Thomas Rolley 00:00
The three big problems with running a business without processes.
So let's start with what actually is a process.
While the process is pretty simple, it's pretty much like a list of instructions, Do this, do this, do this, do this.
And straight off the bat, I want you to be aware that you're going to have an issue with people who've done a process a lot, and those who've done it, never before; this just played out with me; I'm putting a dog fence around my house a hidden fence, you got to go running this wire, and then the dog wears a collar.
And when it gets close, it beeps.
And if it goes past that, accept it.
But I've never done this before.
And the instructions were really interesting.
They gave a whole bunch of examples, but no actual, hey, do this, do this, do this.
So what happened? Well, I only found out after I laid out the wire on my property, it's two acres, and that particular layout doesn't work.
I'm like, Man, that sucks.
That sucks.
But for the person who has done this 15 times, 30 times 150 times before, they've internalized all of this, and they barely need to look at the instructions at all.
But for me, never having done it, I got to actually have the detailed steps.
And you're going to face this with your team as well.
Some people have done it a lot, and they just need the headings.
And some people have done it zero times, and they need all the detailed steps.
Nonetheless, most businesses, many businesses are running without them at all.
So let's have a look at those three big problems.
Number one visibility.
If you have no processes, then where is the work being stored? You see, your team is still doing work.
They're getting stuff done? How are they doing it? Well, they're doing it off training that they received in the first week of their job.
And then they're learning by osmosis and saying, Okay, I need to do it this way or this way.
This is more moderately effective; it gets work done.
You know this, I know this.
But it also has some challenges.
Number one, you can't actually see the work; you can't see what everyone's doing.
You can't say, Hey, this is the job, and this is what you're doing.
There's no ability to line those up and say, Hey, you mismatched here, there is no visibility; this also means that an employee could say or a team member says, hey, you know what I want to race, and you'll I don't want to give you a raise, but in the back of your mind, you know, that they're the only ones who know how to do some stuff in your business.
And if you were like, You know what I'm going to, I'm going to get rid of you; I'm going to fire you, I'm going to bring someone else in there out the door walks all of your process knowledge with that employee with that team member, this is a problem, this is a significant problem.
This devalues your business substantially.
If you ever want to go on holiday, if you want to want to sell it if you ever want to have some freedom from being asked what to do all the time.
Second problem improvements, okay, so if you have no processes, if I have no processes, then we are dealing with a problem that prevents us from being able to improve how we do things.
That without being able to look, we can't improve, and your improvements, minor improvements in our team might actually be going on; they might be making improvements.
But there's no ability for them to bring those across to the process documents so that it preserves those improvements.
And you're at significant risk of Chinese whispers that they make an improvement, your team makes improvements, but then they forget about them.
And then they make improvements.
And then they forget about it.
This is a little like gaining weight, losing weight, gaining weight, losing weight, you
Thomas Rolley 03:51
actually, don't improve that much.
If we have a way to document the processes, and then there are improvements, then we can improve the actual written documents.
And then if somebody leaves or somebody gets sick, then we're able to go to that document and say, Hey, this is ready to roll.
This is good to go.
Third, the big problem is compliance.
You see, if you don't have anything written down, or even if you do, then your ability to prove that something got done is very, very difficult.
Now some businesses will have this more than others.
But if you have to prove that stuff got done, then you must have a way of saying to your team, hey, I need you to document this, and the way to do this is to copy your procedures and then have a little tick box or a strikethrough whatever it is, they go through tick, tick, tick, tick.
If you have read E Myth or E Myth revisited, then you will know that in the hotel scene, the lady has a copy of the Cleaning list the cleaning checklist, and she goes through each room and ticks them off tick, tick, tick, tick, tick this is compliance if you do not have any processes, you certainly cannot make a copy of them to check the compliance gets done.
Alright, so that's the three big problems number one, you have no visibility number two, you have no ability to improve.
And number three, you have no ability to comply or prove compliance.
If you want help with this, head over to systemio.dev.
Thanks for tuning in today.
Look forward to seeing the next episodes of a continuous journey into the power of systems to create results.
See you then.
