And why they won't change your SOPs and why they don't use them...

Truth? What is the awkward truth that your teams know about your SOPs, but they don't want to tell you? What is the awkward truth about your SOPs that they know, they know about this? They're like, yeah, we know about those saps.

But they won't tell you, I want to share a little story.

Because this is interesting, this is an interesting thing that you might be facing.

Because you might be in a business that has SOPs, you've actually gone to the effort to document your processes, but you might find that your team don't use them.

And what I experienced, I was I was at medical practice, and I said, Hey, I wonder how we do this.

And they brought out the procedure, they brought out the SOP, and I read it, and I'm like, This doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't work.

And at the lunchroom, I was like, Okay, I got to look at the at this process.

And it doesn't make any sense.

They're like, yeah, we know.

Yeah, we know.

I'm like, Oh, you guys knew that this is is not working.

And yet nothing happened.

Or what in fact, happened is number one, they didn't tell anybody that it doesn't work.

But what they did do is not use it.

There's like, okay, yeah, we know that doesn't work.

It doesn't make sense, it's got illogical aspects to it, it tells you to two different things, that isn't meant to do one or the other.

It's like they both written in there, this doesn't make sense.

And they didn't change it.

And so this SOP is known not to work.

But they don't tell anyone about it, they don't have the power to change it.

And so what happens, it doesn't get used, it was very obvious when I got this system, I'm like, Oh, this process and like, no one's using this.

If anyone was actually using this, then they would have edited it, they would have refined it, they would have had an interview into at least at minimum, removing the illogical statements in it.

And so this was just almost a decoration.

medical practices have to be accredited, which means that they have processes documented.

Now the fact that process doesn't work eludes the accreditation team.

They're like, Have you got a process for this? They're like, Yep, we've got a process.

They never asked that next question doesn't work.

Now, you may or may not be in a business that is accredited.

But I want to let you know that you should pay attention to having your processes actually work.

Why? Well, when you do that, you avoid a lot of problems.

You don't have to rely on people anymore.

You've got the processes that the people do, people are really good at following instructions, like a five year old can build Lego and nine year old can build Lego, a 15 year old can build really technical crazy engine.

Legos is like, how do they do it? Well, here's the picture.

And here's the next step, picture, step picture, step picture step, Do this, do this, do this, do this.

Even if the instruction manual goes up to 625 pages, it still just start with this one, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this.

And this is how your processes should be set up.

They shouldn't have to things that are impossible to do.

It's like do you send it on day two? Or do you send it on day five? Because in the process here, it's written that you do both of them? How can you send it on day two, and send it on day five? For the same thing, like, that doesn't make any sense.

And yet, there it is written completely eluding the accreditation team.

But who knew the team knew your people know this? They know that the processes are not good.

And that's why they're not using them.

If you have got good enough to actually keep processes documented, and your team's not using them can guess what this might be what you're facing that they don't work.

They don't work like what is the point? What is the point of having processes, if they don't work, your team will know that they don't work because they read them and they're like, this doesn't work.

But what they will not do is tell you that they don't work unless you specifically say I want to know whether this doesn't work.

You tell me if this does not work, or even better.

When it doesn't work.

I want you to fix it.

And if you're in a big enough organization, then maybe you're looking at software like standard operating procedure software where there's controls in this like, here's the changes we want to make, and you have to review them or someone reviews and goes yep, that's a good idea or No, that's not a good idea because of this, this and this.

But in the early stages, maybe you're just like, You know what I want my team to use the instructions, you guys have the right to change the instruction so that we get the results that we want.

And that's your job, right there as the entrepreneur as the business owner, to define what is the result.

And then you just need the structure for your processes that your team can use.

They're like, Oh, yeah, get it.

It's like Lego 123451234512345, Do this, do this, do this, do this.

And you can have decisions in there.

You can say, hey, step one, choose between these five options.

And if you choose option one, move to the next step, if you choose option to go to the step below that you can have all that stuff built in.

That's all totally possible.

But the underlying philosophy is step by step by step that is what a process is, you should think of it as a ladder, your team should think of it as a ladder.

And if your team come to and say, Hey, this is not a ladder, this is some kind of like MC Escher drawing bastardized into looking like a ladder, but it is not, it does not work, then you want to know about that.

Because if you get this, right, then suddenly you have a team that works, you eliminate errors, you stop wastage, you stop customer complaints, you start making money, you start being able to get on top of the work, there's less work than you think there is when you only have to do it once.

If you have to do your work five times, or worse, 12 times 30 times, what should have taken one hour takes 30, now you're paying someone 30 hours of work to do the work that should have taken one.

And that means that those next 29 hours being lost, and you're up against a competitor, you're up against the player that's like you know what we can do that the work that should take one hour in one hour, we do the work that takes two hours in two hours.

This is what systems and processes allow you to do.

This is where your leverages this is your ability to build a system, build the processes and have your team execute them accurately.

Without you having to do anything you do at once Yes, there is effort to learn how to do this.

And yes, there is effort to build a system.

But after that, you good.

You good like it is an asset.

And this is why when you read the systems books, they will say that your systems and your processes are the most valuable part of the business.

Why? Because they are the instruction manual, they tell your team, how to do everything in the business is like this is how you do this.

And it frees you up so that you can go sailing on the Mediterranean so you can go skiing in Aspen.

So you can take that cruise to the Alaska so you can send your kids to the best schools if you choose to.

So you can fly business class so you can fly first class so you can bring your ideas and your inspiration through to the world.

Do you think our problems are going to get solved the way that we currently solve the problem? The problems of the world? No.

Because if that if we already knew how to do it a better way then we would see efficiency, we would see effectiveness and that is not what we see.

We see wastage and stupidity and dumb, dumb choices that are causing major problems.

Why? Because people can't think in systems, they don't see the effects of how the system works in total.

They're like, Oh, what we're going to do is run the ports at half speed.

You're like, okay, but now we've got a backlog of boats sticking out the ocean, because the ports are running at half speed and like that is so obvious from a systems perspective.

Of course, you have to move the port through at the speed that the bar the boats are coming.

Otherwise you'll have a backlog.

And the interesting thing is that someone's going to work it out and go you know what this all these boats, let's move them through Mexico.

Let's move them through cannon.

Let's go to a place that's like you know what, we'll take your work.

Let's get going and we'll put them on trucks and send them to the places.

There's enough money at stake here that the big play is going to go on Let's find another way.

If Los Angeles is blocked and San Francisco is blocked and California is not working, then let's reroute it.

Let's reroute it somewhere else.

Let's go to Mexico.

Let's go to Canada.

Jeez, you know, do we go to Guatemala? Do we run the boats all the way through the Suez Canal bring him into Florida because it's costing them to have all of the produce sitting on the scene a backlog because the ports are running at half speed.

And this is the same in your business.

When you think systematically suddenly everything becomes obvious if you need help with this head over to systemio.dev.

I hope you got some value out of tonight's conversation as we continue this journey into systems creating results.

I look forward to seeing you on tomorrow's episode.

See you then.