Donald Trump, never one to shy away from spectacle, recently announced that billionaire businessman Elon Musk and entrepreneur-politician Vivek Ramaswamy will helm a department of government efficiency (DOGE) to cut wasteful government expenditure. It is a proposition that is at once audacious and surreal. Yet, beneath its theatrical flair lies an undeniable provocation: What truly underpins efficiency in government?
In India, where the bureaucracy stretches vast and intricate, efficiency is not a singular virtue but a convergence. Stated differently, it lies at the confluence of many factors. In the theatre of organisational transformation towards efficiency, grand gestures often steal the stage — expansive strategies, glossy presentations, and the intoxicating allure of cutting-edge technologies.
Yet, the story of transformation is rarely as linear or triumphant as these grand gestures suggest. In his book, The Checklist Manifesto, American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher Atul Gawande outlines two types of errors that frequently lead to failure: Errors of ignorance (not knowing enough) and errors of ineptitude (failing to properly use what one knows). In today’s organisations, where knowledge is abundant but often overwhelming, the latter is more common.
Enter checklists — an often underestimated tool that can make a difference by guiding actions in a structured, step-by-step manner, especially in the initial stages of transformation towards efficiency. History offers a compelling lesson. In 1935, the Boeing Model 299 crashed at Wright Air Field, Dayton, Ohio; the ensuing investigations pointed to human error rather than mechanical failure as the cause of the crash. The introduction of pre-flight checklists in aviation was a recognition that even the skilled required structure. The pre-flight checklists dramatically improved safety in aviation. In large organisations, where workflows cascade across teams and decisions echo through hierarchies, the potential for oversight, missteps, and mistakes is immense.
Yet, checklists, in their simplicity, offer a counterpoint to this complexity. Consider Gawande’s Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC), a protocol spanning a mere three to four minutes; it simply specifies actions to be performed before, during, and after a procedure. Yet, it is credited with reducing surgical complications and mortalities by a third.
My own experiences affirm the power of checklists as a quiet instrument of change and efficiency. Unlike directives, which often provoke resistance by encroaching on the autonomy of employees, checklists possess a disarming quality. In my own office, on any given day, a deluge of new tasks and expectations compete for any employee’s attention and often overwhelm. The cognitive load mounts; clarity recedes. In this backdrop, I introduced checklists for our staff. By distilling complexity into a sequence of actionable steps, these checklists lightened the cognitive load, allowing staff to focus on the most significant without losing sight of the whole. Most importantly, I conveyed to staff that the original checklists were not cast in a Rosetta Stone.
On the contrary, the staff need to dovetail these as per their own daily requirements. Thus, adaptability and crafting collaboratively contra unilaterally, these checklists elicit participation rather than defiance, framing compliance not as an imposition but as a shared endeavour. They act as a nudge rather than a shove. A pithy saying on planning is well known: “If you do not have a plan for the day, you will be on someone else’s plan”. Indeed, in our office, the checklist fostered a culture of precision and consistency. In the maze and labyrinth of ever-mushrooming new tasks, checklists ensured that the main, planned tasks are not lost sight of. For leadership, too, the checklists offer respite. Decision fatigue — the erosion of judgment under the relentless demands of choice — is a familiar adversary. By streamlining routine decisions, checklists liberate leaders to focus on the strategic, on the questions that shape not just actions but aspirations.
In sum, by breaking down complex tasks into simple, actionable steps, checklists make it easier for employees to understand and follow the process. They can focus on one task at a time, reducing stress and ensuring a higher quality of work. It is not the crescendo but the steady rhythm upon which the melody of change builds. Thus, as a first layer of intervention, it lays a foundation that is firm but flexible, upon which more ambitious endeavours towards efficiency can be constructed.
Abhinav Walia is former additional secretary/member (HRD), Postal Services Board.The views expressed are personal
