“I start to see what’s really slowing people down and what my team or I can do about it.”

I often tell engineers that employees will never go to an “innovation center” in a company to say that their job could be made obsolete. And by definition the workplace is not 100% effective as long as there is employees. Still there is most likely always more that can be done, so think that the existing people can be automated away and be used in new positions.

A good way to find problem from top-down is to look for similar jobs done. Often a department with a lot of employees. 10% more efficient for 100 is better than 100% for two, unless those two indirectly slow the rest of the company down.

And I like to think that when companies expand rapidly it’s easy to spot problems, the contrary is slow growth, then problems is often someone’s job and they will not complain if it’s not stressful. The last part is often solved over time with even more people.