Story:
Getting Rid of the Busy Work so You Can Get to Work

I do agree with shortage of talents and time.
Just for the sake of playing devil's advocate and break unique thought : are the 20 to 40% of non core activities somehow useful, despite the waste ?

I had a boss that used to request fast and fruitful thinkers to give and take soaking time to their ideas.
And to rest their mind, like athletes cannot train 8 hours a day without illegal drugs.
For sure having a walk in a nice forest would be better, but filling an excel spreadsheet, or seeking for info on the web and rebounding on an expected lead can be relaxing and/or surprisingly productive.
Taking time for socializing is also key, especially for people with demanding concentration work.

Let say we should save up to 20% by outsourcing, yet do not push our minds to 100% efficient core mission activities, at least on the long run.
We could dry out, square down or burn out all of our rare and precious talented resources.
80/20 rule should allow fresh and open-minded socialized brains.

It's truly an inspiring story. Cohen is innovative in shifting tasks rather than jobs. By observing and by puting lot of extra effort, he came out with a new model of engagement with external parties. Organizations across the globe, desparately need more Cohen's to leverage the resources available in the Flat World.

I am a university student at BYU and we are trying to understand more about "fakework." This is a short 12 question survey:
http://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9ZI32VgYOg7mcL2

Thanks!

Great story. Enjoyed it. I have participated in a few "policy deployment" projects over the past few years and found it to follow the path you have been following for different businesses. One of the more powerful steps is "project deselection" - stopping non-core work/projects.

Until I learned about this I has really only thought about productivity from a traditional process and organizational perspective.

Creating 'white space' for the individual either to think and/or do more valuable things is a powerful concept and pfizerWorks makes it a reality - I've seen how it works!

Business process outsourcing is not new and its returns in efficiency and cost savings well documented in myriad cases. The gorgeous quality of Cohen's story is that its essence and teaching are not about about BPO mechanics.
These are the things that move me about this innovation. A "servant" leader observing with empathy the nature of work as experienced by his team. His concern and courage to question the way we work today and reimagine it. Then he invests himself personally in making the change happen with no experience in the complexities of making BPO work. Significantly ,Cohen turns first not to power brokers but to building a quiet coalition across his network, a combination of stealth and social tactics. As the concept ripens,he engages leadership support and translates his insight and inspiration into execution and measurement metrics "the man" can understand. At no point does he pass the parcel to his O&S division. Cohen nurtures this baby all the way (while still doing the day job!).
Outsourcing tasks not jobs is a briliant idea ,in this case elegantly realised from prototype to its current maturity and emergent expansion. However , for me, the management miracle here is the engaged leader on full sensory alert to the needs of his team and to improving the design of work. He and his colleagues amplified the meaning of P&L, yes bottom line benefits but so do People and their Lives. Thank you Jordan C et al for this multi-faceted innovation.

Really great innovation. What I find most appealing about pfizerWorks is the focus on the individual, rather than the department or company. Most managers tend to limit themselves to innovations that benefit their P&L or their own department, or evaluate things in that perspective. In comparison, Jordan and his team treated the individual as the core unit of analysis in our workplaces. I'd love to see this service be available to more people.

Very cool...when the busy work is pulled out of the employee's immediate path, he opens his eyes to see what he can really do and doesn't let the steps to get there stand in the way.

Very interesting. A new way to approach outsourcing that employees will see as non-threatening. Outsourcing specific non-productive aspects of people's jobs as opposed to large scale lift and shift. Traditional lift and shift outsourcing produces savings but also organizational havoc, demoralization and can often incur a long-term hidden cost in lost institutional knowledge. This seems like an interesting response to the shortcomings of traditional outsourcing.

I really want for this initiative to be successful, so that so many other organizations in Pharma can see this model working. However, initiatives conceived @ HQ are usually perverted, diverted, or diluted significantly by the time any effect is felt on the production floor. The phrase "knowledge workers" sets up artificial stratification and perpetuates classist tendencies to elitism. ALL WORKERS ARE KNOWLEDGE WORKERS! Pfizer makes medicine. How do the people who tend the money tree in manufacturing influence and effect positive change? Are they permitted to? If so, are they equipped to? If so, are they empowered to? Discussion of paradigm-shifting and change management are great, but what is happening where the rubber meets the road?
Respectfully submitted for general consideration.

I really want for this initiative to be successful, so that so many other organizations in Pharma can see this model working. However, initiatives conceived @ HQ are usually perverted, diverted, or diluted significantly by the time any effect is felt on the production floor. The phrase "knowledge workers" sets up artificial stratification and perpetuates classist tendencies to elitism. ALL WORKERS ARE KNOWLEDGE WORKERS! Pfizer makes medicine. How do the people who tend the money tree in manufacturing influence and effect positive change? Are they permitted to? If so, are they equipped to? If so, are they empowered to? Discussion of paradigm-shifting and change management are great, but what is happening where the rubber meets the road?
Respectfully submitted for general consideration.

Great initiative indeed and very cool. I imagine that this approach can potentially change the economics of a business in some radical ways. With the ease of pressing a button, the advantages of globalization can be accessed.

I run a company of about 100 consultants in six offices. I wonder whether Pfizerworks would give access to the same system? Why not, it does not create any competitive disadvantages and if Pfizer would choose such a direction, it would greatly benefit. It would position Pfizer as a company beyond pharmaceuticals and health care, a company that is a management innovator.

I would also extend the initiative by creating an entire marketplace for the work. At the push of the button, the market place is activated and approved suppliers can bit on the work. In my company situation, even other offices could bit and hence our utilization would increase.

