Leading the Orchestra

Well, the media never lets up, but, like I mentioned earlier this month, we’re not going to lose focus on the news right now.  There will be plenty of time for that soon, so don’t worry about the end of the fiscal year just yet. 

I’d like to keep working this week on the topic this month – handling and creating systems for change in your company. 

In the last two weeks, we’ve discussed the simple fact of creating management systems to save you time, and then, testing and quantifying those systems. 

Now, let’s move on to the next step – orchestrating changes, systems, and processes. 

What does that actually mean?  Simple, it means getting them sorted out and thoroughly documented.  Now, you might think since you created a system or a process, it’s “ready to go” but chances are, as you studied the metrics of those changes, you might have realized you needed weekly tracking instead of daily tracking.  Or perhaps data needed to be reconciled after each shift, or based on the client’s needs. 

All those pieces are part of the “complete” system you’re now organizing and orchestrating. 

Get it? 

Here’s the thing – now that you’ve tested something, you have to make that process easy to do.  In other words, you’re taking this idea and making it a manageable process. 

Read that again…

You’re taking this idea and making it a manageable process. 

THAT is really the trick here – because basically nothing I’ve shared with you wasn’t in your head already, or something you already tried to do in your business.  What we’re really doing is organizing it into something coherent that can be easily “offloaded” to someone else with a minimum of training or can be automated through some type of software. 

Ultimately, when you have this process fully documented, you can replicate it over and over again. 

In other words, it is now a turnkey system.  It may also be the process you can use for building other similar systems in the (near) future. 

This part, though, is where it has to be very granular – truly “step-by-step” so you limit the “skills” needed for a team member to do the tasks.  Consider ALL the things that go into the process, and think about the lowliest team member as you orchestrate this process. 

Ray Kroc did this in McDonalds and that’s worked out pretty well for seven decades.  Far too many companies look for highly skilled people because they refuse to simply expend the energy to document how a simple system could imbue average employees with the data they need to achieve higher-than-average success.

In other words, when you internalize the ideas we’re discussing this month, you build a company that can create good people and great results from average people. 

You grow great people, in other words. 

That’s a lot better than trying to find them and hoping they’ll be loyal to your business!

Go ahead, give the idea of orchestration a try this week using the ideas you’ve been playing with and see how it can make a difference!