Why It’s So Hard to Get Things Done

There’s a great line in John Prine’s song “Angel from Montgomery” that goes: “How the hell can a person go to work in the morning and come home in the evening and have nothing to say?” It’s a comment on relationships and dashed dreams, but it also hints at one of the core challenges of work. We want our jobs to matter, to give us something to talk about, but we can’t always attain that level of engagement. Writing in HBR more than a decade ago, authors Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer touched on one aspect of meaningful work, identifying what they called the progress principle: “Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.” Their article identified how corporate work can feel Sisyphean: a bureaucratic slog through meetings and emails and seemingly little else. Stanford professors Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao have also dived into this problem, trying to understand the forces that inhibit progress and productivity. They point to a root cause they call addition sickness, defined as “the unnecessary rules, procedures, communications, tools, and roles that seem to inexorably grow, stifling productivity and creativity.” In their article in this issue, “Rid Your Organization of Obstacles That Infuriate Everyone,” and in a forthcoming book from St. Martin’s Press, they suggest a set of fixes. They urge managers to do a “good-riddance review” to identify hurdles to productivity and then use subtraction tools—they offer a list of techniques—to eliminate them. It’s hard work, but the authors provide vivid examples of people and companies that have made significant progress. As we begin 2024, we at HBR wish you happiness, productivity, and minimal slogging. Thanks for reading.

Why It’s So Hard to Get Things Done

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