Identification times delivery, divided by time
The three-term equation
The most useful formulation of personal impact has three terms rather than the usual two. Output is the product of solutions identified — the ability to recognise what is worth doing — multiplied by solutions delivered — the ability to take that recognition through to a finished result — divided by the time it took. The equation is deliberately ratio-shaped because all three terms compete. Spend longer identifying and you delay delivery; rush delivery and the quality of identification stops mattering; speed everything up and the depth of identification collapses. Anyone serious about output is, knowingly or not, optimising this fraction.
The task jockey failure mode
The first recognisable failure pattern is the worker who delivers a great volume of completed tasks without ever connecting them into solutions that move anything forward. Status replies, tickets closed, drafts finished, slides produced — all the surface signals of productivity, none of the substance. This person tends to receive positive feedback in the short run because their visible activity is unmissable. Over a longer time horizon they are replaceable, because what they do is exactly the kind of work that compresses fastest when an assistant becomes available.
The strategy-only failure mode
The second recognisable failure is the opposite — the worker who is endlessly identifying problems, sketching frameworks, and producing decks about what should happen, while shipping very little. The identification capacity is real; the delivery capacity is missing. This person is often considered clever, but their organisation cannot tell whether the cleverness has produced anything. They are equally replaceable, because identification without delivery cannot be distinguished from talking. The honest measure looks at both sides of the multiplication.
What an assistant changes about the equation
A capable assistant alters the equation in a specific way. It compresses the time term sharply for tasks that are about delivery — drafting, formatting, summarising, scheduling — without compressing the identification term at all. Identification still depends on judgement that the assistant cannot supply. The implication for anyone using one of these tools well is that the relative value of the identification term goes up. The cost of being a task jockey rises because delivery has become cheap. The cost of being strategy-only also rises because there is less excuse for unshipped work. The work the assistant cannot do becomes the work that matters.
Think of someone you have worked with who was admired for being busy. What did they actually finish, and what would you say their genuine contribution to the organisation was?