Business Management and Workforce Physics Collide

By Paul McKinley

This article uses a common aviation paradigm called “The Power Curve” to describe a new way of thinking about staffing, illustrating a common mistake made by companies in managing their staff, especially technical, Information Technology staff.

Start with the diagram at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Drag_Curve_2.jpg. The “Induced Drag” is the result of the fact that an aircraft wing requires angle of attack in order to produce lift, and the angle of attack results in a lift force that is at least somewhat opposite to the direction of flight. See http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Induced_drag_r.svg/150px-Induced_drag_r.svg.png for an illustration of Induced Drag.

At higher airspeeds the angle of attack is small, resulting in Induced Drag approaching zero. As airspeed reduces, the angle of attack must be increased to maintain the same lift, which increases the Induced Drag. At some point as the airspeed decreases and the angle of attack increases, the wing stalls, so the Induced Drag curve should actually be shown as approaching a vertical asymptote at the stall speed which is significantly above zero airspeed.

The “Form Drag” per the diagram is the result of skin friction. It starts at zero drag for zero airspeed, and increases geometrically for increasing airspeed.

The total drag on a wing is the sum of these two curves. On the low end it approaches the vertical asymtote which represents stall speed. On the upper end, it increases geometrically with airspeed.

There are two interesting points on the curve. The first is the “Minimum Drag”, which is depicted in the diagram above. This point represents the airspeed that requires the least amount of power to keep an aircraft flying. However this is not the most efficient airspeed. Imagine a line not on the diagram that starts at zero and is tangent to the Total Drag curve. The tangent point would be somewhat to the right of the Minimum Drag point. The tangent point represents the Most Efficient airspeed, meaning it is the airspeed that produces the most distance covered for the amount of energy expended.

The area of the curve to the left of the Minimum Drag point is what’s called “Behind the power curve” in aviation circles. The important thing to note about this area is that, the slower the airspeed, the more power it takes to keep the wing flying. Once a wing moves into this area, additional power will have to come either from adding engine power, sacrificing airspeed (using stored kinetic energy) or sacrificing altitude (using stored potential energy). At some point either the aircraft slowly descends into the ground, or stalls and descends rapidly into the ground.

So let’s apply this concept to workforce physics. Let’s imagine for a that the power indice (vertical) is the effort required to do the work, and the airspeed (horizontal) is the headcount. This curve would imply that there is a minimum headcount corresponding to the Minimum Drag point, and an optimal Most Efficient headcount that is somewhat above minimum headcount. If the workload is held steady and the headcount is decreased, the headcount/workload moves to the left along the curve.

What happens when the headcount falls below the Minimum Drag point is that the workforce begins to be overwhelmed by the workload. There are too many interrupts, people begin to feel overwhelmed (and under-appreciated) and begin to tire out. This is similar to burning altitude to maintain airspeed. So they actually begin to produce less than they would if they were at the Minimum Drag point or above. As the workload continues to increase, the individuals produce less and less, which increases the workload more and more, until the system breaks down or “stalls”. When that happens people begin to get sick, or quit, or go on strike, or if the condition continues long enough the company itself may begin to fail because productivity, quality and customer satisfaction begin to fail. Any upset in the workload or workforce can push the entire organization into a spiral that results in a stall and crash.

The optimal level would be somewhat above the Minimum Drag point, where workers have a reasonable load but are not being continually pushed to their limits. Temporarily losing a contributor in this scenario doesn’t push the remaining workforce into the area “behind the power curve” — the workforce can handle contingencies. Increasing the workforce significantly above this point can reduce the efficiency of the workforce in two ways. The more obvious is that individuals have significant additional capacity that is not being used. The other is the “too many cooks” syndrome where people can get in each other’s way, or begin to use their spare time to build bureacracies that detract from workforce efficiency.

Now let’s examine common business practice with respect to headcount. Traditional management mindset tends to think in terms of the balance sheet of the business: Income and Expense. Better financial numbers can be achived either through increase in Income, or through reducing Expense. When the Balance Sheet looks better, the business looks better. Because having a workforce requires the expense of paying wages and salaries and these days federally mandated benefits, the workforce tends to be lumped into the “Expense” side of the balance sheet. Therefore, one way to make the business look better is to cut the workforce.

Let’s relate cutting the workforce back to the concepts introduced by the Power Curve diagram. If the workforce is significantly greater than the Most Efficient headcount, then cutting the workforce actually produces an improvement in productivity. If the workforce is near or below the Minimum Drag point, it may appear that cutting the workforce was effective, but the reality is that at that point the organization begins to burn reserves, or “lose altitude” as it were. Failure doesn’t happen immediately, but depends on how much “altitude” the organization had in the form of resilience of its workers, how long it takes for systems to begin to break down, how long it takes to alienate customers, and so forth. So the decision to cut staff can look like it was a good move for a fairly long time before impacting the bottom line, but once it begins to impact the bottom line it’s very likely too late. Just like in an unrecovered stall in an aircraft, damage will occur.