Target’s 1,800 Job Cuts Reveal a Profit Play Most Entrepreneurs Are Missing

Target just axed 1,800 corporate positions because their operational efficiency strategy was broken. Not because revenue tanked. Because too many approval layers turned simple decisions into month-long committee meetings.

When your COO admits “too many layers and overlapping work have slowed decisions,” that’s corporate-speak for “we built a bureaucracy that killed our ability to move fast.” The retailer reported flat or declining sales in 9 of the past 11 quarters. Translation: While they were busy getting seven departments to sign off, competitors were executing.

By the end, you’ll know how to audit your decision-making bottlenecks, identify the approval layers slowing you down, and build an operational efficiency strategy that executes faster than your competition can meet about it.

What Happened: Target’s 1,800-Person Wake-Up Call

On October 25, 2025, Target eliminated 8% of its global corporate workforce. Chief Operating Officer Michael Fiddelke didn’t sugarcoat the reason: too many organizational layers slowed execution to a crawl. After 9 quarters of flat or declining sales, Target admitted what smaller businesses learn fast: bureaucracy is expensive decoration that kills momentum.

The cuts weren’t about lack of revenue. They were about operational structure destroying competitive speed. When a $75 billion retailer states that internal processes became more important than customer outcomes, that’s not a personnel problem. That’s a system design failure.

Target called out “overlapping work” as the core issue. That’s what happens when companies grow without discipline—roles multiply, nobody’s sure who decides, and teams coordinate internally instead of serving customers. Wild.

Why Approval Layers Kill Execution Speed

According to a Harvard Business Review survey of over 7,000 professionals, two-thirds reported bureaucracy slows decision-making. (In companies with 1,000+ employees, that jumps to 80%.) Getting approval for an unbudgeted expense could take 20 days or more. That’s three weeks to spend money you already earned.

Gallup’s 2024 research found only 21% of employees are actively engaged at work. A major reason? Watching initiatives stall in bureaucratic quicksand. Your operational efficiency strategy is probably bleeding engagement right now and you don’t even see it.

The Internal Coordination Tax

Survey respondents spend 42% of their time on internal issues—disputes, resource competition, target negotiation—instead of actual work. Translation: Half your team’s energy manages the org chart instead of building customer value.

Every layer creates a bottleneck. Approval checkpoints slow momentum. That “let me loop in my manager” conversation? It delays execution by days (And yes, your team knows exactly which approval steps are theater.)

The Real Cost of “Loop In My Manager” Culture

When organizations require multiple approval levels for basic decisions, they’re killing initiative. The Harvard Business Review research revealed 80% of respondents said new ideas encounter indifference, skepticism, or outright resistance. Worse, 96% of people in companies with 1,000+ employees reported it’s “not easy” or “very difficult” for front-line employees to launch new initiatives.

Your best people can see exactly what needs to change. But they can’t act without permission from three departments. So they stop trying. Can you blame them?

What Gets Lost in Approval Hell

The cost shows up in ignored metrics:

• Customer complaints take weeks to address because someone needs legal, compliance, and their manager’s manager
• Competitor moves get slow reactions because response plans need four sign-offs
• Market opportunities close before approval cycles finish—someone faster already won
• Employee engagement tanks when initiative requires more political capital than it’s worth

Your operational efficiency strategy becomes “follow the process” instead of “solve the problem.” Sure.

Audit Your Decision-Making Bottlenecks

Look, most businesses have no idea how many approval layers they’ve accidentally built. They didn’t plan for bureaucracy. It just accumulated as they grew—like that pile of clothes on your bedroom chair that somehow became furniture.

Start by mapping one common decision—approving an unbudgeted $500 expense or launching a small marketing test. A real operational efficiency strategy requires knowing where you’re actually slow.

The Decision Map Exercise

Track the actual process:

• Who needs to review it?
• Who needs to approve it?
• Who needs to be informed?
• Who provides input?
• Count total people before action happens

If that number exceeds three for a reversible decision, you’ve found your bottleneck. Period.

Track how long decisions actually take. Not should take—actually take. Most businesses discover lightweight decisions take weeks because they’ve built process debt they didn’t realize existed.

The uncomfortable question: how many approval steps actually improved the decision? Usually zero or one. The rest are theater—checking boxes because “that’s how we do it.” None of that adds value. All of it adds friction.

Cut the Layers That Slow You Down

Eliminating bureaucracy requires more courage than adding it. (Everyone wants a seat at the decision-making table.) Idaho Transportation Department proved it’s possible: they reduced layers from nine to five, eliminated every assistant manager position, and cut 62 roles while significantly increasing performance and morale.

That’s an operational efficiency strategy that actually worked.

What to Eliminate First

Start with obvious bottlenecks:

• Assistant/deputy roles that only review what someone else reviewed—that’s approval theater, not quality control
• Executive sign-off for decisions under $5,000—if managers can’t approve routine spending, you’re teaching them not to manage
• Information-only stakeholders on approval chains—if they don’t have veto power, they don’t need to slow things down
• Overlapping review steps where multiple people check the same thing—pick one, make them accountable, move on

Push decision authority down to people closest to the work. Give them clear budgets, clear constraints, permission to act. Then hold them accountable for outcomes, not process adherence.

