MMWB Inc. Challenges CEOs to Fix Systems First, Cut People Last. Recover Margins Without Sacrificing Talent
TOLEDO, OH – January 23, 2026 – While most companies under financial pressure reach for layoffs as the primary cost-cutting measure, Toledo-based MMWB Inc. is proving there's a more effective path: fix the broken systems that are silently draining productivity, then see if headcount reductions are still necessary. In most cases, they're not.
"Employees waste 25% of their time fighting bad software, translating between disconnected systems, and working around broken handoffs," says Ben Klaiber, Founder and Principal Workflow & Experience Architect at MMWB Inc. "Your team isn't underperforming. They're compensating for landmines buried in broken workflows. That's not work—that's waste."
With 20 years of consulting experience helping organizations from high-growth startups to Fortune 500 divisions, MMWB has built its practice on a contrarian principle: operational chaos isn't a people problem requiring terminations—it's a systems problem requiring forensic diagnosis and surgical fixes.
THE HIDDEN TAX BLEEDING COMPANIES DRY
While executives focus on headcount, a more insidious cost goes unmeasured. MMWB quantifies what it calls "the operational tax" based on the accumulated minutes lost daily to:
- Reformatting data between systems that should talk but don't
- Chasing down information trapped in disconnected platforms
- Fixing billing errors, duplicate customer profiles, and missed follow-ups
- Building shadow systems and workarounds when official tools fail
- Attending status meetings that exist only because workflows lack transparency
"One client discovered they were spending 5 minutes per invoice just reformatting data between their CRM and billing system," Klaiber explains. "That translated to one full-time employee doing nothing but data translation."
THE ALTERNATIVE TO LAYOFFS
MMWB's forensic approach reveals that most struggling companies don't have talent problems—they have infrastructure problems. Teams spend hours each week compensating for:
- Sales and support running on systems that don't share information
- Manual data entry duplicating work already done elsewhere
- Approval workflows requiring three people to do one person's job
- Reporting tools that can't answer simple questions without custom queries
- Integrations that break, forcing staff into time-consuming workarounds
By mapping where time actually goes and removing these friction points, companies recover capacity without touching headcount.
DOCUMENTED METHODS NOW AVAILABLE
Klaiber has documented these patterns and diagnostic methods in his new book, "Making Things Better: Timeless Lessons From Steve Jobs on Fixing What's Broken."
The book draws on Jobs's approach to fixing Apple in 1997—not the mythology about "vision" or "reality distortion fields," but the actual diagnostic frameworks he used to distinguish what was actually broken from what people said was broken.
"Jobs didn't return to Apple and find a talent problem," Klaiber notes. "He found people walking through landmines. Disconnected priorities. Tools that didn't talk. Workflows creating friction at every handoff. Sound familiar? That's every company we consult with."
The book translates these documented methods into frameworks any leader can apply: how to interrogate "can't" until it confesses it's actually just an assumption, how to distinguish symptoms from systems, and why expensive solutions are often cheaper than cheap ones.
TOLEDO-BASED, NATIONALLY FOCUSED
Operating from Toledo, MMWB serves clients nationwide while maintaining that Midwest companies don't need Silicon Valley resources to achieve operational excellence—they need clear diagnosis of what's actually broken.
"Economic health depends on companies that can compete without constantly cutting staff," Klaiber says. "Our approach keeps good people employed while recovering the margins companies need to survive."
For more information about MMWB Inc. or to request a review copy of "Making Things Better":
MMWB Press Hub: https://www.makingmyworldbetter.com/press/mmwb-press-hub.html
Review copy and book press materials: https://www.makingmyworldbetter.com/book/fix-whats-broken-press.html
CONTACT:
Ben Klaiber
Founder & Principal Workflow Architect
MMWB Inc.
567-249-5075
[email protected]
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