Overall, great innovation in management. Thank you for sharing.

fabulous innovation ..... persistence and passion very critical for success .... pointers for what is needed for any of these to be successful

Research shows that variation in company performance between the best performer and poor performers increases in direct proportion to the intensity of knowledge workers in the industry; i.e the higher the percentage of knowledge workers - higher the performance gap. With more and more of the economy (an companies) relying on knewledge services and innovation for growth and competitveness. One of the biggest challenges in the post crisis world (if we are in one yet) is knowledge worker productivity. Having been closely involved in this project as a partner from intial set up phase, i believe this model provides a great opportunity to address that challenge. All of us face the challenge everyday, all of us intuitively understand the sheer benefit of this on time and efficiency but I think we underestimate the effect it has on effectiveness - value addition and innovation from the knowledge worker when the person is freed from the grunge part of their jobs with the latitude to focus on the real "core" of the problem. This is a really terrific solution for that. Its relatively easy and painless to set up (not to take away real hard work that is required) than many other co-sourcing arrangements and works. Just from the effectiveness angle its worth every effort - the efficiency and savings are a bonus.

I have been fortunate to witness the evolution of pfizerWorks from a small exploratory pilot to a full blown and expanding initiative within Pfizer. Reading the story does make the business case for productivity and cost savings very obvious. To me, though, the growth story that pfizerWorks is driving is even more interesting. I just have to look at the work habits of professionals around me (including my own !), and it is obvious that 50-80% of the time (depending on the time of the Quarter !), we professionals do stuff that is a necessary evil, before we can get down to deriving insights or implementing initiatives. Also this "necessary evil" (and I agree that is somewhat of an exaggeration), is bigger for some people than others. There was a time I could do pretty fancy macros in Excel but now even the thought of doing a VLOOKUP gives me nerves ! This cries out for process and that is precisely what pfzerWorks does. The point though is that there is ever increasing need to focus on developing and implementing growth ideas and the organisations and professionals need to consciously free up time to think, conceptualise and implement. I believe that growth enabling trait of pfizerWorks will make this an even more successful idea, even though that is hard to measure using the conventional metrics.

Jordan -

Great idea! Just wondering, how many people are using pfizerWorks? How many people do you have in India supporting the project?

This is an incredible story of passion and perserverance -- pfizerworks is a great story on how one person's drive can make a huge difference in a large complex organization. It really speaks of not only innovation and creativity but truly believing in what you are doing -- it gives a great picture of what can be done - if you have the passion and commitment to get it done. "No" was never understood -- even though it was said a 1000 times. Jordan is making a great contribution to Pfizer!!!

I have seen Jordan's work in action. At a fundamental level, it enables leaders at all levels, and especially at more junior levels, to quickly understand the power of letting go of what others can do so you can do what few if any others can. They can get a sense of the real value they can bring and of what they are capable of.

This was inspiring and innovative. I could see using this approach to help increase efficiency at the hedge fund I manage.

Hi Jordan--
Great article. Is there any specific metrics/tracking data to determine the "new ROI" on the 20-40% of time that used to be
spent on non-core work? If you can get feedback on that showing how the time spent on strategy and innovation resulted
in quantifiable results, you might have the makings for some good testimonials.....Eric Schillinger

This is certainly a new value proposition within BPO and KPO services. I do not know how many within the organization could have single handedly built a vision of a new service line and impressingly connect it with the big change that the organization has to go through. In Pfizer's case, I was particularly impressed with the fact that "TIME TO THINK" is the most essential ingredient required to build the next innovation within the company and how pFizerWorks is helping the overall objective.

What's unique about this particular offshore model is that its an amalgamation of BPO and KPO services. High end analytical work dished out with 7 Star customer service. The pW model should serve as a blueprint for making the 'world flatter' thats for sure.

totally appreciate this. i am in full support of this. many a times i am plagued down with too many business critical work that takes up too much time. As a result, one often lose sight of strategic decisions, or overlook them.

Great article! With information exchanging hands so quickly, and at the rate social media is moving, we're able to retrieve the information we are looking for a lot quicker. But what I see in this system is that you offer 'direct response', with absolute relevance, which then turns that information, into Valuable Information.

My question would be the same as most of the builders below, is how quickly could you get this system implemented, and to be accepted by the whole organization?

Very inspiring to see people on-board for renewal, and this story shows it can happen in complex organizations. Thanks for sharing it. Your well related snapshot invites a related question.

What initial spark would ignite a traditional organization to move past comfort zones and embrace this level of change - as you see it?

You can't argue with saving 66,000 self-reported saved hours and freeing employees' time to do work that they love! I'd like to learn more about the process of getting people to take the risk of using it for the first time. How quickly has it been adopted? How many employees have used it and what is their repeat rate? Way to go!

Very innovative. I can see how this would make a difference. What is your experience with uptake? What were the critical factors to speed early adoption and broader use within the company?

While I agree the pfizerWorks story tells how one company is helping its knowledge workers take the work out of work, there is an untold story here, one that literally speaks to the ethos of community and citizenship. My company, Pearl Interactive, is a US based contract supplier of BPO services to pfizerWorks. We provide employment opportunities to people with challenges to work, one such segment being homebound, disabled US military veterans. pfizerWorks has specifically contracted with us to partner our vets with Pfizer employees to provide support work. It’s been a very rewarding experience for our vets and I’m sure Pfizer colleagues feel good about helping those who have sacrificed for all of us by serving in the armed forces.

This pretty old British pyriamid system of administration still valid in the indian govt administration,however plagued with corruption,absence of innovation and blouted retapism