Your Invisible Workflows Are Broken

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Why Leaders Can’t Fix What They Can’t See

In this episode, co-hosts Jackson Lynch and Scott Morris welcome David Foley, founder and CEO of Vendi, to explore why organizations keep adding headcount to solve performance problems that actually stem from broken, invisible workflows. David shares how his experience leading talent acquisition at Gartner and LinkedIn revealed a consistent pattern: leaders lack visibility into how work actually flows. The conversation unpacks why more than 75% of companies report no measurable ROI from AI investments – not because AI is weak, but because surrounding systems lack clarity. Scott and Jackson challenge listeners to stop blaming people and start examining the processes that force top performers to compensate with workarounds and heroics.

Three Key Takeaways

• Headcount masks system failures – When performance slips, most organizations add people, tools, or processes – solving complexity by adding complexity. The average knowledge worker loses eight hours weekly navigating tool fragmentation before producing any value.
• Dashboards show outcomes, not reality – A recruiting dashboard might show a hire made in 35 days, but it won’t reveal that the pipeline collapsed in week three and only an inbound referral saved the process. Leaders see results without seeing the path.
• Discovery must precede action – CHROs are trained to execute, but sustainable improvement requires stepping back first. Map workflows as they actually happen, identify where decisions stall between functions, and let the truth dictate the next move.

Practical Advice

The Workflow Visibility Audit:

1. Find the pressure point – Identify a team experiencing regretted attrition, missed goals, or burnout. That’s your canary in the coal mine.
2. Trace the real workflow – Ask top performers to document the actual path their work takes – the steps not written down anywhere. Compare this to the official process map.
3. Hunt for hidden wait times – Look for delays between functions: stalled approvals, repeated handoffs, login spikes indicating people bouncing between systems trying to resolve issues.
4. Document the wraparound processes – Capture the informal workarounds that keep the system functioning. These reveal where the architecture doesn’t match the real work.
5. Ask contextualized questions – Talk to coordinators, analysts, and recruiters about where the system enables versus detracts from their work – and whether it aligns to business priorities.

Remember: You cannot scale heroics. If your best people are holding the system together with duct tape and judgment calls, you have a process problem masquerading as a performance issue.

Want More?

1. Power Score by Geoff Smart – Referenced in the episode, this framework for evaluating priorities, who, and relationships connects directly to workflow clarity.
2. Want to Break the Productivity Ceiling? Rethink the Way Work Gets Done – Research on how end-to-end process optimization drives sustainable value when structural changes alone fail (McKinsey, August 2025)
3. The State of Organizations 2023 – McKinsey’s research on why organizations struggle with speed, talent, and the shift toward new operating models (McKinsey, April 2023)

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