Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself

by Mike Michalowicz

Bettina is being forced to change her life plan, and the hospital is losing one of its best doctors because it has set up a never-ending work flow—aside from patient care—that cannot be sustained. Would giving Bettina a productivity hack help to reduce her stress? No, because the hospital already has given her dozens of them, and with her “free time” it quickly finds a dozen new ways to fill it up with more work, with things like insurance claim disputes. Imagine that? You’re having life-saving heart surgery and your surgeon takes a break in the middle of the operation so that he can argue with an insurance agent why he used ten stitches during the last operation instead of the insurance-mandated three. You know the saying “Don’t busy the quarterback with passing out the Gatorade”? This is because the QBR is so important. The quarterback has a job to do. He has got to move that ball down the field, not dole out drinks to rehydrate his teammates. Similarly, Bettina shouldn’t be bothered with tasks that interfere with serving the QBR. It’s so obvious that it is hiding in plain sight. Bettina needs to save lives first, last, and all the time in between, yet she is often stuck passing out Gatorade. It’s more than just a shame; it’s a sin.