Spend some time in large and medium sized businesses, and you’ll come across encyclopedic procedural manuals. These three-ring behemoths bind together page after page of flowcharts in an effort to regularize the behavior of employees and departments. Manuals like this have obvious value for efficiency-driven businesses (which we all are, to an extent), but they can be detrimental, too.
The benefits of having a set of agreed upon processes are obvious. Work can be done consistently, certain questions can be answered once and for all, and new employees can more easily find their place in a definitive system.
But there are downsides, too. Adhering too strictly to procedures can mean missed opportunities to grow your business. Freewheeling thought tangents can be quashed by procedures that are too authoritarian, and while that can result in increased focus, it may also eliminate the ideas that would best serve your business in the long term.
So here’s my question
“What role does process play in your business (or life)?”
If you’ve got a thought about this, please share! Just type your thoughts below in the “Leave a Reply” field.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
-Braden
@VB – You’re a scholar and a gentleman. All good points.
Manuals are useful, but there also needs to be some institutional memory. “It’s always been done that way.” is not only a terrible explanation for anything, it’s often also a lie.
In a mature successful company, processes have most likely evolved to their current state of efficiency. If the flow of your application forms matches your computer screen today, you can rest assured that most likely, it was not always so.
Manuals need to educate managers and employees regarding which procedures are following rules and regulations (state and federal laws), which are company policy and which are guidelines. You may have a corporate policy to do whatever it takes to have customers leave the store, or hang up the phone happy. If a clerk adheres to that policy and sells a carton cigarettes to a 14 year-old, both the clerk and your enterprise could be in deep trouble.