The $8.8 Trillion Problem No One Is Fixing (Yet)

(And How AI Could Finally Break a 50-Year Productivity Slump)

Let’s be honest:

Every leader talks about productivity, but no one is actually fixing the root problem. They try everything: meetings about meetings, new tools, dashboards, hybrid work, async workflows, four-day weeks, yet work waste keeps growing.

Just this week, I sat down with executive leaders from a 20,000-person organization. Their frustration was palpable:

“We can’t handle one more thing!”

They’re locked in a cycle of incremental change, running from meeting to meeting and task to task, never breaking through to real transformation. And the data backs their concern:

• $8.8 trillion lost globally each year to wasted work.
• 40% of a company’s workforce is stuck in tracking, managing, and reporting instead of executing.
• 103 hours per worker per year wasted in unnecessary meetings.
• 209 hours spent on duplicative work.
• 352 hours talking about work instead of doing it.
• 64% of human capital lost to misaligned priorities and rework.

Meanwhile, the global economy has wrestled with slow productivity growth for five decades:

• 1970–1994: A slowdown (~1.8% annual growth).
• 1994–2004: An internet-powered surge (~2.9%).
• 2004–2022: Another dip (~1.5%), culminating in the 2010s—the slowest postwar decade.

The core issue: Businesses aren’t failing for lack of strategy; they’re failing because they can’t execute at speed and adapt to the new change. It’s a hidden productivity killer that has survived every so-called “revolution” thus far.

So Why Is This Time Different?

We’ve been burned before, like Lucy promising to hold the football for Charlie Brown, only to yank it away at the last second:

• PC Revolution: We thought email would save us. Instead, inbox overload.
• Internet Boom: Promised frictionless work. Got information chaos.
• Software Surge: Aimed to automate everything. Ended with more dashboards.
• Hybrid Work: Tried cutting commutes. Ended with blurred boundaries and more coordination headaches.

Because AI, for the first time, changes the math. An MIT study found that leaders using AI tools like ChatGPT are 40% more productive in under a year. That’s not a tweak; it’s a fundamental shift in how work gets done.

From Scarcity to Abundance

And it couldn’t come at a better moment. Organizations feel locked in to slow growth and endless busywork. It’s no wonder they cry, “We can’t handle one more thing!” But AI isn’t another burden… It's the key that frees you from repetitive tasks and siloed processes. It puts time, freedom, and choice back in leaders’ hands, transforming a world of scarcity into one of abundance.

Yet many of us still have a kind of “Stockholm syndrome” with broken systems; we’re used to the daily grind of inefficiency and half-measures. We doubt real change is possible. That’s because we shape our work, and then our work shapes us, a self-reinforcing loop Winston Churchill captured when he said, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”

In the same vein:

• We shape our stories, then they shape us.
• We shape our beliefs, then they shape us.
• We shape our habits, then our habits shape us.
• We shape our technology, then it reshapes what’s possible.

A “Black Monolith” Moment

Think of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The monolith was a catalyst—something so profound it changed what humans were even capable of. First, it made them toolmakers; eventually, it pulled them into space.

AI is our modern-day monolith. It’s not just another gadget, it’s an inflection point that rewires what we do and who we are. Intelligence is no longer limited by biology, creativity isn’t bound by the clock, and productivity isn’t constrained by human labor alone.

The question isn’t whether this shift will happen. It’s who will shape it before it shapes us.

So… who says the way things are is the way they have to be?

Will We Finally Break the Cycle?

• Ask who says you need a hundred dashboards?
• Ask who says you need daily standups for basic updates?
• Ask who says we can’t sustain a 2.7% (or higher) productivity growth long-term?

This isn’t an evolution; it’s a revolution. And it’s happening whether you’re ready or not.

So the only question left is: Will you fix the problem at its source or keep using Band-Aids on a broken system?

If you’re serious about cutting work waste and making AI the unlock for real productivity gains, let’s talk. Because the future of work is being built right now, and you don’t want to be on the wrong side of it.

And While I Have You… A New Chapter Unfolds

If you’ve been with me this far, I’d like to share a pivotal moment from our own journey, a moment that mirrors the very transformation we’re advocating.

This journey started in 2021.

After 24 years, 600+ companies, and countless transformations, SHIFT knew how to help leaders align teams and drive change. But when the pandemic wiped out 80% of our business overnight, we had to take our own medicine.

Within 30 days, we made a bold bet on the future by acquiring a small learning management platform—not because it was easy, but because it was necessary. Our vision was to automate the change management methodology we’d refined over decades for our clients. That platform eventually evolved into Latch.

We gained early traction, weathered a software recession, and often found ourselves in startup mode—tearing down and rebuilding along the way. We listened to 60,000+ employees and saw firsthand that work was breaking: it was hybrid, fragmented, and more complex than ever.

Businesses don’t just shape moments -> moments shape businesses. And this was one of those transformative moments.

So this is why, I’m beyond grateful to announce that Latch has been acquired by Atlas UP, creating the world’s most powerful AI-powered Chief of Staff to tackle the $8.8 trillion crisis of unproductive work.

This isn’t just an acquisition, it’s a statement of intent. We’re not just talking about AI’s potential; we’re building the system that solves the execution gap once and for all. Everything we’ve learned about organizational change will now be amplified through the most powerful force of our time: AI.

Just as the Gutenberg Press unlocked human knowledge, AI has the potential to unlock human brainpower at an unprecedented scale.

Final Thoughts

We’re at an inflection point that may rival the internet revolution of the ’90s.

The difference? AI can finally solve the last mile of productivity.

The data shows an economy primed for its next leap—if leaders have the courage to tackle work waste at its root.

Are you ready to join the age of abundance?

Because we shift our work and then our work shifts us.

If you’re serious about eliminating work waste and harnessing AI for real gains, let’s connect. Because the future of work isn’t waiting.

Onward and upward, Joe

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P.S. - I’m thrilled to announce that my third book, Who Says? Question Everything and Discover the Genius of Thinking Differently can be found in airport book stores natiowide!