Three practices that appear minor, but create enormous drag.

1. Time Wastes. CEOs blame middle management for bad execution but Sutton and Rao found many CEO’s were the ones who held wasteful meetings and were unclear with priorities and end results wanted. If you’re not efficient with time, your employees won’t be, and they’ll waste customer time.

2. Friction Fights. Instead of fighting friction and snags, appoint everyone as a ‘friction-fighter.’ Ask: “What can I get rid of that wastes time and effort?” Find pointless practices and blocks to action, and get rid of them. In your personal life, if you spend time looking for your keys or your phone, get a system or an Airtag! Time is your enemy or ally.

3. Connect Neglect. Stop fixating on your own part of the company or just your own job, and look at the spaces that connect jobs and departments. Every organism from a ragworm to your company is intelligent to the extent that there is high communication among divisions. More neurons or brain cells won’t make you smarter, more glial cells that connect neurons, will. No time for silos: connect!   

Get top management to do time audits of their wasteful meeting practices (or forward this message), formally remove friction points, and set up more systems that connect groups of people. These three changes alone will help power your future.