Your Teams Know Where the Bottlenecks Are. You Just Haven’t Asked.

Every leader wants to root out inefficiency. But too often, the search for solutions starts in a boardroom instead of on the floor. 

If you want to find operational bottlenecks, the best place to start is with the people who navigate them every day. 

Your frontline and field teams see where work gets stuck, where technology falls short, and where process handoffs break down. They know which steps slow them down, which approvals take too long, and which systems don’t talk to each other. 

They are your single richest source of insight into what needs fixing. 

Yet many companies overlook this. Feedback loops are informal or absent. Employees keep quiet because no one asks. Or worse, they tried before and nothing changed. 

If you want to identify and fix bottlenecks quickly, you need to change that. 

Don’t Assume You Know Where the Problems Are 

Executives and managers often believe they already know where the big issues lie. 

But distance distorts visibility. Leaders see outcomes while employees experience the process. 

Consider these examples: 

• Leadership blames a missed deadline on staffing, but the real issue is a slow approval chain that eats days waiting for signatures. 

• Managers think they need a new software tool, but teams would be faster with better training on the one they already have. 

• Executives want to automate data entry, but the field team’s actual headache is double entry across disconnected systems. 

Without direct input from the people doing the work, you risk investing in the wrong fixes. 

How to Create Strong Employee Feedback Loops 

Building a feedback system is more than asking once at an all-hands. It requires intention, structure, and follow-through. 

Here are a few best practices: 

1. Make it easy to share insights. 
Set up channels that lower the barrier to feedback. This could include regular surveys, anonymous forms, scheduled listening sessions, or even a dedicated Slack channel. 

2. Ask specific questions. 
Instead of “What’s not working?” try “Where do you lose the most time?” or “Which handoffs are painful?” Focused questions yield actionable answers. 

3. Close the loop. 
Nothing kills feedback faster than silence. Communicate back what you heard, what you plan to do, and what changes you made. 

4. Prioritize what you can fix. 
You won’t solve every problem at once. Use impact vs. effort mapping to identify quick wins and high-impact projects. 

5. Make it ongoing. 
Treat feedback as a continuous process, not a one-time event. Keep checking in as processes evolve.