“Systems permit ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results predictably.” – Michael Gerber
As your business grows, you will generally find it harder and harder to maintain control. There can often be a decrease in efficiency and you may find that people will be more vulnerable to making errors. Even people who should know better! The answer fortunately is simple: Your systems are not clearly defined and no-one knows which process to follow.
While your systems may be there, your team may not be following them! Because the processes necessary for your business to operate will not be clear to the team… even though you may think they are! To solve this issue, it is necessary to document your systems & procedures (ie Systematise your business) and create higher levels of team alignment, accountability and ownership. Do this and watch your efficiency climb and errors fade away! With a ‘systems mindset’, you will find yourself looking for errors as they will show you where your system requires improving… and hopefully, so will your team!
The best way achieve this mindset is by working with a business mentor specialising in management systems.
Why You Need Systems in Your Business
Every business has systems – whether they are formal or informal, written down or just in someone’s head. Systems are the processes and procedures that are required to take the input of raw product or information and produce the value your customers love and are willing to pay money for.
Good systems provide consistency and efficiency in your business. When you have well-designed systems in place, you will find that processes run more smoothly and with less effort on your part. The business depends less on having key people… any competent person can do it.
Well-designed systems also save money by reducing waste and duplication of effort.
In a well systematised business, everyone knows what needs to be done and how it should be done will be clearly documented. This frees up your time to focus on the things you want to focus on.
A business owner isn’t the best person to systematise a business.
As a business owner, it’s only natural that you want to be in control of everything that happens in your company. After all, it’s your livelihood!
Systematisation is the process of streamlining and documenting your business procedures so that anyone can follow them and get the same results that you would. It’s an important part of scaling your business and ensuring its long-term success.
It is however, something that is best left to someone other than you!
As it turns out, you’re not the best person to do the systematising! (Awesome I hear you say!) Yes, it’s true – you are far better off empowering your team to document how they do their work and then introduce a process of continuous improvement. This not only means less work for you, but also creates a sense of ownership for your team members, and this is one of the most empowering activities you can do in as the leader in your business.
Here are four reasons why:
- You don’t have the time.
As the business owner, you already have a million things on your plate. Trying to add systematisation to that list is just going to overwhelm you and lead to burnout.
A business mentor can take care of leading the process of documenting and implementing systems while you focus on running the day-to-day operations of your company.
- You’re not as detail oriented as you think you are.
You might think that because you’re the business owner, you know every single detail about how your company runs like the back of your hand. However, that’s usually not the case.
There are always going to be areas where you’re not as familiar with the details as you should be… or you think you know how it works (as you used to do it), but the person who does it now has moved on and does it a different way. A business mentor specialising in systems can help you lead this process while getting the most out of the team when they go through the documentation process.
- You could unintentionally create chaos.
If you try to systematise your business without really knowing what you’re doing, you could end up creating more problems than you solve. Businesses are made up of people, and people have particular behaviours and emotions. These behaviours and emotions will together create the culture of the organisation, and culture is one of the most important factors of having a healthy organisation. While culture is set by the leader, it is created by the people following that leader. Peter Drucker stated “Culture eats strategy for breakfast!”, Culture is very important! It is however, so often an overlooked aspect of organisations. To correctly systematise your business, you must incorporate the behaviours that contribute to the culture of your organisation, or you could inadvertently end up creating processes that will destroy your business.
A business mentor who is experienced in systematisation can help you avoid these pitfalls and create systems that will drive the behaviours your business depends on. The behaviours that deliver the results!
- It’s a lot of effort, and if you don’t get it right, that’s a lot of wasted time.
Have you ever heard someone say “I’ve got the systems but no-one follows them!”? This is common. And it is often because someone such as the business owner or a consultant has created and documented the systems without looking at culture and organisational behaviours that drive performance. If the team is involved in the development of the processes, there is a level of empowerment and ownership that they respect and take pride in. Without this, there is no accountability or drive to maintain them.
Systematising your business is an important part of scaling and ensuring its long-term success—but it’s something best left to someone other than the business owner.
If you try to tackle it yourself, chances are that you’ll either get overwhelmed or end up creating more problems than you solve.
A business mentor specialising in systematisation who is objective, detail-oriented, and experienced will help ensure that your systems are sustainable and will continue improving well after the business mentor has finished and moved on.
How a Business Mentor Can Help You Improve Your Systems
A business systems mentor will make documenting your current business systems significantly easier and teach your team the process of continuous improvement. Without this last step, you will always have out of date systems and you will be dependent on the person who set the systems up to maintain them in the future. They may also be able to suggest new systems from other industries that could work well for your business.
Here are some examples of ways a mentor could help you improve your business systems:
- Documenting what you currently do now in the critical processes that drive your business.
- Identifying the behaviours that deliver the results you depend on.
- Reviewing your current systems and procedures to identify bottlenecks or areas of waste.
- Understanding tried and tested ways to streamline or automate existing systems.
- Helping you implement new technology to improve efficiency.
- Providing templates or examples of best practice systems from other businesses.
- Mentoring leaders through change management to ensure new systems are adopted successfully by your team.
In my experience, many business coaches talk about systematisation and tell their clients to get better systems, but very few of them have actually systematised a business themselves. It is a very different skill. Most business coaches are successful sales reps or ex-executives from businesses where they have reaped the benefits of good systems, but have never been responsible for the development and implementation of them. This is why it is important to seek guidance from a specifically trained and experienced systems specialist.
If you are looking to improve the efficiency of your business, working on the systems of the business will give you by far the most leverage. Make sure you seek good advice in this process and insist on a well experienced, systems mentor.
