6 ◾ A Factory of One
Or, think about the way that bureaucracies create oceans
of worthless activity for employees. One organization I know
had strict purchasing rules that forbade people from buying
anything for themselves; as a result, staff had to fill out exten-
sive paperwork, submit (a paper copy) to the procurement
office, and wait for three weeks to get a $50 telephone head-
set. Hospital nurses, who handle most of the patient paper-
work, spend hours per week copying and reentering the same
information in different formats on different forms for differ-
ent departments.
Bob’s Story: Getting Rid of Academic Waste
Bob left industry in 1999 and became a university professor. Driven by
the desire to improve his productivity and performance as ...