What if we gave 10,000 people back just one hour a week?
One hour lost to unnecessary approvals, missing information or rules that make good work harder.
Over 46 working weeks, that is 460,000 hours.
What could our people do with that time?
Serve customers better?
Solve problems?
Learn?
Build something we haven’t even thought of?
Let’s unlock human potential by removing the organizational barriers we create and keep in place.
When my friend Matt Chalmers reposted my previous article, he wrote:
“I see much more than a role or a title here ... especially not a "Chief Officer". I see a mindset, growing in organisations newly biased towards "People & Transformation".”
That stayed with me.
A mindset becomes meaningful through the decisions we make, the barriers we remove and the responsibility we accept.
Here is how I would turn that mindset into measurable commitments.
LESS FRICTION
Objective: Remove the barriers that waste human time.
→ Key Result: Within twelve months, remove 30% of the time lost to our ten biggest organizational barriers.
→ KPI: Friction hours per employee.
PEOPLE EMPOWERMENT & MORE AGENCY
Objective: Give people the information, tools and authority to act.
→ Key Results: Move half of the decisions we unnecessarily escalate to the people competent to make them. Cut median decision waiting time by 40%.
→ KPIs: Decision-at-source rate. Median decision waiting time.
A VOICE THAT COUNTS
Objective: Make speaking up lead to visible action.
→ Key Results: Reduce median waiting time for a first personal response by 50%. Test or implement at least 25% of viable suggestions — with everyone able to see what happened and why.
→ KPIs: Median time to first personal response. Voice-to-action rate.
POTENTIAL PUT TO WORK
Objective: Discover and use the capabilities our job titles conceal.
→ Key Result: Fill 20% of suitable project opportunities with internal talent we hadn’t previously recognized.
→ KPI: Share of suitable project opportunities filled through newly discovered internal talent.
These are proposed targets for the first twelve months. We would establish the baseline, agree the commitments, and verify the results with the people doing the work.
The KPIs tell us where we stand.
The OKRs commit us to changing it.
And the test is simple:
Are people more able to do great work today than they were a year ago?
That is the promise I want to be held accountable for.