Work the System by Sam Carpenter

Author:Sam Carpenter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626347700
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

FOUR KEY POINTS FOR CREATING YOUR WORKING PROCEDURES

Key point number one: Create a formal “bottom-up” corporate expectation whereby front line staff is encouraged, and expected, to both poke holes in existing working procedures and draft preliminary new ones. They will then pass their work on up to their direct managers. And those managers will do the same with their managers and so on, right on up to the top of the particular administrative chain. In all cases, review of a new procedure, or a recommendation for an existing procedure change, should happen quickly. A fast bottom-up strategy is the key to both hyper-efficiency and staff buy-in, and yes, it’s contrary to traditional cumbersome top-down corporate/governmental thinking.

Key point number two: For designing and producing working procedures, use the best solution every single time the process occurs. At Centratel, we collectively decide what works best in the majority of circumstances. We cast the procedure in concrete—in written form—and then apply it exactly as written every single time. No matter who applies the protocol, the same best solution will always be applied, and therefore best results will almost always occur.

Yes, if there are problems with the procedure along the way, adjustments in the documents are immediately made, and the revised procedure is instantly redistributed.

It’s the same for special circumstances. Your people should have the latitude to make personal judgments in applying a working procedure; but they really do need to be able to point out to their manager the “why” of their deviation, and thus a tweak in the working procedure for that particular special situation may of course be in order.

Always remember: this is a numbers game, and your task is to minimize randomness. In the real world, will a working procedure provide a perfect result in every situation? Of course not. But results will be perfect most of the time, and that will be plenty good enough to ensure the primary system is performing with enormous overall efficiency.

Yes, there is a vast difference in the degree of perfection between how someone answers a phone in an office and the launch of a missile at Cape Canaveral.

Key point number three: Procedure documentation is not limited to just the obvious problem systems. It applies to all internal systems, no matter their perceived efficiency. Documenting a seemingly flawless system will often reveal small defects. If a subsystem is already 90 percent effective, yet it can be boosted to a level of 98 percent effectiveness, that’s obviously a good thing. It will take a while to turn every system into a working procedure, but the boost in efficiency due to these multiple efforts will accumulate geometrically. What could be better for a primary business system than to spend one’s time incrementally improving its subsystems?

Key point number four: Create your working procedure documents for anyone “off the street.” This means that someone who doesn’t even work for your organization could instantly perform the process. More on this coming up soon.

These days, little goes wrong at Centratel, and what does go wrong is fixed instantly.

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