The Art of Actually Getting Sh*t Done: A No-Bull Guide to Fixing the Flow in Your Organization

“Experience alone teaches nothing.” Let that sink in for a moment. If you’re just grinding away, putting in hours like a hamster on a wheel, and think you’re going to get anywhere, you’re delusional. As Deming said, “Without theory, there is no learning… People copy examples, and then they wonder what is the trouble. They look at examples, and without theory, they learn nothing.”

So what’s the problem? Too many execs are fixated on activity—how busy their people look—rather than value flow—how much of what matters actually gets done.

Now, let me get something straight: Keeping tabs on how busy your team is doesn't mean jack if they're busy on all the wrong things. Imagine a kitchen where the cooks are bustling around chopping vegetables, stirring pots, and cleaning counters. But the food? It never makes it to the table. The diners walk away hungry, and the restaurant bleeds money. Activity for the sake of activity is just noise without substance. But here's the counterpoint — because there’s always a counterpoint.

The Invisible Work Trap

The other extreme is what I call the "Invisible Work Trap." Many top-tier execs get it: they know micromanagement is a creativity killer. They fear that by imposing rigid structures, they’ll stamp out the genius in their people. And they're right—creativity, innovation, and great work don’t thrive in an environment where everyone’s watching the clock, ticking boxes, and filling out status reports. The spirit of autonomy dies in that kind of prison.

But there's a dangerous misconception buried in this aversion to oversight. In trying to avoid micromanagement, these execs often end up with a completely hands-off approach. Suddenly, the work-in-progress becomes invisible. You’ve got developers cranking out code in isolation, engineers fine-tuning their systems behind closed doors, and operations teams plugging leaks in the shadows—all with no visibility, no alignment, and no shared sense of direction. And without visibility, how can anyone reason about the work?

Without visibility, work becomes a black hole. You don’t know what’s being done, where it’s getting stuck, or if it’s even on the right track. You can’t reason about something you can’t see. So while upper management is patting themselves on the back for not micromanaging, the reality is they’ve created a system where nobody’s got a clue about what’s really going on.

Creating Systems of Accountability Without Crushing Innovation

Here’s the trick that eludes most executives: creating systems of accountability doesn’t mean micromanaging your people. It’s about providing transparency and clear metrics at all levels, so everyone knows where the bottlenecks are, where the WIP (work in progress) stands, and where resources are getting sucked down a rabbit hole. It’s about making work visible, so you can have intelligent conversations about it—not so you can hover over people’s shoulders.

Making work visible means that when something isn’t getting done, you can see why—and whether it’s a symptom of a process problem, a capacity issue, or simply an unclear set of priorities. It’s the difference between “Why aren’t you done yet?” and “Hey, I see you’re juggling four different things at once. Where can I help clear the way for you?”

In other words, it’s not about looking busy; it’s about seeing the work. Where it’s coming from, where it’s going, and—most importantly—what’s stopping it from getting where it needs to be.

But the real problem isn’t the extra time or money. It’s the system itself: those delays between steps, the lack of focus, the unplanned work piled on top of already overloaded teams. All that busywork compounds and clogs up the pipes, suffocating productivity.

If your company’s laser-focused on utilization—maxing out everyone’s time to look productive—you’re riding a bullet train straight into the jaws of mediocrity. Local efficiency doesn’t mean sh*t if the overall flow is bottlenecked. You’re just stacking up waste and fooling yourself into thinking it’s value.

From Theoretical Concepts to Real Sh*t That Works

So how do you get this visibility without devolving into a nightmare of Gantt charts and soul-sucking status meetings? The answer lies in some of the first principles of Flow, Lean, and the Theory of Constraints, because if you want to be the kind of leader who actually changes things, here’s what you need to understand—and more importantly, make visible to everyone in your organization:

