People Manage The Process and Processes Manage The People
In the beginning of this series, I recalled a story where I had a leader that managed by process. He reminded me to slow down and refer to the existing process before trying to create my own from scratch. Then there was the time when I was the leader who managed by process and scaled from one struggling location to three successful markets in less than a year, all while maintaining my overhead and increasing profit. How? I let the processes manage the people that worked with me, and I managed the processes. I used that three hundred-page process document to onboard, train, retrain, and manage my team. I was able to replicate what was already working well in one location to expand to new territories, attend to the things that were not operating efficiently, rework the process, retrain with it, and improve our outcomes quickly.
Whether you’re looking to better manage the fast-paced rule breakers in your organization or calm the anxious nerves of the rule followers, managing by “the book” of processes is the answer. If you’re looking to grow and scale your business, or streamline it to scale back or sell so you can move on to your next chapter in life, managing by process is the key.
If you’re wanting to step back or elevate up and have more free time and more fun in the process of operating your business, you guessed it, process is the answer.
By this point, you know that managing by process has the potential to change your business, your people, and your culture forever. More importantly, it provides the opportunity for you to be the change you want to see in your organization by setting the example of true leadership — remaining steady, consistent, predictable (enough), and building trust through leading by process.
When you manage by process, you free yourself up to truly lead while teaching your team to be proactive, resourceful leaders themselves. The team can more easily solve issues and challenges and save coming to you (or the appropriate leaders) for proposing solutions, not providing more problems.
Once you’ve built your processes, you must manage them accordingly. This is where the land of process management begins. When you manage everyone by “the book,” it frees up your time and energy for more creative problem-solving and expands your capacity to be available for the more human side of things. Isn’t that what we all want as leaders?
Once your processes are documented and you’ve had the appropriate collaborators participate and agree to adhere to them, managing the team is as simple as responding to (most) questions with… what does the process say? Or, before we begin, what part of the process are we talking about? But this doesn’t happen immediately. There is a process to managing by process, of course!
Research shows that most people, on average, need to hear or see something at least seven times before recalling it, so repetition is key here.
When everyone knows the book they’re being managed by, there is transparency and fairness throughout the organization, which results in deeper levels of trust and collaboration. Sounds like a great culture, right?
The process of process management which I’m about to share allows you to create a forum where it’s expected that people will raise innovative ideas and creative solutions and have them validated (or not), without reinventing the process over and over again. There’s a process to updating the process, of course!
When you manage by process, you’re teaching your team to be proactive and resourceful, solving issues and challenges for themselves and coming to you (or the appropriate leaders) with solutions, not more problems. Sounds ideal, right? It’s entirely possible and within your reach when you have the processes documented and the process management process clearly spelled out!
As you build your land of process and assign process champions, these are the folks that are going to help you solidify process management inside your business so you’re not the only one driving down this process thing. And you may even discover and elect others to help along the way.
Some leaders I speak with are initially hesitant to lead by process because it seems micromanagey or cold… but in reality, it’s the opposite. It’s clear. And, as renowned social researcher and New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown says, clarity is kindness. Managing by process gets everyone on the same page and empowers them with a voice to own and improve their processes.
Changing the way you operate will always be met with resistance. People are entering new territory so there will be fear and uncertainty. When you decide to cross the threshold, you must commit to going through and getting beyond the messy middle ground between the land without process and the land with process. Here, I’m sharing the roadmap so you can know the way and go the way, trusting that your business will drastically improve with just this one commitment.
If you’re ready to learn how to build your business land with process, and let your processes manage your business so you don’t have to, keep reading.
After your process document is finalized, there’s one more process to add — the Process Management Process.
The Process Management Process tells the team how the process document will be used to manage the business, and it defines the process for updating and managing the process document. The owner of this process will be the senior operations leader in the organization (e.g., COO or Operations Director). This is the person who is responsible for driving the execution of strategy for the business and oversees the way things run in the organization. They generally report directly to the CEO. The process management process will include the following items:
How the learning management system (LMS) will be updated when the process changes, who will update it, and what happens after updates are made.
How the team will be tested, measured, and held accountable and what the process is for retraining, retesting, and holding the team accountable to their processes and outcomes.
How new ideas and process-change suggestions get vetted, prioritized, agreed upon, and communicated; how, when, and who has the final authority to make the changes to improve the process; and how those changes get communicated.
This will be different for every company depending upon the businesses’ overall methods of operations. If you work on an operating system, your weekly, monthly, and quarterly meetings are a great place to prioritize your process discussions. If your team is smaller, you can simply keep your working groups running on a regular cadence and escalate the ideas, changes, improvements, and requests to upper management as a part of the process.
Five-Step Process for Process Management:
I. Metrics and outcomes
Each process needs metrics or measurables that measure data, not opinions, on how that process is being performed and executed. Metrics are to be tracked over time and reviewed periodically (according to your business rhythm, this can be during meetings, performance reviews, etc.). They are used to assess performance, address issues, and recognize consistency and improvement. Data, not opinions, is then used to help with decision-making for process adjustment and performance assessments.
II. Training, retraining, testing, and sign-off
The team will be trained on their processes and assessed on comprehension, and then will sign off on having accountability for understanding and committing to their processes, metrics, and outcomes. Any time a process is updated, retraining, retesting, and sign-off is required. The learning management software is a great tool for this.
III. Accountability and recognition
This is your method for how teams are empowered to work together on their own issues and solve for things by being resourceful — through individual accountability. You will decide what accountability means in your business and what actions transpire when processes aren’t being executed according to the documentation and training. This accountability will be transparent and made clear to the team and the people performing each job. Everyone is held to the same standard in each role that performs a process. Positive recognition is also an important piece. Decide how you want to recognize consistent performers and process champions who hold your team accountable by consistently executing and optimizing the way you work.
IV. Empowerment, ideas, and issue resolution
This is where you empower your team to have a voice in the process and to bring suggestions without reinventing the wheel or throwing resources at opinions versus data. Define how new ideas and process-change suggestions get vetted, prioritized, and agreed upon, and who has the final authority to make the changes and improve the process. This can be done by creating a method for submitting suggestions and/or concerns about a process. Conduct meetings such as working group meetings, department meetings, or wherever it fits in your meeting cadence. Ensure you’re working through issues and ideas formulaically so that the meeting time is focused on the right things, ideas get vetted, and decisions get made.
V. Review, update, edit, and communicate
This is the method by which there is one or a few authorized people who can update and edit the process documentation. This spells out how updates and edits will be communicated to those on the team that will be executing the process and anyone upstream or downstream from the process that may be affected. Revisit the process document at a leadership level no less than once per year at an annual strategic meeting and address any process issues at quarterly meetings or as needed.
Through tracking metrics and outcomes, holding people accountable, training, testing, and empowering everyone to have a voice in the process and to bring new ideas and solve issues, you’ll get the buy-in you need to make the process management process a success! By consistently reviewing the document and updating as needed, you will not only have documented “the way you do things around here,” you’ll also be able to manage by process, continuously optimize your processes, and repeat forever. This will free the team up with more time, energy, and creativity with expanded capacity to focus on the more human side of things for your customers and internal team — staying a step ahead of the competition in all ways.