Let me ask you a rhetorical question.
How do they get those Fries to taste the same, whether they’re made in London, New York, Hong Kong or your hometown? Those Fries are made by a 16-year-old whose parents can’t get him or her to clean their own bedroom. How do they do that?
They have great systems. McDonald’s does that because they can train a 16-year-old how to follow their process, how to follow their recipe. In fact, they’ve even systematized the production of potatoes as I understand it. It’s a system that can be reproduced time and time and time again. And that’s how they make that work. Ray Croc, the guy who built McDonald’s into what it is today didn’t have to be in every single restaurant to make that work.
Let’s unpack a little bit of what that means.
Systems run your business. People run your systems. You lead your people.
You can see the order of priority here. Systems run your business, people run your systems, you lead your people. This is right out of a book that has stood the test of time, The E-Myth (The Entrepreneurial Myth) by Michael Gerber.
When that happens around 85% of what goes on in a business is done in a systematized routine way. That means you going to be paying attention to the 15% that is not.
When you have great systems and you have great people that run those systems, then your job then is to lead those people and to become good at leadership, communication and delegation.
It starts with systems because if people run your business, as people come and go, so does your business. Your business will fluctuate on the strength or availability of the people that you’ve hired. If you just have great people, that will work for a while but the difficulty is that ultimately that system, that methodology will fail.
Here’s an example of why.
If you’re the captain of a 50-foot Navy boat there might be a crew of 10. In that circumstance, if the captain is the most qualified person, he or she is going to be in the engine room from time to time with tools. That’s the system.
Now let’s make you the captain of a 150-foot Navy vessel and now you have a crew of 50.
Well, are you going to be in the engine room with tools? Almost never. It would have to be an emergency if you’re in the engine room because now there’s someone in charge of the engine room and you’re reviewing the results of that person and how they’ve conducted themselves.
You’re not the hub in the hub and spoke model anymore. They’re the hub and spoke of the engine room in which you’re leading. It’s a change in how you think about it.
And what would happen now you’re the captain of a Navy aircraft carrier and there are 2000 people on board.
What would your system look like now? Well, the only time you’re in the engine room is likely ceremonial as in you’re giving somebody their 20-year certificate.
So, systems scale a business.
Systemize the routine, Humanize the exceptions.
As I say, about 85% of what happens in a business should be routine, should be the system, should be the work that gets done in a predictable, repeatable, robust way. That means you’re going to be paying attention to the 15% that is not.
You systematize the routine and humanize the exceptions. So, if anything happens that’s not within the boundaries, within the lanes, so to speak, of the routine then it rises to the level of a human, a person who intervenes to create a solution or to answer or solve the problem.
But as soon as that happens, the next question you’d want to ask is “What would the system have to be so that couldn’t happen again? How can I design the system so that would now become part of the routine of how we deal with things? So, we don’t look for people solutions. We look for systems solutions that people can then operate.
