Have you noticed that many countries around the world have stop lights, signs, traffic markings on the street, cross walk stripes, road hazard signals etc.? That means that everyone drives the same and that there is universal “orderliness” everywhere…right? I don’t think so. A while ago I was in Mexico City and, while having all the “infrastructure,” there was definitely a different way of driving…I’ll just call it “freestyle.” Everyone doing what it take to get through – create lanes, run red lights, signals/speed limits are “suggestions”, etc. What does this illustrate? That despite having “vision & strategy“ supported by objectives (ex. traffic signals, markings, etc.) it’s useless if there is lack of process.
Recently I wrote about the importance of the steps needed to align an organization, beginning first and foremost with vision and strategy (note posts that describe what happens when vision is missing). The second essential ingredient for alignment is process. What is it? My personal definition is:
“An inter-related set of activities that together add value towards an objective.”
It’s the daily work that makes our strategic ambitions become a reality.
To understand it better, let’s dig deeper on the key components of the previously mentioned definition. I’ll use the “down home” example of “cleaning out a garage” to make it immediately accessible in a personal way (from there, you can easily make the link to a business setting).
Let’s start from the end of the definition and work backwards:
- Towards an objective: action has to be targeted towards something to make a difference and have meaning. The objective dictates what needs to take place. Remember, objective first (ex. I want a clean garage by the end of the day), then action (ex. clearing schedule, sorting, etc.).
- Adds value: very closely related to the previous point…processes take an input, or existing condition, add value to it and thereby improve its condition (ex. think of a tire plant…rubber in, tires out; or your energy in, clean garage out). Activity that doesn’t add value towards a goal is just “activity for activity’s sake” and is the very definition of a “non-value added process” – it’s waste (ex. in the garage pacing the floor talking on your cell phone – dirty garage in, dirty garage out).
- Inter-related activities that together…: this may seem obvious, but in order to be a cohesive process, steps must be inter-related and connected. Too often entities mix unrelated activities into a process or, even worse, mix in non-value added activities (ex. answering the phone while cleaning the garage; or refinishing the desk in the garage while trying to clean around it). This saps the process of its focus and true potential (“high performance”) making the outcome less effective than it could have been.
In one of my next posts I’ll go deeper on the technical components of a process but, for now, I want to make a case for the importance of it. Thinking critically and analytically about the 3 key components mentioned above is often the first step in identifying an area where you can achieve a breakthrough in the way you are working. Ask yourself the questions: what’s the real goal/objective of my process? does my process really add value towards the goal? do all the activities add value?
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Brett Weinstein via Compfight
[…] last few weeks I’ve discussed the critical components of a process (anatomy), as well as the key reasons why processes are so important to achieve strategic results. While I’ve used examples parenthetically to bring these […]
Would you say that another important component of the process is control. In your example of traffic in Mexico City, I’m sure a big reason of why traffic runs the way it does is because there are fewer police and the police that do exist spend less of their time monitoring traffic. The people there are doing what they can get away with. So in a corporate or firm work culture there is a definite level of control at the lower level, but as you rise in the ranks the control aspect doesn’t go away it simply shifts to a self-motivated control, i.e. a partner in a firm is motivated by the control that his hard work directly affects his capital account in the firm. Do you think control is another component or a subcomponent that lies within one of the components you laid out?
[…] what about “process?” In one of my last posts I gave it a general definition and highlighted its importance. Now I want to take it a step further […]