1. You can’t manage what you can’t see: Delays, feedback loops, and lessons learned are all part of the flow of knowledge work. If you don’t know where these are breaking down, you’re just guessing. Or worse, pretending.
2. Delays Destroy Value: It’s not just the waiting that costs you—it’s the compounding chaos of context-switching and momentum loss. Multi-tasking is not a badge of honor; it’s a slow-acting poison.
3. Local optimization doesn’t guarantee global impact: You can make one team a productivity powerhouse, but if their output gets bottlenecked downstream, you’ve just built a faster way to nowhere.
4. Small wins matter more than grand visions: Ship smaller slices of work faster. Stop trying to build the whole cathedral at once when you can get the damn foundation done this week.
5. People over process, but process over chaos: Great people can’t work their magic if they’re constantly fighting the system. Create enough structure to give them visibility, and enough autonomy to let them do what they do best. Usually, good leaders fail in one area by trying to succeed in the other.
6. Autonomy with Visibility Beats the Hell Out of Anarchy: Give your teams freedom, but don’t let it devolve into chaos. They need a north star and a shared view of the map, not a laissez-faire free-for-all.
7. Study The Legends: If you have agile squad leads that don't study and know about the true origins of software/development squad leadership and tactics–the principles of Infantry Rifleman Squad and Tiger Team leadership–then you have something to learn about life beyond Scrum. Semper Gumby, nerds.

Cutting Through the Noise: The Truth About Focus and Flow

Let’s get back to that little thought experiment from earlier. Remember that nine-month project that should’ve taken three? The root cause wasn’t laziness, lack of talent, or too much slack. It was because delays between steps were hidden, people were overworked, and nobody knew what the hell was causing it.

If you want to get sh*t done faster, you don’t throw more people at it. You don’t just yell, “Work harder!” You find the bottleneck, understand it, and then reduce the delays in the system. You streamline the workflow—not by cramming more into the system, but by letting people focus on what’s critical.

But What If You’re Afraid of Killing Creativity?

And here’s the real kicker: if you’re one of those executives who fears that making work visible will turn your organization into a bland, color-by-numbers sweatshop, listen up. You’re already killing creativity by letting chaos reign. When there’s no clarity, when there’s no shared visibility, every creative instinct gets bogged down in a swamp of uncertainty and unnecessary firefighting.

Your people are too busy putting out fires to dream big. Making work visible isn’t about turning them into drones—it’s about removing the roadblocks so they have the space and freedom to do their best work.

So, before you throw out the idea of work visibility because it feels like you’re becoming Big Brother, ask yourself: Are your people really thriving under your current system? Are they free to create, or are they just grinding away in the fog, hoping the path they’re on actually leads somewhere?

Love Your Customers? Then Prove It.

If you really care about your internal and external customers, don’t just throw platitudes at them. Prove it. Prove it by removing delays, by identifying and fixing bottlenecks, by creating systems where work flows smoothly and people know exactly what’s expected of them without feeling suffocated.

That’s real love. That’s real value.

And if you want to find the hidden money in your organization, ask these questions:

1. Where do you see the highest cost of delay in the organization?
2. Are there any dependencies between teams that are slowing down delivery? How can we reduce them?
3. What is our biggest bottleneck? Where is it occurring?
4. Where are we facing trouble with continuous improvements across the organization?
5. Have we fully mapped out the value streams in our engineering workflows? Are there areas where visualizing the flow of work or identifying waste could help us prioritize improvements?
6. Is there anywhere in particular where we are unclear about the risks or effects of the current trade-off between resource efficiency and flow efficiency?
7. Do we have a good sense of where our bottlenecks are and where we have free (or lower priority) resources that can be subordinated to the bottlenecks?

One Final Piece of Advice

Ask the hard questions. Push the uncomfortable conversations. And for Goodness’ sake, don’t settle for “busy.” Settle for meaningful. When you make the work visible and clear, you create an environment where people can focus on what matters. You liberate their potential. You let them do the work they signed up for—creating, innovating, building something real.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about: getting sh*t done and doing it in a way that leaves your team, your customers, and your company better than before.

So stop hiding behind activity. Make the work visible. And start delivering real value.

Bonus Content

Excerpt from an Unconditional Customer Manifesto

• We pointed out why we gathered together.
• We got authentically acquainted.
• We asked what you needed to give you the best experience.
• We reassured you that you were in the right place and explained exactly how we do what we do.
• We told you why we love working with brilliant people like you: sharing that the best learning of our lives happens in these spaces.
• We ensured you wouldn't have to go looking for answers to your questions.
• We clarified your central pain point that our efforts would address.
• We protected you from scarcity and showed that we provide value you can’t get elsewhere.
• We emphasized we care more about your success than our own gratification.
• Finally, we left the door open, offering exclusive access to us in the future.

Credits

Ever try to get a dog to take a pill? Absolute friggin' nightmare. That's why this article has been lovingly buttered-up and rolled in the combined voice of David Goggins and drunken Anthony Bourdaine stuck in line at a crowded hotdog vendor, because sometimes this sh*t just doesn't set in without a certain type of mindset.