This post is a part of a series to help you define processes in your business
Hopefully, at this point, you’ve started to glimpse the importance of creating systems in your business and you’ve decided to take ownership of overseeing the development of these systems. We are off to a great start! In my experience though, once I start to pressing into systems thinking, I get discouraged. It sounds so easy to just create a process and then that process will just run without me. In reality, it doesn’t work that way.
Processes, even automated ones, will inevitably involve a person. And a person is unpredictable. This unpredictability is what makes it hard to create a process. It takes trials and error. It takes vision and creativity. It takes follow-through and consistency over time.
Our goal then isn’t to not be involved. Our goal is to scale our business. And the way we do that is by creating processes that enable this growth. You will be just as involved, it’s just that you are able to be less involved in the work that needs to get done. Your work changes to overseeing processes. This is the evolution of a healthy business. You move from doing the work, to having someone else doing the work, to having that person running a system that ensures the work gets according to the process you have defined. On a simplified level, the end result looks something like this:
To get to this spot, you need to go on a journey. This journey is a shifting of your attention. As you progress, your focus shifts from:
- Ensuring work gets done.
- Overseeing a process that is ensuring work gets done.
- Overseeing people who work a process that is ensuring work gets done.
The goal is that the nature of your time and attention shifts in this journey to working on systems. Sounds easy, right? Well, there are a number of hurdles you need to overcome in order for this to become a reality. More on this tomorrow.
