The Hidden Costs Of Inefficiency: Take Back Control Now

Department of Inefficiency

Jensen Huang speaking at CES 2025. Courtesy Nvidia blog.
Jensen Huang speaking at CES 2025. Courtesy Nvidia blog.

When 1,382 people registered last week, I realized we had struck a nerve.

One of my long-time clients asked me to lead a webinar entitled “From Burnout to Balance: Three Priority Principles for Executive Success.”

Here’s why this topic matters right now—and why so many participated.

Wherever I travel, market-facing leaders are managing the “do more with less” mantra. They are juggling that mandate along with myriad political, climate and RTO dynamics.

The era of efficiency has become the theme across the new USA president’s administration and an AI-inspired private sector. Elon Musk now heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), promising to root out at least $1 trillion in waste.

Yet the titans of thrift may be unwittingly contributing to a silent sickness: burnout. This flurry of announcements and workplace demands lead to unintended consequences.

They unwittingly build departments of inefficiency that are fed by burnout.

Here’s how I define it:

Burnout appears as a loss of energy, focus and enthusiasm
caused by one or more factors:
Doing too much
For too long
And with too little recognition.

We can credit Dr. Herbert Freudenberg, a German-born psychologist and researcher, for creating awareness on the topic. His research papers began to circulate in 1974. Since then, we’ve witnessed a panoply of cottage industries dedicated to reducing employee burnout.

Experts such as Dr. Stephen Covey (whom I interviewed twice), David Allen, Juliet Funt, and Cal Newport have earned millions by devoting themselves to prioritization and burnout prevention techniques. I admire their modern minds and persuasive messages.

Yet here we are, navigating record-breaking mental health crises and high levels of loneliness.

One of the root causes? Extolling efficiency at all costs. Big brands are shoehorning knowledge teams back to 5 day in-office workweeks, which only exacerbates these epidemics. My dear client and colleague Cali Yost highlights the dark side of RTO mandates, and I recommend you follow her work.

Data shows us how the efficiency pendulum has swung too far in one direction. Jennifer Moss’s HBR article on “Let’s End Toxic Productivity” reported plummeting productivity among companies well-versed in technology. Microsoft also discovered a 192% increase in weekly meetings in our post-COVID era.

We heard these concerns firsthand during the webinars. When asked, 201 out of 600+ participants rated their levels of burnout on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being “unbearable and ready to file my worker’s compensation claim.”

Their self-reported figures gave me pause. In the USA, 19% reported ratings above 8. Then the numbers spiked for International, with 34% reporting high burnout numbers.

This is clearly not a USA problem. It’s a global problem.

I’ve been exploring the causes of burnout. You’ve seen or felt the usual suspects:
• Lack of trust in our team
• Too little recognition.
• Too many priorities (we find that more than 4 priorities cause burnout, among other side effects)
• Old time tracking models (such as timesheets), fueling beliefs that “more hours make me more productive”
• Post-COVID meeting mania
• Too many long periods of intensity

This list is missing one other factor: The Jensen Effect.

Jensen Huang speaking at CES 2025. Courtesy Nvidia blog.

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang reminds us that “AI is advancing at an incredible pace.”

He’s adding rocket fuel to your investment portfolio and enabling massive generative AI innovations.

When that expectation shapes culture (remember the dumb trope, “move fast and break things?”), it overpowers how we lead, love and learn. It silences reflection, empathy, and human connection.

We run the risk of treating our people and loved ones as GPUs.

We are not GPUs to be optimized. We are not Moore’s Law microchips. We are souls and spirits, navigating an increasingly complex AI-powered world.

[Deep breath].

I want to help as many people as I can. Until we can anticipate or address burnout, we cannot deploy cogent AI strategies, lead amazing teams, get promoted, or launch powerful marketing plans.

Here is a first step you can take…

If you’re looking to bust open your department of inefficiency, this upcoming livestream can help. On February 4 at 12 noon ET, I will show you a 7-step process to overcome overwhelm.

You will learn how my top clients create priority filters and win back time to think. You’ll also get my time-tested AI prompts to help you build your priority setting muscles.

Click here to register (free), or to receive the show replay.

Can we banish burnout forever? Of course not. But we can make a dent in our personal department.

This was written by me, a human. I did not use AI to write this post.

Copyright 2025, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.

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