The hardest part? Getting senior people to give up control. But organizations that can’t move fast lose to competitors who can, regardless of how many vice presidents you have. Seriously.

Tools That Replace Manual Approval Hell

Technology eliminates most approval bottlenecks, but most businesses still run on email chains. (Is this the most exciting topic? No. Will it save 10+ hours per week? Yes.)

Building your operational efficiency strategy without automation is like trying to compete in Mario Kart using the steering wheel controller—technically possible, but you’re making it way harder than it needs to be.

Automation Stack for Speed

Workflow automation:

• Make.com and ActiveCampaign route decisions based on rules, escalate when needed, track everything without humans playing traffic cop
• No “waiting for Karen to get back from vacation”
• Your operational efficiency strategy runs 24/7, not 9-5

Financial automation:

• BILL automates expense approvals, invoice processing, payment workflows with built-in rules
• Decisions that took three days and four emails now happen in minutes
• Set thresholds once, approve from your phone forever

Project visibility:

• Project platforms track ownership and eliminate “who’s responsible” questions
• When everyone sees who owns what, you don’t need status update meetings
• Transparency is your operational efficiency strategy’s best friend

Translation: Your operational efficiency strategy shifts from “wait for approval” to “approve or deny immediately.”

The pattern: automation handles process, humans handle judgment. Stop using people as approval routers. Use them for decisions that actually require human judgment.

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Build Your Operational Efficiency Strategy for Speed

What does “fast” actually mean for you? Decision speed? Customer response time? Time from idea to live? Pick the metric that matters most and make it visible.

Create fast-track paths for reversible decisions. Not everything needs the same approval rigor. A $200 marketing test doesn’t need the same scrutiny as a $200,000 vendor contract. (But most approval processes treat them identically.)

Make Speed Visible

Measure and publish decision velocity. How long did decisions actually take last month? Make it transparent. When teams see routine approvals averaged 12 days but could’ve been hours, data creates pressure to change.

Build feedback loops. Amazon’s bureaucracy mailbox works because it’s structured friction identification. You need a mechanism where people flag approval theater without getting punished for pointing it out. That’s a smart operational efficiency strategy in action.

Think of your approval process like a relay race. Every handoff costs time. The winning operational efficiency strategy isn’t perfecting handoffs—it’s eliminating as many as possible. The fastest relay team is the one running individual events.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Happened → Why It Matters → How to Stack It

Your Speed Optimization Roadmap

The Problem: Businesses accidentally build approval layers as they grow, then wonder why they can’t execute fast enough. This checklist eliminates bureaucracy killing momentum—without eliminating oversight.

The Goal: Cut decision-to-action time by 50%+ in 60 days by removing approval theater and empowering the right people to act.

Phase 1: Audit Your Bottlenecks

[ ] Map one common decision through actual approval process
[ ] Count how many people touch it before action happens
[ ] Track actual time from “we should do this” to “we did this”
[ ] List which approval steps actually improved the decision

💪 Most businesses skip this and wonder why nothing changes.

Phase 2: Eliminate the Layers

[ ] Remove assistant/deputy roles that only review what others reviewed
[ ] Set clear spending thresholds (managers approve $5K, no executive needed)
[ ] Push decision authority to people closest to the work
[ ] Create fast-track approval path for reversible decisions

🎯 This is where courage beats comfort. Cut what doesn’t add value.

Phase 3: Systematize for Speed

[ ] Choose workflow automation tool (Make.com or ActiveCampaign, $20-50/mo)
[ ] Automate expense approvals with BILL for invoices under your threshold
[ ] Track decision velocity weekly and publish to your team
[ ] Build feedback loop where people flag new bottlenecks without punishment

🔥 Automation handles process. Your people handle judgment.

📋 Print this checklist and check off items as you complete them.

Build Your Operational Efficiency Strategy Before Bureaucracy Kills Your Speed

Target didn’t cut 1,800 people because they wanted to. They cut them because approval layers and overlapping work destroyed their ability to execute faster than competitors. The real cost wasn’t severance packages. It was nine quarters of flat sales while bureaucracy stole competitive edge.

The pattern is always the same: companies grow, add layers “for coordination,” require more approvals “for oversight,” and wake up three years later wondering why they can’t move fast anymore. Your operational efficiency strategy matters more than your product roadmap if execution speed determines who wins.

Audit your approval processes this week. Cut layers that don’t add value. Build systems that route decisions automatically. Give your best people authority to act and hold them accountable for results. That’s how you stack speed before your competition stacks another committee to discuss whether they should maybe think about moving faster eventually.

Next: Save this checklist and start Phase 1 this week. Your competitors aren’t waiting for you to finish another approval cycle.