My heart light and my drains clear, I'd been out running some errands in the hour since the plumber left. But as I walked back up the stairs to my condo, who did I run into?
The exact same plumber.
After confirming that no, he did not break back into my house (sorry, that's just where my mind went first), I got the full story from my neighbor...
In the plumber's quest to get my sink drain running smoothly again, he'd dislodged a bottleneck that cleared the line but that then caused my downstairs neighbors' sink to overflow.
And when I say overflow, I mean up through the sink and all over the kitchen floor.
Thankfully my neighbor was working from home that day and, on his way up to find out what in the world had happened (aka what I'd just done), had his own run-in with the plumber on the stairs, yanked him inside and set him to work fixing the mess.
I had no idea about the drama going down as I happily wandered the aisles of Trader Joe's.
Ignorance is bliss.
But the overflow effect is truly a $%#%$#.
Overflow Effects: When Being Productive Backfires
This is probably my number one issue with throwing around the words efficiency and productivity in professional services.
If it really was about efficiency and productivity, we'd be able to time-shave and cost-cut our way to solid business results.
But there's this funny thing that's especially important in a service business... people. And that's where all the unanticipated overflow effects come in.
Sure you can get a consultant to mock up some automations and mark down some costs. But will they be around to clean up the mess they leave in their wake?
Consultants throw words like "efficiency" and "productivity" around along with big promises. Then they execute on that one bottleneck they are hired to fix - just like my plumber - only to walk away without the consequences of the follow on effects.
And there are follow on effects when efficiency or productivity is made the star of the professional services show:
Of course we don't want you spending your time on dumb things.
And of course we don't want you spending money in dumb ways.
But most of the time, the productivity problem you think you have isn't actually a productivity problem.
And there will be overflow effects when you treat the bottleneck as if that's all there is to the solution.
Productivity Changes That Improve Business
At Upward Acceleration, when we take on clients, we aim to get the foundation more stable for the whole business.
Because, let's be honest, no matter how talented you are or how much time you're willing to give (and I know it's a lot!), it's hard to go anywhere when you're working on top of quicksand.
So we create that operational infrastructure as the means to an end.
In other words, we begin with the follow on effects, not the fix.
The start of the engagement is often some operational headache or ceiling you've identified that's stopping you from reaching your goals. Just like it might be with that consultant.
Or it might feel like a productivity problem (especially if it's hijacking you, the owner, from your client work, business development, or some bucket list you're working on towards an exit, integration, or just organic growth).
The means in the Upward Acceleration world though is finding the root causes, developing and rolling out custom built solutions that tip over one domino of good things after the next, and getting everyone onboard with the changes.
(Because implementing systems or tools that nobody uses is like spending good money after bad).
But the end game is always to leave your business better than you found it and sustainably so.
If you're ready for a more comprehensive solution to your "productivity" issues, we're here for you. Book an initial, no obligation call to see how a new way of approaching success and improvement might look for you.
