Great companies obsess over workplace productivity, a principle that held true when this HBR article was published in 2017 and is even more vital in today’s business landscape.
In today’s fast-paced business environment, companies face the pressing challenge of maximizing productivity while ensuring the well-being of their employees. However, when leaders discuss workplace productivity, the message employees hear is often simply cost-cutting, which resonates poorly with employees prioritizing their well-being. It’s telling that while 87% of employees believe they’re highly productive, only 12% of CEOs share that view. This disconnect stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how to drive productivity effectively.
Let’s set the record straight.
In this article, we will leverage our leaders’ (Dr. D Sangeeta and Dana Ginn) extensive experiences and insights to address the root causes of unproductive work environments including the assumptions driving them.
Two Root Causes of Unproductive Work Environments
The first step in boosting workplace productivity is identifying the obstacles hindering it. This is where the extensive expertise of Gotara‘s co-founders, Dr. D Sangeeta and Dana Ginn, comes into play. Together, they have a remarkable 50 years of experience driving productivity initiatives and have coached and mentored leaders who became rising stars in their organizations and hundreds of Gotara participants—from individual contributors to senior leaders—across 35 companies. Their extensive track record reveals that the key to cultivating a productive environment is addressing two primary, interconnected challenges: systemic obstacles within the organization and flawed individual work habits stemming from misguided assumptions.
D Sangeeta, PhD
Founder and CEO of Gotara
I have 25 years of experience in productivity and leadership development, with roles at Amazon, Nielsen, and GE, where I earned 27 patents in under five years. I led initiatives like integrating an acquisition in half the expected time. Currently, I lead Gotara, helping customers enhance productivity and develop their leaders. I hold a Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Illinois and a Master’s in Chemistry from IIT Kanpur.
1. Address Systemic Obstacles in Organizations
Systemic issues include unclear roles, poorly communicated strategies, ambiguous priorities, unstructured processes, and excessive micro-management—factors that create an environment where teams struggle to deliver their best. A comprehensive root cause analysis identifies these barriers and enables leadership teams to develop targeted interventions. For example, clarifying roles ensures that every team member understands their contributions. Streamlining communication and aligning priorities with organizational goals can eliminate confusion and foster a more focused work environment. Ensuring robust processes are in place can free up capacity for more value-added work.
For example, in Gotara’s 2024 Industry Report, “Lack of consistent and robust processes” and “Lack of clear organizational vision and goals” are two of managers’ top four obstacles in leading high-performing and productive teams. These systemic issues kill productivity.
Consider the remarkable journey of Claire, a new technical sales manager who transformed her role and the entire sales process. Claire stepped into her position and didn’t just settle for the status quo; she took a fresh, outside-in approach to assess the existing sales process. Her keen insights pinpointed critical areas for improvement that had been overlooked for too long.
Claire’s success didn’t go unnoticed. The regional manager recognized the value of her new methodology and mandated that all sales managers adopt her strategies. The improvements not only catapulted Claire from a newcomer to a respected leader within her organization but also drove workplace productivity and sales simultaneously.
By collaborating with her colleagues, Claire spearheaded a streamlined process that significantly reduced the reliance on engineering resources during sales calls. This innovative change eliminated a historic bottleneck, empowering partners to sell more effectively and efficiently. The impact was undeniable. Several other examples similar to Claires have seen sales surge up to 15%.
Early in her career, Sangeeta, Gotara’s CEO, took on a role leading an organization critical to Sales. Her organization owned the technical and financial models that generated customer proposals worth hundreds of millions of dollars across various product lines. The proposals would circulate for six months before reaching customers, causing anxiety and frustration for both customers and sales leaders. Sangeeta took a step back to understand the causes of the delays. Initially, there was much finger-pointing among organizations. Productivity losses were significant for her team and those it collaborated with. As she delved deeper, she discovered that there was no quick fix; instead, the delays stemmed from systemic issues, including a lack of robust, transparent processes and misalignment with strategic objectives. Consequently, trust in the models provided by Sangeeta’s team eroded—the models were considered a black box and had not been updated for years.
Sangeeta and her leadership team crafted a vision for the organization that aligned more closely with strategic objectives. They identified key actions: creating new models with stakeholders and establishing a transparent process to regain trust. Sangeeta boldly decided to pause proposals for one product line at a time for six weeks so that all stakeholders and experts could collaborate to develop and approve the new model. Once approved, they implemented an annual update process to ensure all parties could endorse any revisions. As a result of the new model and process, the proposal cycle time was reduced from six months to two weeks, eliminating multiple reworks and resulting in satisfied sales leaders and happy customers.
This foundational understanding of systemic obstacles is essential, as it paves the way for effective, targeted solutions.
Addressing systemic issues within an organization is crucial. However, Sangeeta and Dana have identified a deeper root cause: the underlying assumptions that lead to unproductive behavior.
2. Bust Common Productivity Assumptions
Consider Shree, a middle manager admired for meeting expectations but criticized for his inability to inspire and engage his team. He believed that his team members would fail to deliver the quality and speed he needed without constant oversight. This mindset led to micromanagement, excessive review cycles, long hours, and frustrated staff who felt overmanaged and undervalued. Ultimately, it overwhelmed Shree, too, putting him at risk of burnout.
