People + Process = Results
Consider how ridiculous it would be to teach yourself to drive a car each and every day – over and over again….. By the time you mastered even the most basic elements of the process, the day would over and you will have accomplished nothing. Then, you would have to repeat the insanity day – after day!!! How ridiculous would that be?
REALITY: You absorb the experience of learning to drive in a manner that is so internalized that, once the skills have been acquired, you can operate the vehicle without thinking about it. You become an unconscious competent at driving the car with the net result being independence from a boring and repetitive set of tasks, day after day.
This incredible capacity should be “turned loose” on your daily work routines so that your creative energies are not wasted on problems and issues that are more often, quite frankly, not worth your time and effort. Moreover, you ought to extend the same luxury to your entire organization, for they too will benefit from the experience and do a better, more predictable and profitable job for you. Everyone profits when work is organized and orchestrated.
That being the case, you will face resistance to any form of change to the status quo.
The prospect of becoming robotic and unthinking is actually the equivalent of being a lifeless, robotic machine. Losing one’s individuality (“identity”) is still another example of fear of change. The thought of following a prescribed procedure and losing self-control can be terrifying. The fact is, no loss of control really takes place. Personal accountability and a clearly defined set of expectations introduced into an environment void of boundaries can initially be incorrectly perceived as a threat.
Process Driven Solutions
Processes are intended to solve people-intensive problems. Desired results can only be duplicated with a high degree of predictability if and when the person accountable for those results utilize a system for achieving them instead of relying on their judgment and ingenuity.
The first principle of orchestration, then, is to develop methods and procedures that are as free as possible of any judgment by the people accountable for doing it.
If you make the effort to organizing work, you ought to take the additional step of simplifying it. The very act of organizing will move you toward that objective since routinized work automatically reduces the amount of labor by eliminating the need for any type of decision-making; in short, simplification begins immediately.
As work becomes simpler, you begin to enjoy the luxury of hiring less experienced people (you enjoy the luxury of hiring for attitude and aptitude). Not only does your labor force decrease its cost, but you have a larger pool of available talent from which to draw. Moreover, the training cycle would be sharply reduced in relation to both time and effort.
PARTICIPATION
The involvement of your employees in the process of Business development is an extremely important priority since it can afford them a sense of ownership. As a matter of fact, systems ought to be documented by the people who are accountable for performing that work. Therefore, your non-managerial employee is accountable for documenting the systems he or she will perform, which automatically involves him or her in the process of Business Development.
Orchestrating work often requires the patient and persistent achievement of benchmarks or “Milestones”, as opposed to any kind of sudden leap from zero to perfection. As a result, what every employee should realize is that the opportunity for participation in an innovative way is always present. Through the experience of that type, an individual can have the rare pleasure of working on his or her job rather than at or in it. Just as managers and owners should work on his or her business rather than in it.
Many employees will realize that developing solutions can be a liberating experience, in the sense that it separates the individual from the drudgery that characterizes most forms of work by gaining a totally new and refreshing perspective.
While systems development is an extremely important function, the time spent will be in vain if the system is never integrated into the business. The refinement of new systems is equally as important as the development of new systems and seeing that they are implemented. As stated earlier, your systems will rarely be perfect after the first draft.
INTEGRATION ACTION PLAN contains a system for encouraging employees to participate in the development, implementation, and refinement of new systems. Please use this system when introducing any newly developed systems into your business.
THOROUGH AND WRITTEN
The organization that is not thorough is hardly worth the effort, as there will be weak and ineffective. Whenever an employee is required to develop his or her own solution, use discretionary judgment.
Committing a process to paper is nothing short of an absolute requirement, or you will produce an unmanageable situation.
Systematizing something that is only recorded in the minds of those accountable for its implementation destroys your ability to continuously reproduce results in a predictable manner, to say nothing of the difficulties you will incur should current personnel leave your employ.
STANDARDS
The process begins at an initial manager’s meeting between the manager with the overall accountability, and the position who will be doing the Tactical Work.
All Benchmarks will be noted in both positions’ Controlling Calendars.
Documentation will be in the form of an Action Plan.
Focus on results, not work.
All communications to those delegated will be in writing
