Thus the boss of the future should be someone capable of saying, “I'm not doing anything, how can I help?"
If the average boss looked at their calendar and put on it not all the things they wanted to get done, but instead blocked off all the time they for doing nothing—and encouraged others to do the same—that would go a long way towards taking stress out of the system.
Do you know that ants turn themselves off—just sit there and do nothing—for thirty percent of their work time? That makes it easier for their teammates to operate in tight spaces, prevent traffic jams.
Indeed, not only would building slack into the system make it saner and healthier, it would increase productivity and creativity too. There was a point in the company’s history when half of Google’s money making products were developend in the time employees were given to do whatever they wanted to do.
The DNA of the assembly line is deep in us, tragically. We do better , even trhive, when we work as if in studios and workshops.
Now . . . to make those the model for the economy, and for school too.