A system is a prescribed list of activities that bring a desired result. I’ve had many clients tell me, “Oh, yeah, we have a system.” When I ask to see it they say, “Oh, it’s in my head, it’s not written anywhere.” But it’s not a system if it’s not written down! The quality expert Edward Deming once said, “If you can't describe what you are doing as a process (system), you don't know what you're doing.” Here’s why. Each person interprets the verbal differently—think of the game “post office”. The description of the system gets diluted and because of that you get a different result. The whole point of a system is to produce the same results predictably. That’s why it has to be written down and every person in the business has to read it.
If you go into a Starbucks you’ll often see an employee having a cup of coffee and studying the systems manual. That manual describes guidelines such as how often they make coffee and how long that coffee is allowed to sit before they dump it. Starbucks has a standard for serving the freshest coffee possible period. The system tells each employee how to do that every single time.
Quality vs. Preference
When you start thinking about systems for your business it helps to get clear on the result a customer wants. Recently I was discussing McDonald’s with my son and I told him McDonald’s is about absolute quality. My son disagreed. “It’s junk food,” he said. But quality is not about producing food to compete with gourmet restaurants, it’s about producing a result predictably and consistently every single time. That’s why people go to McDonald’s—they know exactly what they’re going to get whether they’re in the McDonald’s in their hometown or the one on the highway 500 miles away. You might prefer a gourmet restaurant’s burger to a McDonald’s hamburger, but that’s a matter of taste or preference—not quality.
I’ve also had clients tell me, “But you don’t understand my business. You can’t systemise X.” I assure them that their customer, whatever the business, already has certain expectations. Whether the business follows through in meeting that expectation consistently is another matter. I recently had this discussion with a client who ran a photography business. I explained that the customer has an expectation from the moment they walk into the studio based on the style of photography in the pictures he chose to display on the walls. They may also have seen the pictures he has taken of their friends or family members.
The customer is coming into his photography studio because they’ve seen him produce a certain style and they’re expecting to get it. If the photographer can deliver, that’s considered quality because of the predictability. Quality is the absence of variation—conformance to requirements that meet customer expectations. It’s important to understand this because a system will help you reduce variation, which increases quality.
Getting Started with Systems
When you create the systems for your business, you’ll begin to see that you can have a system for everything from answering the phone to cleaning the floors. Even a small business could have as many as 100 or more systems possible when you think about bookkeeping, sales, marketing and production of the product. I don’t want you to get overwhelmed, so let’s start here:
- What are the 3 biggest frustrations for your customers in doing business with you?
- What are the 3 biggest frustrations for your employees in working for you?
- What are your 4 biggest frustrations with your business?
Answering these questions will give you a top ten “hit list” of problems. Now, if you create a system for each one you will solve these problems and really make the biggest difference in your business. That’s it. Just start with ten.
Next, create a results statement. Remember we’re talking about what you will specifically do to satisfy a customer. Ask, “What result do we want to achieve? What am I trying to produce reliably?” Make a clear statement out of your answers. You want the results to be measureable standards so you can tell if your system is working. Such standards might include, “Are we getting more customers?” “Are my customers sending us referrals?”
Once you have your results statement in place, create the activity steps that will lead to the result. And remember, you want the steps to reduce the variation so you can produce quality. Activity steps can be in many forms. They can be as simple as check lists such as the ones you see pilots using before a flight, or narrative scripts such as the ones used in phone calling centers. There’s no one way to do the activity steps, so choose what will work best for you and produce your result.
Assembling your system can be as simple as that, but if you’re still overwhelmed here’s help: contact me for a system strategy session. Otherwise, get your top ten list and get going.
David Hilton, CEO USA, FREEDOM Business Coaching