The primary objective of any business, is to generate a profit.

In order to do so, businesses need to produce and deliver sufficient amounts of value, to a sufficient number of paying customers, such that their annual revenue exceeds their annual expenditure, by a margin big enough to turn a profit and adequately incentivise it's key people, to keep driving the business forward.

In order to achieve profitability, on a sustainable basis, over an extended period of time, businesses need to get a lot of things right. This article is concerned with just one of these things, namely, operational efficiency, for which a definition is provided below, courtesy of Investopedia. 

Operational efficiency is traditionally concerned with manufacturing operations. It can be used to measure the performance of a production line, in which raw materials, people and machines combine to produce a product, for a certain price, which can later be sold for a higher price.

Needless to say, the goal is produce the product for the lowest cost possible and subsequently to sell it for the highest price possible, in the shortest possible timeframe. The higher the profit and the lower the timeframe to generate it, the higher the operational efficiency of the production line. By extension, the higher the operational efficiency of the business, which owns and operates that production line.

The principles of operational efficiency can also be applied to non-manufacturing industries, on the basis that every business owns and operates a production line, even if it doesn't physically exist in a factory or warehouse.

This article intends to focus on businesses, which are powered by thought-workers, who are feeding some combination of thought and writing into a production line, which produces a product or service, for a certain price, which can later be sold at a higher price. Examples could include magazines, law firms, wealth management companies or software development agencies etc.

So, what is asynchronous communication and how can it boost operational efficiency in businesses, which are powered by thought-workers?

The following definition of asynchronous, as provided by Merriam-Webster, helps to provide some useful context here. 

Asynchronous communication therefore, is any form of communication, which does not take place in real-time. For example, email communication is asynchronous, whereas a phone call or Zoom meeting is not. 

So what? Why is this important and why does it affect operational efficiency? 

At their best, Zoom meetings are disruptive, time-consuming and productive. At their worst, which I would argue is the majority of the time, Zoom meetings are disruptive, time-consuming and unproductive. Either way, they have a direct and typically negative impact on operational efficiency, because the people in those meetings, are blocked from doing productive work, which slows down the production line. 

Undoubtedly there are times when it's very important to meet and discuss things, either virtually or in-person. As a general principle though, such meetings should be reserved for those occasions on which:

So what about the rest of time .... no meetings? How are we supposed to communicate and get things done? 

This is the power and the beauty of asynchronous communication. 

By taking meetings off the table, people are liberated to reclaim control of their time and to work at the times, which suit them best. 

For example, I work extremely well first thing in the morning and am far more productive between 7am and 12pm, than at any other time in the day. I also happen to love what I do, so I typically work 7 days a week. Other people may do their best work between 6pm and 11pm, or during the middle of the day on weekdays because their kids are at school. 

We're all different and we all have a different set of personal circumstances. By embracing asynchronous communication, companies can empower their people to work at the times when they are most productive. These same people will also be much happier, as they will have the flexibility to structure their lives, in a way that makes the most sense for their personal and ever-changing circumstances. 

The larger the company, the larger the gains, in terms of operational efficiency. For example, if you have a team of 25 people, you will enjoy the compound benefit of 25 people being happier and more productive. This in turn will make it easy to hire and retain great people, who love working at the company. With gains in operational efficiency, there will also be gains in profitability, which leads to a virtuous cycle, as surplus capital can be re-invested back into the business to facilitate pay-rises and bonuses, which will further incentivise team members to boost their productivity. 

With all this being said, perhaps the biggest benefit of asynchronous communication, is that people are forced to organise their thoughts in writing. In a culture where jumping on Zoom's is the accepted norm, it's all too easy for people to sidestep the hard work of reasoning through a difficult problem, as they can simply suggest a meeting, to talk it through with someone else. If you remove that option, people are forced to articulate the problem in writing and it never ceases to amaze me, how often people end up solving their own problem when they start writing it down. It's a great stress-test. 

When forced to communicate in writing, people will either solve their own problem or they will frame the problem in a way that makes it easier for other members of the team to understand the issue and offer helpful suggestions for resolving it. Another wonderful by-product of this type of asynchronous communication is that information can be disseminated very easily across the whole organisation, so there is a far broader awareness for what is going on. Likewise, it is easier to share information with customers, as part of a knowledge-base or FAQs library. 

For those of you reading this and thinking "this all sounds good but people will game the system, by using their new-found freedom to do less work and spend more time watching Netflix", I would say this. When you embrace a culture of asynchronous communication, it is far easier to see and to measure people's contributions and productivity. Accordingly, if you recognise that people's productivity is dropping off, you can ask them to explain, in writing, why this is happening. This typically goes one of two ways. Either they produce a reasonable response, which you can work through together and unblock higher productivity in the future, or they are unable to produce a reasonable response and it quickly becomes clear that they aren't the right person to be working at your company. Either way, the company will move forward in a positive direction.

In summary, the benefits of asynchronous communication are profound. Implemented correctly, it can produce significant gains in operational efficiency, team-member happiness and profitability. 

Before signing off, I would like to recognise and thank a few people for their contributions to this subject. I have learned so much and benefited so greatly from each of you. Here is a non-exhaustive list of references: