The Manager Who Killed A Great Idea

This is the Minute Business Riff (MBR). Quick takes. Big swings. Leadership riffs you can read in less time than it takes to scroll LinkedIn aimlessly.

One minute. One idea. That’s it.

Today’s word count: 236

It took me 52s to read this.

A manager I worked with once scrapped an internal reporting system that her team had spent weeks building.

It was slick.

Custom dashboards. Automated charts. Color-coded KPIs.

The kind of thing that made ops nerds high-five.

But here’s the problem: No one was using it.

She asked her team: “What decision does this actually help us make?”

Crickets.

They’d built it because it felt smart.

Because it looked good in a presentation.

Because someone said, “We should probably start tracking this.” (Bet you’ve heard that before!)

But it didn’t serve the mission.

It just created noise that looked like signal.

So she killed it.

No one wanted to hear it at first - all that effort, gone.

But a week later, they had more time, fewer updates, and better visibility into the stuff that mattered.

Here’s the truth: Internal processes have a sneaky way of becoming sacred.

You build it once… and suddenly, it’s untouchable.

Even when no one remembers why it exists.

But the best managers know when to hit delete.

Not because they don’t value systems - but because they value clarity more

Tactical Takeaway:

Next ops meeting, ask: “What process are we still doing just because we started doing it?”

If it’s not saving time, enabling decisions, or driving results……….cut it.

Because process for the sake of process isn’t productivity.

It’s just paperwork with branding.

Think this was a banger? Think I’m full of it?

Either way, hit reply and drop some truth bombs.

I read every email 😁

Great leaders are made in minutes. Not meetings.