Name: Three steps become ten
Uploaded: 2026-10-07
Duration: 1 min 26 s
Description: When you started, getting paid for a job took three steps and one person. As a company grows, those three steps turn into ten, shared by four people, and nobody plans it that way. The steps aren't the problem. The handoffs are, because every handoff is a place where work waits, gets typed twice, or gets lost.

Three steps become ten

Running a smarter office · 1:26 · October 7, 2026

Growth turns one person's three steps into ten steps for four people; the hours hide in the handoffs.

When you started, getting paid for a job took three steps and one person. As a company grows, those three steps turn into ten, shared by four people, and nobody plans it that way. The steps aren't the problem. The handoffs are, because every handoff is a place where work waits, gets typed twice, or gets lost.

Key points

Getting paid for a job starts as three steps for one person: do the work, write the invoice, deposit the check.
As the company grows, the same job turns into ten steps for four people. It grows one fix at a time, and nobody plans it.
Every time work passes from one person to another, it sits in a pile. Every time something is typed again, it can be typed wrong.
So don't ask who's slow. Ask where the work waits: find the handoffs, write them down, then ask which ones need a person at all. That's usually where the hours are hiding.

Transcript

When you started, getting paid for a job took three steps.

You did the work.

You wrote the invoice.

You deposited the check.

One person, ten minutes.

Then you grew.

Now the crew lead writes the hours on paper.

Someone in the office types them in.

Someone else checks them against the job.

The materials come off a different list, from a different person.

The invoice gets built from both.

The owner looks it over.

It goes out.

Someone watches for the payment.

Someone chases it when it's late.

And someone else enters it when it lands.

Three steps became ten.

One person became four.

Nobody planned it that way.

It grew, one fix at a time.

And every handoff is a place where someone waits, or gets typed twice, or gets lost.

That's normal.

Every growing company gets here.

But here's what the best-run companies figured out.

The steps aren't the problem.

The handoffs are.

Every time work passes from one person to another, it sits in a pile.

Every time something is typed again, it can be typed wrong.

So the question to ask about your office isn't, who's slow?

It's, where does the work wait?

Find the handoffs.

Write them down.

Then ask which ones need a person at all.

That's usually where the hours are hiding.