Procedure Exhaustion Is Real (And It's Probably Your Fault)
There's a scene in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where our heroes land on a planet run by the Vogons, a species so obsessed with bureaucracy that nothing gets done without the right form, stamped in triplicate, submitted to the right department, possibly recited as poetry. It's supposed to be a joke, but every time I rewatch it, I think this is just a Tuesday working in supply chain.
We've all worked with a company like this. Maybe you're working at one right now. Maybe, and I say this with kindness, you're running one.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: most bloated workflows weren't designed. They were accumulated. No one is sitting down and building a 14-step purchase order approval process on purpose. Out of control SOPs (Standard Operating Procedure) grow one CYA (cover your ass) step at a time. Someone got burned on a shipment in 2018, so we added a checkbox. Someone else got yelled at by a customer in 2021, so we added an approval. A rogue invoice slipped through in 2023, so now finance signs off too. Five years later, booking a shipment takes longer than driving the truck to the delivery.
This is procedure exhaustion, and it's quietly killing your team's ability to actually do their jobs.
The tell-tale signs you've built a Vogon workflow:
Your team asks permission for things they should be trusted to decide
New hires take 6 months to be useful, because the process is the job, not the outcome
People build shadow workflows in WhatsApp groups, LinkedIn DMs and sticky notes to actually move freight, while the official SOP sits in a shared folder nobody opens
Nobody can explain why a specific step exists, just that "we've always done it"
The people who designed the process don't use it, and the people who use it didn't design it
To be clear: adding a step isn't the enemy. Knee-jerk reaction steps are.
There's a difference between "we had a problem, let's thoughtfully build a safeguard" and "we had a problem, quick everyone add a tickbox before someone yells at us again." One is process improvement. The other is trauma building.
Good SOPs are living documents. They should be reviewed at a regular cadence; quarterly, twice a year, whatever fits your operation. And make sure to include the people that actually have to use them to produce the outcome you need. Asking things like: is this still serving us? Is there a simpler way to achieve desired results? Some steps will earn their keep. Some were necessary two years ago and aren't anymore. And some were never necessary to begin with. And sometimes you genuinely do need to add a step, that's fine, as long as you're adding it because it makes the work better, not because it makes someone feel safer.
The test is simple: if you're adding a step, can you explain what it does, not what it prevents? If the only answer is "so that thing doesn't happen again," you might be building scar tissue instead of a process.
So how do you see the forest through the trees?
Pick one workflow. Walk it end to end with the people who actually do the work, not the managers who designed it, not the consultants who documented it. Ask three questions at every step:
Why does this step exist?
What happens if we skip it?
Who's the customer of this step, internal or external?
You will be shocked at how many steps exist because of one bad day, one angry client, or one employee who no longer works there. Momentary challenges that solidified a policy.
The goal isn't to rip up every SOP and go rogue. Procedures matter, especially in an industry like supply chain. The goal is to make sure your procedures are serving the work and desired outcomes.
If your team follows the SOP perfectly and your customers are still frustrated, the SOP is the problem. If your best people are quietly ignoring the process to get things done, the process is the problem. And if nobody on your team can explain why a step exists, it probably shouldn't.
Don't be a Vogon. Your team has enough to deal with without reciting poetry at the fax machine.
