An employee spends eight minutes tracking down information that could be more readily available. Someone else waits for an approval that could have been handled more efficiently. Another person enters the same information into two different systems. And on and on and on …

None of these hassles cost much individually. Together, though, they impose what I call a “friction tax”—the time, energy and efficiency an organization loses through countless small obstacles that get built into everyday work.

Think about the impact of just eight wasted minutes a day across 40 employees. Over 250 working days, that adds up to more than 1,300 hours a year. At an average labor cost of $30 an hour, the annual price tag is nearly $40,000. And that doesn’t include the toll on customers, quality or employee morale.

The people doing the work usually know where that friction is dragging things down. What they lack is an effective, routine way to raise the issue, examine it and fix it.

That’s what Systematic Continuous Improvement (SCI) provides. In structured team improvement huddles held on a regular basis, employees bring up recurring irritations, assign ownership for fixing them and track the results. Small improvements begin clearing the path for better work, and the value compounds over time.

If you’d like to see where friction is taxing your organization –

and how to stop it with a routine process for continuous improvement …Let’s talk!

Begin your improvement journey today!

Getting better at getting better.