During my career I’ve had the opportunity to travel to many places around the world. Much of that time, however, was spent in Europe or the USA. And during my travels, I noticed something interesting: Europeans hold the fork in their left hand, knife in their right hand and eat with the prongs facing down (figure 1). Americans (right-handed ones anyway), however, hold the fork in their right hand and eat with the prongs facing up (figure 2).
So why do I notice this? Until recently, the answer was “I have no clue”. It’s just something I picked up on over the years and used as conversation fodder with my European colleagues.
I had an epiphany some time back! I was out to dinner with my wife and noticed that she was using her fork “European style”. Since she’s not European, I had to ask: why the change after more than five decades of solid American training? Her answer was “Since I’ve been traveling to Europe a lot, I just decided to try it their way, and it stuck”.
That of course raised my curiosity further. Why would someone, who has done something the same way for more than fifty years (and something as basic as eating!) suddenly change?
The Efficiency Discovery
The answer is efficiency. I conducted a quick, unscientific motion study during dinner and learned that the European way is much more efficient.
When I want to eat something like a piece of meat American style, I hold the fork in my left hand and the knife in my right. I hold the meat still with the fork and cut with the knife. I then lay down the knife, switch the fork to my dominant right hand, grasp it like a pencil and retrieve my food. Then I need to switch everything back to start on the next piece of food. If I want to eat that same piece of meat European style, I would hold the fork in my left hand and the knife in my right. I would steady the meat with my fork, cut with my knife and just lift the food to my mouth with my left hand. I’m then ready for the next piece.
WOW! The amount of wasted time and motion in the American system is astonishing. If I were to take the amount of wasted time and multiply it by the number of meals I’ve eaten with a fork and knife to date, I suspect the total would be in years!
My point isn’t that eating quicker is better. In fact, just the opposite is true. My point is that the wasted motion and time in my eating process has been invisible in plain sight.
The Power of Fresh Perspective
Here’s where this story of efficiency becomes particularly relevant to business operations: I had been eating this way my entire life, and it never occurred to me that there was a better approach. It was simply “how things are done.” My wife’s observation—or rather, my observation of her change—only happened because she had experienced a different way of doing things. She brought an outside perspective back into our familiar environment.
This is exactly what happens in organizations every day. Teams develop processes, workflows, and methods that become ingrained in the company culture. “This is how we’ve always done it” becomes an invisible shield protecting inefficient practices from scrutiny. The people closest to these processes often can’t see the inefficiencies because they’re operating within a system they helped create or have been immersed in for years. What seems perfectly normal to an internal team can appear unnecessarily complex or wasteful to someone with fresh eyes.
Why Outside Perspective Matters
Experienced, external professionals bring something invaluable that internal teams simply cannot provide for themselves: the ability to question assumptions. When you’re inside the system, certain inefficiencies become normalized. You stop seeing them as problems and start viewing them as “just the way things work here.” An outside facilitator doesn’t have that baggage. They can ask the uncomfortable questions: “Why do you do it that way?” or “Have you considered this alternative?” without the constraint of organizational history or politics.
At Empirical, we’ve seen this pattern repeatedly. Organizations bring us in to assess their operations, and time and again, we identify opportunities for improvement that were hiding in plain sight. It’s not that the internal teams aren’t smart or capable—quite the opposite. They’re often so close to their processes and so invested in making them work that they’ve lost the ability to see them objectively. They’ve normalized the inefficiencies, just as I had normalized my fork-switching routine for five decades.
The Value of Objective Analysis
The beauty of an outside perspective is the objectivity it provides. Internal teams have relationships to maintain, politics to navigate, and histories to honor. This outside perspective observes a process without those constraints, evaluates it purely on its merits, and recommends changes without being seen as criticizing individuals or threatening established hierarchies.
Moreover, an outside team brings experience from across industries and organizations. We can recognize patterns and solutions (as well as efficiencies!) that worked elsewhere and apply them to your unique situation. Just as my wife unknowingly demonstrated a more efficient approach to dining, an external partner can introduce proven methodologies and best practices that your team may never have encountered.
Making the Invisible Visible
We say that the answer to improving efficiency around the workplace is often right in front of you. Sometimes, it takes a facilitator to show you how simple adjustments can yield big improvements in productivity. In this case, my wife unknowingly played the role of facilitator.
The question isn’t whether your organization has hidden inefficiencies—every organization does. The question is whether you’re ready to have someone help you see them. Sometimes the most powerful improvements come from the simplest observations, but only if you have someone positioned to make them.
After all, I might still be switching my fork back and forth if I hadn’t seen another way.
This blog was penned by Chris DiMascio, Empirical Operations Partner.
At Empirical, we specialize in making the invisible visible, helping organizations identify and eliminate the wasted motion in their business processes. We’d love to discuss these types of opportunities you have in your organization – reach out to Chris Lee: clee@thinkempirical.com.
