Managers manage systems, systems manage employees.

We say many things about systems. The line I like the best is …managers manage systems, systems manage employees. This really sums it up.

Systems are a guideline telling you how to do the various parts of your job. It is the path to overall success. Presumably if the business plan is on point and if you follow all your systems you will succeed. It is the variations from the theme that destroy success. Not having financial reports because the bookkeeper did  not follow the system to create such reports is fatal. You will find out your broke after the fact.

Not having a comprehensive sales and marketing system destroys a sales program as it gets out of control and the proper procedures are not being done in the proper time.

Not having guidelines for operations prevents orderly production and destroys productivity. These are the barriers that prevent us from reaching our goals and systems are the tools to overcome these barriers.

If you were to break down your company procedures  every business has a financial department, a sales and marketing department and an operations department.

Each department has many tasks to do. In the sales department there are sales calls, sales reports, call backs, new prospecting, new proposals, sales orders, sale service, and on it goes.

If you were to analyze each sub section, each procedure and draft out exactly how you want it done step by step, and provide tracking forms and information storage tools, we would be building a book of systems. The more systems the better. Why?  Business is not about reinventing the wheel each time. It is not about improvising, doing it differently every day, just because. It is about doing it consistently every time the right way. It is about training the employee how you want it done every time. It is about not making things up,   and not doing it incorrectly because you just did  not know how to do it the right way, no one showed you. There was no system in place.

If the systems are written and not dependent upon oral tradition and one employee showing another. You will have the basis of a training manual.

If someone is out or a new person is hired you can make certain the job is done correctly because you have a system to look at.

People get lazy. They skip steps, they fail to keep important information, they take the easier path and you only find this out when something goes wrong  because you either had no system or it was not written down and thus not followed accurately.

You are frequently adding systems as you go when you develop a new business. But do you design the system carefully and draft it out step by step, infrequently?

This is not about removing creativity or innovation, were it does not belong. Systems support innovation and creativity in the proper place at the proper time, adjustments to the system can be made based on experience and trial and error, as long as you have a foundation to grow upon successfully and innovate productively, a system.

Systems also allow managers to manage successfully by tracking the systems. You have common benchmarks, reports and procedures so you can tell what your employees are doing and if they are doing it correctly, systems manage people… managers manage systems. How true.

So how can you get the right reports as often as we should, it is a system in place. Your salespeople call your customers on time and as dictated  by the system. They of course can vary from the theme as long as they follow the system at a minimum.

Evaluate your business and start having your employees draft out the systems they follow, you will learn an enormous amount about how your business is being run, and most likely it will not be as you want it as a business without systems is a free for all, a gang of people going in different directions doing the best they can the best they think they should be doing. It is as if they were walking through the woods without a compass or a map. You will never get to your destination…on time or as successfully as you could..there is no map.

This will increase productivity, make employees happier as then they will no what is expected and how to do their job.

Boring, hell no, exciting…finally you will gain control over your business and employees and sop being a baby sitter.

Systems, the real difference between victory and failure.