve job satisfaction (attitudes). Which is, of course, why so many business leaders seek ways to improve it through engagement and team building and wellness benefits and office snacks... And yet, despite the efforts and industries built up around those efforts, we’re seeing numbers flatline or move in the wrong direction, depending on the study. (Nerd out here)
Your Workflows Are Killing Your Revenue
One reason for all the dissatisfaction, burnout, and disengagement is too often overlooked. It’s the stupid stuff; death by a thousand papercuts.
Examples:
Long, repetitive, duplicative forms;
Entering the same data across multiple systems;
Paperwork chains that could be handled digitally;
Multi-step approval chains;
Redundant reviews;
Forms, policies, or training materials that reference obsolete tools or programs or removed intranet pages;
Legacy rules that no longer serve a clear purpose;
Platforms that require excessive clicks and workarounds to complete simple tasks;
Non-streamlined scheduling workflows;
Manual time, expense, and invoice entry
Email only processes for routine requests (PTO, IT, supplies)
No doubt we can come up with a list twice as long or more. You get the idea.
Small, medium, and large businesses all have a degree of these paper cuts. The question is not whether yours has them; the questions are: which ones?, why are they there?, what impact are they having?, and how can you get rid of them?
A 2023 Harvard Business Review article by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini offers one simple framework.
Dr. Melinda Ashton’s “Get Rid of Stupid Stuff” Model
The “GROSS” model launched in 2017. It helped Hawaii Pacific Health identify “patently stupid activities that could be terminated immediately; 15% flagged gaps in clinical communication and support for necessary workflows; and the remaining 75% identified redesign opportunities to improve efficiency and effectiveness.”
Other hospitals have since adopted the model.
The article offers more detailed visuals and discussion around both surfacing “stupid stuff” to axe and deciding how to handle what has been surfaced.
A few key takeaways you can put into practice:
One reason this worked so well, in my opinion, is that Ashton and her team asked employees to identify the stupid stuff rather than sitting in the proverbial tower and trying to do so on their own. Frances Frei and Anne Morris refer to this as engaging the “unusual suspects”.
For employees to voice these suggestions in the way Ashton’s team put forward, where they list their name, department, and contact information, there has to be a high degree of psychological safety or a high degree of frustration surpassing any fear of speaking out. You obviously want a firm that has the former.
There was a clear decision tree to guide members of the GROSS team in sorting the 500 suggestions that came in over the first two years into three categories: immediately actionable, needs further investigation, and not possible to change at this time.
The key is how you communicate the decisions, particularly those that need further investigation and those being set aside for later reconsideration. What we really see behind survey fatigue is not that people are tired of being asked for their opinion, it’s that they are tired of being asked for their opinion by people who seem to do nothing with it. Basically, only ask me if you actually care.
So, leaders must show that they have read the feedback, have considered it, and have a solid argument for or against action at this time. That needs to be communicated to employees so that trust is maintained and leaders continue to receive recommendations of “stupid stuff” to remove for greater organizational performance via improved employee satisfaction and performance.
What to Do Right Now
If you feel like you have high trust with your team, ask them what is getting in the way of them doing their best work and why. Explore whether you can:
Take immediate action on those things.
If you can’t because you need help solving the problem, ask them to be part of the solution.
If you know it’s a no-go right now, explain why and put a reminder in your calendar to re-review at another time.
If you don’t have high trust or want more specific and deeper guidance as to what your paper cuts are and what they are costing you, schedule a 15-minute starter conversation here. Between myself and my colleagues we can help you get rid of stupid stuff.
Just a reminder: leaders think they have trust when they don’t. According to a 2024 PwC survey, 86% of business executives think employee trust is high, compared to 67% of employees who say they highly trust their employer.
If you, as a leader, are suffering from death by a thousand paper cuts and want one-on-one guidance, schedule a 15-minute starter conversation here.