How Would You Solve This Problem: Redundant Work and Invisible Bottlenecks in Growing Organizations

The Problem

When organizations grow, leadership responds to increasing demand by adding headcount rather than redesigning workflow. Over time, this approach creates overlapping roles, duplicated effort, and unclear ownership.

The symptoms are predictable: multiple individuals performing similar tasks, the same information tracked across disparate spreadsheets and systems, and decisions delayed by undefined authority and accountability. Adding people without workflow redesign compounds the problem, driving higher error rates, increased frustration, and forcing leaders into more frequent intervention.

What appears as a productivity issue is often a structural one: the organization scaled faster than it clarified chain of command, roles, and scope of work.

Redundant work signals that ownership and authority have not been clearly defined. When multiple people perform the same work unknowingly, the ambiguity erodes collaboration and psychological safety. In the absence of clearly defined roles, decision rights, and reporting structures, organizations default to overlap as risk management. This inadvertently elevates the risk of inaccurate data, workforce burnout, and inconclusive results.

On the Risk of Inaccurate Data

When information is entered into multiple systems without clear ownership, accountability becomes diffuse. Data duplication increases error rates and erodes trust in the very systems meant to provide clarity.

On Unclear Ownership

When ownership becomes ambiguous, leadership compensates with increased oversight (what some perceive as micromanagement). Meetings multiply, assignments are revised weekly, and authority is exercised informally within a weak structure. The lack of clear boundaries and lanes triggers late deliverables, personnel issues, and burnt-out leaders fighting fires throughout the organization.

The Human Consequences

These variables create a predictable storm with human consequences. Role confusion creates comparison. Overlap creates resentment. Lack of clear structure undermines psychological safety, even among high-performing teams. Employees feel micromanaged not because of leadership style, but because the organization failed to invest in clear training, onboarding, and process ownership. This is why I advocate for the creation and annual updating of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

Training gaps compound the issue. As organizations bring in talent from different backgrounds and industries, assumptions about shared language and norms break down. Without structured onboarding and accessible SOPs, leaders are forced into reactive intervention. Micromanagement becomes a symptom of missing systems, often misdiagnosed as a leadership flaw.

The Path Forward: Where to Start

Operational clarity doesn't require a consultant or a transformation project. It requires three deliberate steps:

First, audit overlap. Spend one week tracking: Who's doing what? Where are multiple people touching the same work? Don't fix it yet, just document it.

Second, assign ownership. For each overlapping task, ask: "If this could only be one person's job, whose should it be?" Then tell everyone else to stop doing it. Clear ownership feels harsh initially, but ambiguity is harsher.

Third, document the minimum. Don't create a 50-page SOP manual. Create one page for one process. Answer: What's the task? Who owns it? What's the output? Who needs to be informed? Review monthly. Add detail as questions arise.

Most organizations don't need more people or more tools. They need clearer structure. Start with one process this week.