Your team can't work together effectively when they only see half the picture...
I first learnt about running teams from master business coach Jim Rohn. (yes, old school but hey, I still have the CDs for Art of Exceptional Living)
Jim said, “Running teams is like herding cats”.
Ie. Difficult.
So let's talk about how most businesses try to run their teams
- Slack messages flying everywhere
- "Quick meetings" that eat up entire mornings
- "Just ask me when you need something"
• "Have you got a minute, I just need…" - The same questions, asked over and over
- That sinking feeling when someone does something wrong because they "didn't know"
Sound familiar?
Eventually, this chaos becomes too much.
It's not working,g and something needs to change!
So, what do most businesses try first?
We need processes! Then, people will know what to do! And will do it.
So the team begin to document what they do in Google Docs.
Finally, processes in writing!
Except...
- There is no clear organisation for the processes
- Updates get made, but people don’t look at the document because they memorised the steps
- Team members can’t see what’s already been done
- You're still in meetings pointing at Google Docs wondering why its all there but your team don’t use them
And so the process documents stop getting used.
And go out of date. And back to the same old problem.
Maybe it will work with project management!
Now the team can track results!
We can see who is doing what.
But wait… in project management… We track the results we want!
So…
- Nobody can see what work is being done to produce those results
- Quality varies wildly because people do it differently each time
Or they could focus on process documentation plus tracking!
Great, now everyone knows the steps!
But now the results of that work are missing. :(
Here's the insight: your team can only see clearly when they see what is being done (tracked processes) AND what is being produced (tracked results).
Three team members might all have different jobs on a single file…
If they track processes and results, then it is possible to clearly see the overall system.
Team member 1 works on the file and is marked on for both their process and the file.
They complete their work marking it done and move the file to their compadre.
They are now marked as working on their process and the file.
They complete their work and pass it to team member three.
They take the edited copy and produce the final PDF.
Here’s what it looks like:
To have your teams run without micromanagement, you need both:
- Tracked processes
- Tracked results
- People assigned to both
When you have this:
- Teams see exactly where the work is up to
- Work flows smoothly
- Results are visible to everyone
- Work stops being held up constantly with delays
Instead of chaos, you get clarity.
Instead of constant questions, you get consistent results.
Instead of being the bottleneck, you return to being the decision maker.
