Fast Isn’t Free: How Fake Efficiency Erodes Holistic Value

When urgency is just dysfunction in fast-forward.

I was asked to join an existing contract for a short-term agile coaching position. They needed someone to come on quickly who lived in the DMV and had a Secret Clearance. The contract was set to expire in November or maybe September. I heard different things from different people, so who really knows... All I knew was that they needed me to start STAT. 

So urgently that they neglected to share that the position had core hours of 7:30-5. They wouldn’t let me flex my hours, even though the job was remote, even though it was summer, even though I have kids. Apparently, that was the problem.

I hadn’t even started yet, and I was already being pushed to comply with a schedule I had not agreed to. And no one had even bothered to ask what time my days started. Or when I could be available for a call. Nope. First week there was a call scheduled by the program manager (my future boss) at 8am for a four-hour team building with a 😖 in the subject line. Was it ‘we don’t want to do this 😖’ or ‘we’re being forced 😖’? Either way, RED FLAG.

When I pushed back to ask that we schedule it later in the day to allow me to be fully present and that we discuss weekly availability during the TEAM BUILDING SESSION as part of a working agreement, it was like all hell broke loose. Suddenly, I'm fielding demands for communicating my working hours before I've even started the job. I have no context for the clients. I have no idea what the rhythm is. How can I possibly answer this? And saying I'd be available for anything critical and would always have my calendar up to date wasn't a good enough answer. Huh? Like, it's 2025, and this is a remote role.

I was also continuously pressured (3-4 times, I think?) to get my CAC before I started working even though I'd already told these people that there were no available appointments in my area. AND I was unable to accommodate a walk-in given my existing schedule. You know, that last week before a job starts, when you’re trying to fit in LIFE before your calendar gets hijacked?

My favorite, though, was that after I really started seeing ALL the red flags of this job opportunity (I'm not gonna lie, I was totally blinded by the cash) and sent over a resignation email that noted the misalignment with the job listing, the supervisor, and the things I've written about and talked about during the interview, HR gaslit me with nonsense about needing someone to be able to "hit the ground running" and that their core hours were 8:30-5:30 (what happened to 7:30-5?). 

The kicker was that when I declined the team building meeting after sending the resignation, the program manager IMMEDIATELY emailed me to ask if there was a better time. When I didn't respond after 20 minutes (20 MINUTES Y'ALL), she emailed me again with "Is there a better time????" in the email subject line. Yes, for real. Four question marks. 

Talk about a confirmation of making the right choice...

And just like that, their “urgent” need for an agile coach "right away" went unmet. They lost the very person they said they couldn’t afford to wait for. That’s not efficiency. That’s dysfunction in fast-forward.

Speed Isn’t a Strategy

We worship speed in modern work culture. Faster hiring. Faster onboarding. Faster delivery. Faster burnout. But speed isn’t inherently valuable, especially when it comes at the expense of clarity, trust, or actual competence.

In my case, I was asked to jump into a role before anyone even explained what success looked like. No schedule alignment, no expectations-setting, just “We need you now.” Turns out what they really needed was someone to clean up the mess left by previous hires (people who looked good on paper, but didn’t actually have the technical depth to support the team).

That’s what happens when you prioritize credentials over capability and urgency over discernment.

When Control Gets Dressed Up as Culture

A few weeks later, I got another glimpse of what I’d dodged... Hidden in the meeting description of the aforementioned four-hour team building call was this gem:

“This will be remote work so we'll have to use the rules we put into

place for the LACE PI Planning – undivided attention!”

Scheduled by the same person who couldn’t spare five minutes for a human conversation with me. First of all, the entire team is remote — why even state the obvious? Because it isn’t about logistics. It's about control. And when you need to enforce “undivided attention” with an exclamation point in a meeting invite, you’ve already lost the plot. That’s not culture. That’s surveillance theater.

Real team building isn’t about performative structure. It’s about trust, psychological safety, and time — the very things urgency culture skips over.

AI Won’t Save You From a Broken Culture

Now add AI to the mix, and the illusion of efficiency gets even shinier.

Some organizations treat it like a golden ticket to squeeze even more out of already overstretched teams. I’ve been in those rooms where AI wasn’t introduced to lighten the load but to justify doing twice as much with half the people.

That’s not what AI is for. That’s not what technology is for. Technology, when used with intention, should give us back the one thing we can’t manufacture: time.

Time to think.

Time to walk in nature.

Time with our families.

Time to feel inspired again.

AI should be a tool that opens up space, not one that tightens the screws.

If you’re using it to increase pressure instead of reduce burnout, you’re not innovating. You’re accelerating the collapse and the result? Burnout disguised as innovation. Fatigue sold as high performance.

Efficiency Without Humanity Isn’t Efficient

The truth is: efficiency isn’t about speed. It’s about alignment. Intention. Sustainability. You don’t need four-hour workshops when people feel connected to their work and each other. You don’t need to micromanage attention when your meetings have meaning. And you don’t lose great people if you treat them like… people.

The most “efficient” decision I made in that entire experience? Walking away.

Because I finally trusted that my energy is a valuable resource and honoring it is part of creating REAL, holistic value. I’m done giving it to systems that only know how to extract.

Next in the Holistic Value series: how company-sponsored sabbaticals (with no deliverables and no strings attached) could be the smartest, most human-centered investment organizations make this decade.