PPP 475 | If Work Feels Like an Episode of The Office, This Is for You, with Don Kieffer and Nelson Repenning

Summary

Have you ever wrapped up your workday thinking, “I’ve been busy all day, but I’m not sure I actually made anything better”? If so, you’re not alone, and today’s guests are here to help you break that cycle.

In this episode, Andy talks with Don Kieffer and Nelson Repenning, co-authors of the new book There’s Got to Be a Better Way. Don is a former Harley-Davidson executive who led during some of the company’s most challenging years. Nelson is a professor at MIT Sloan who studies why well-intended management tools often fail in practice. Together, they’re helping leaders rethink how work actually gets done.

In the conversation, you’ll learn why so many teams get stuck in firefighting mode, and why that’s often not a people issue but a systems issue. You’ll hear how to spot the “firefighter-arsonist” pattern, why problem-solving starts with problem-finding, and what it means to “design for discovery.” We also talk about Agile, Lean, invisible handoffs, and even how these ideas apply to family life.

If you’re looking for insights on how to make your team’s work more effective, sustainable, and human-centered, this episode is for you!

Sound Bites

• “Most performance problems are not people problems. They're design problems.”
• “You get what you design for. And most work isn’t designed at all. It just kind of happens.”
• “Firefighting is not a character flaw. It’s a predictable output of a broken system.”
• “If you don’t make the work visible, you can’t improve it.”
• “When no one owns the handoff, it’s not really a handoff. It’s a drop.”
• “Success should be easy. That doesn’t mean the work isn’t hard, but the path to doing it well should be clear.”
• “Discovery isn’t luck. It’s a design choice.”

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:49 Start of Interview
• 01:59 The Origin Story: How Don and Nelson Collaborated
• 07:36 Challenges in Implementing Business Tools
• 13:19 Dynamic Work Design vs. Traditional Methods
• 25:16 A Lesson from the Factory Floor
• 26:53 Identifying and Solving Problems in Teams
• 31:23 The Importance of Connecting the Human Chain
• 35:46 Making Work Visible: Strategies and Tools
• 40:34 Applying Work Strategies at Home
• 42:46 End of Interview
• 43:12 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 47:35 Outtakes

Learn More

You can learn more about the book and their work at shiftgear.work/theres-got-to-be-a-better-way-book.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 249 with Aaron Dignan about Brave New Work
• Episode 252 with Marcus Buckingham about Nine Lies About Work
• Episode 162 with Jonathan Raymond on culture and leadership mindset

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Leadership, Project Management, System Design, Agile, Lean, Problem Solving, Collaboration, Organizational Effectiveness, Continuous Improvement, Work Design, Team Performance

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Quantum Sparks Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Synthiemania by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license