How to Stop Paying for the Same Work Twice
Part 3: The Capacity Recovery Playbook (How to Stop Paying for the Same Work Twice)
Are you actually "slammed," or is your system just manufacturing its own chaos?
In Part 1 of this series, we explored how aviation giants use Lean Six Sigma to survive razor-thin margins by relentlessly hunting down waste and variation. In Part 2, we brought those lessons down to earth. I shared the Execution Control Blueprint to help you install the basic rules of execution—because you can't optimize chaos. You have to stabilize your workflows first.
If you applied the blueprint from Part 2, your workflow is finally stable and the bleeding has stopped. Now, we’re moving from stabilization to optimization. It’s time to systematically strip out the hidden rework, friction, and waste.
If your workflow still has unclear ownership, inconsistent intake, or no central queue, start with Part 2 first.
The Hidden Trap: "Trapped Capacity"
Trapped capacity is time your team has, but can’t use, because work is stuck waiting or getting redone. When companies feel execution getting heavy, the default reaction is usually to hire more people. But more headcount rarely solves the problem.
At a law office I once worked in, attorneys were sometimes waiting 1 or 2 hours for "quick" documents because their assigned EA was stuck in a meeting or buried in another task. When I looked at how the work actually moved, I found some alarming numbers:
Demand: about 50 attorneys generated ~25–30 requests per day
Mix: ~30–35% of requests were formatting or reformatting legal documents
Low first-pass yield: roughly 60% of documents were sent back for formatting fixes
When I did the math on this rework, it was staggering: the firm was losing over a full day of billable revenue, and 60 hours of EA capacity was consumed by mistakes every single week. Attorneys were losing ~2 hours of billable time per day (10 hours per week), and EAs were burning ~12+ hours per day on rework, totaling ~60 hours per week.
Enter DMAIC: The 5-Step Execution Engine
You don't need to be replacing a Boeing 777 engine to benefit from a proven operating method. The same Lean Six Sigma methodology that airlines use to cut turnaround times by 70% can be used to rescue your B2B workflows. The acronym stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.
Using this 5-step framework, Etihad Airways reportedly reduced their maintenance system and dropped their engine replacement time from 20-25 hours to just 7 hours, equating to $130k-$180k in recovered capacity every single time an engine was swapped.
By applying those same steps to that busy law firm, we completely eliminated their trapped capacity without hiring a single new assistant.
Introducing The Capacity Recovery Playbook
To help you run this exact framework in your own business, I’ve released the third and final installment of this series: The Capacity Recovery Playbook.
This is a practical, step-by-step guide that takes the standard, 5-step workflow improvement method (DMAIC) and shows you exactly how to apply it to your own stabilized workflows.
Inside this free playbook, you will find:
The Etihad Masterclass: How to use system-level thinking to recover trapped capacity.
A Real-World Example: The exact steps I used to rescue that law firm from massive billable revenue leaks.
The DMAIC Sprint Plan: A strict 10-day calendar to execute these improvements before your team loses focus.
Stop paying for the same work twice and download your free Capacity Recovery Playbook (no email required!)
When your team is already maxed out, the last thing anyone wants to hear is, "Let's build new processes!" It sounds like a massive project that’ll just drain more of your time, but you’re already spending that time. You’re just using it on endless alignment meetings, tracking down missing files, and putting out preventable fires.
If your leadership team is too busy to manage another internal project, I can step in and do the heavy lifting for you. Email Hello@LifeAlignedSystems.com to book your workflow diagnostic or book some time directly on my calendar.
Let's get your system moving so you don't have to be in every meeting and Slack thread.