With the help of Gotara, Shree confronted his assumptions and realized he was hindering his team’s potential with his micromanagement style. He realized that team members were not motivated by his over-inspection and oversight but instead motivated intrinsically by having meaningful work, autonomy, recognition, and growth opportunities. Shree took queues from Gotara and noted Psychologist Dan Ariely and shifted from a very directive approach to one focused on coaching. Within weeks, results were clear: team members produced higher quality work, took greater accountability for their responsibilities, and reduced their overtime hours by 75%.
Assumption: Team Members are motivated by external stimuli over intrinsic motivation. BUSTED!
“Productivity is less about what you do with your time. And more about how you run your mind.”
Another powerful example is Becky, a data scientist who believed multitasking was essential for effective leadership. Her assumption? Being busy equated to productivity. Despite long working hours, Becky often left her day feeling unaccomplished.
After working with Gotara and learning about the neuroscience behind productivity, Becky transformed her approach from multitasking to focusing on one task at a time. Adopting the mantra “focus and finish,” she found that within three weeks, she accomplished more in her workdays while ensuring higher quality results and a smoother, less chaotic workday.
Assumption: Busy equals productivity. BUSTED!
Dana, the COO of Gotara, faced a similar challenge early in her career. She was managing a team of engineers at a plant, where each engineer simultaneously handled three or more projects. This workload led to a higher error rate, missed deadlines, and increased stress. The primary issue was that engineers often switched between tasks on different projects. Each time, they had to “context switch”—pausing to think about what they were previously doing and where they left off—resulting in a significant drain on workplace productivity, higher errors in blueprints, and potential safety risks in the plant.
Dana recognized that she had been using a push model for project assignments: every new project was immediately assigned to an engineer, who was asked to start work. She believed starting projects earlier would lead to faster completion and that loading engineers with work would enhance productivity. However, Dana soon realized that this assumption was flawed. Instead, she adopted a pull model, allowing incoming projects to sit in a queue until an engineer was ready to take one on. As a result, each engineer typically focused on one project at a time.
The outcomes were remarkable. Dana’s team improved their quality of work and reduced project completion times by 80%. Additionally, stress levels decreased, and overall team satisfaction increased.
Dana also adjusted her communication with executive sponsors of projects, shifting from saying, “We have started the project” to “We will finish the project on time.” This shift reflected the true requirement of the sponsor, who wanted the project completed on time—when the project started was irrelevant.
While monotasking may not be entirely feasible in our interrupt-driven culture, striving for it as closely as possible can lead to greater productivity and success for you and your team.
Assumption: Multitasking leads to productivity. BUSTED!
Dana Ginn
Co-Founder and COO of Gotara
I have over 30 years of experience in productivity and process improvement. I have led projects that delivered an 80% reduction in cycle time and a product launch four times faster than industry standards. I currently coach leaders on achieving productivity using neuroscience. I hold a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Chicago. I co-authored two industry-standard Lean Six Sigma books.
One final example involves Neal, a new manager determined to transform his notoriously underperforming team into a highly productive one. In the past, Neal had focused on assigning tasks and had done a reasonably good job of following up. However, the team’s performance still lagged. Neal assumed that team members needed clarity on their tasks but hadn’t considered the importance of providing a larger context for their work. His underlying assumption was that team members must be heads down to deliver results.
After re-evaluating his assumptions and researching what truly motivates people, Neal began to connect each task to a higher-level meaning for the customer. He developed SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers) maps to help each team member understand how their work related to other teams, both upstream and downstream, and how they ultimately contributed to resolving customer issues. The result? A 10% increase in productivity.
Assumption: Team members need to understand only their task. BUSTED!
Conclusion:
Increasing workplace productivity isn’t simply about setting higher targets or demanding longer hours; that’s a trap many leaders fall into. Real productivity is about eliminating the waste in processes that lead to employee frustration. In addition to defining clear goals, it’s also about empowering each team member to understand how their contributions tie into the organization’s larger purpose. It’s about focusing on the right tasks that benefit both the customer and the business, providing genuine meaning and purpose behind every role.
When team members collaborate with their leaders to enhance productivity and eliminate waste, frustration, and chaos, they can establish robust processes that bring clarity and meaning to their work. This teamwork not only fosters a sense of purpose but also defines the overall well-being of employees in the workplace—a concept we refer to as “work therapy.” As employee experiences improve, they are less likely to feel overwhelmed and stressed, which significantly boosts their chances of success. The relationship between workplace productivity and employee well-being is closely intertwined; enhancing productivity leads to a win-win scenario for everyone involved.
Now is the time to identify systemic obstacles and challenge the outdated assumptions hindering productivity in your organization. By creating an environment that fosters clarity, purpose, and autonomy, we can cultivate a culture of productivity that benefits both the business and the individual. Together, let’s transform workplace productivity into a powerful driver of success that champions employee well-being as its backbone.
By partnering with Gotara, you can benefit from their insight and proven strategies to dismantle these obstacles. Embrace the expertise of Dr. Sangeeta and Dana Ginn and unlock the full potential of your team!
Gotara helps organizations achieve sustainable business results by fostering leadership growth. With a vision to create a future where 100% of an organization’s talent operates at its fullest potential, Gotara unlocks limitless innovation, growth, and productivity for companies and leaders worldwide.