How to Recognize if You’re a Bottleneck, and How to Change It.

Among the many things that keep businesses and ideas from succeeded, one of the most obnoxious and frustrating ones are bottlenecks.

The bottleneck in your organization might be a person. It might be a process. It might be your equipment. It might even be a condition in which you work. I’ll be focusing on the aspect of people acting as bottlenecks.

Bottlenecks are good for regulating information—slowing it down. If it weren’t for bottlenecks on our drinks, we’d be forced to guzzle it at a pace we couldn’t handle. Or would we? Wait a second, that’s what cups are for.

It’s amazing that when given a cup, we have the ability to regulate how much liquid we consume at any given time. Every once in a while, the cup spilleth over and you get a juice stain on your nice white shirt, but it doesn’t happen often.

Bottlenecks seem like a good idea, after all nobody likes a juice stain on their shirt. They’re crossing every t and dotting every i. They’re making sure the next guy who receives the information is not going to be drinking from the fire hose. Often, they’re also intent on making sure the product is of top notch quality. It sounds good, doesn’t it? That’s why it’s so easy to become one without knowing.

In actuality, bottlenecks in organizations are dangerous, almost life-threatening. They slow a project down, and before you know it you’ve missed your deadline. They’re not flexible either; it’s hard to bend a bottle neck without heating it up a bit. Most of the time, they’re so set in their path and mission that they fail to see the big picture. They’re either concerned with making sure their part is perfect, or they’re concerned with making sure everybody else’s part is perfect.

You can find bottlenecks in all parts of an organization, but they’re especially dangerous in management.

How many managers do you know that are bottlenecks? I can think of a few that I’ve known through the years, and working with them has always been a major pain in the butt. The hardest part is knowing that if you don’t get everything approved or passed through their desk (no matter how small a matter), you’re going to be called into their office. (A while back I was constantly in my manager’s office for ‘stepping on his toes.’) Because of my experience working with them, I’ve always tried to be open–like a cup. Occasionally I get some spillage, but that’s okay. At least I’m free to do as I need, and the people I work with are free to do the same. Of course I’m not perfect at it, but I’m trying to be awesome.

How do you know if you’re a bottleneck?

At this point, you may be wondering if you’re a bottle neck. You might be. Consider the following questions:

1. Have you ever held up a project because of a “pet peeve” when it should have just shipped?

2. Do you resist change or new ideas?

3. Are you bound by self-imposed processes that don’t make a difference?

4. Do people constantly ask you when your part will be done?

5. Before anything happens, does it require your ‘stamp of approval?’

6. When you’re out of the office does your team’s productivity increase?

7. Do you spend more time monitoring other people’s work instead of working yourself?

8. Can you make a decision without reviewing the numbers and reports or without getting everyone else’s opinion?

9. At the end of the day have you spent more time talking than listening?

10. If something is not your idea, are you hesitant or even against following it?

11. Do you spend more time in meetings than working?

12. Do you stomp and kick your feet if things don’t go your way or don’t measure up to your quality standards?

13. Have you ever refused to work or complete a project because things aren’t going your way?

14. Do you regulate the information you send to the next person in line, no matter the reason?

15. Do people joke about you holding up a project?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be a bottleneck. Answering yes to one or maybe even two of these may not be the end of the world—perhaps you can still do your work and let others do their work… but if you answered yes to more than that, you’re probably a bottleneck, and it’s time to change.

If you are a bottleneck, how do you change?

This is a trickier question, one that I can’t do justice to in this post alone, but for starters, here are my suggestions to un-bottleneck yourself.

1. The next time someone offers their suggestion, if you don’t have a valid reason for not doing it, do it. Better yet, let the person who offered the suggestion take the lead in following through to the end.

2. Make yourself transparent. Its best if you can make sure the next guy can do his work without needing to come to you for information over and over again.

3. Ask someone–without hanging anything over their head. Many times a bottleneck doesn’t recognize himself. If you ask someone, you have to guarantee that you’re not going to break their arm, kill them, fire them, or put their desk in a remote, obscure warehouse to live in darkness and shame. Nobody is going to tell you the truth if they think there are going to be negative repercussions. Take notes on what they say, and change those things.

4. Step out of the picture for a while. Take an extended vacation or break and see if the place falls apart while you’re gone. It won’t.

5. Simplify the process. Don’t require every action to pass through your desk. Allow your team to regulate themselves and make their own decisions. Cut yourself from the processes where you don’t play a critical role. If you play a critical role in all the processes (unlikely, but possible) then find someone you trust and who has proven themselves and let them shoulder some of that responsibility.

6. Empower your team. Give them wiggling room. Let them see that they can make a decision and take responsibility. Give them the tools that they need to do their jobs, step back, and let them do it.

7. Resist meetings. Meetings drain your time and energy. They’re rarely productive.

I said it before, but I’ll say it again. Bottlenecks in organizations can kill them, even when they have good intentions. They’re anti-progressive by nature, often without trying to be. If you’re one of them, you can stop. Learn which behaviors are causing the bottleneck and change them.

Now I know that I didn’t cover everything (not even close), but I’d like to know what your thoughts are. How do you prevent bottlenecks? What you do to deal with them?

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