Systems Organize Processes

The past two weeks, we’ve talked about the habits and processes layers of our approach to business success. 

Habits shape the processes that run your business, and processes help you formalize your business vision into repeatable action steps. 

This week, we’ll be talking about systems. As you can tell from our name, we 🧡 systems. But what are systems?

Systems thinking scholar Donella Meadows defines a system as “an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organised in a way that achieves something”. 

For any given business system, those elements are people and processes (plus inputs). And it’s safe to assume that software interconnects at least some of those elements.

That’s why we focus so much on people and processes to solve systems problems for our clients. When there is clarity in a business’s processes and confidence in the people executing them, the systems that need to be built and the software solutions to interconnect those well-organized elements become obvious.

Steve Jobs said, “If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.” ​For too long now, expensive software subscriptions and AI-powered everything have been marketed and sold to businesses of all types and sizes. 

The reality is that those kinds of technologies aren't solutions to common problems, so much as they are amplifiers of common actions. 

They usually define business problems by what their technologies can handle--like doing more, faster. But doing more doesn’t always result in achieving more, or really achieving anything at all--so, not a very reliable solution!

In fact, if you’re in the process of digging yourself and your team into a hole, the last thing you need at that moment is to drop a bunch of cash on expensive tech that will dig that hole for you–as if it were you. 

All that will accomplish is to enable you to dig more holes.

And if you’re having your best year ever, get clear on how your people, processes, and organization systems managed to get you there. 

Once you’re clear in those areas, define your points of leverage—usually those are the processes you’ve verified as guaranteed to get you more by doing more—and double down on them. 

When you’re at the point of doubling down, leveraging software to improve efficiency and reduce errors is a no-brainer if you’re not already doing so. And hiring more team members may also be a no-brainer, depending on your business’s needs. 

Ultimately, your systems are a major driver of your business’s ability to scale. And while scaling may look very different for every business (we’ll talk more about this next week), it’s an unavoidable goal if you want to get yourself out of some of the day-to-day work in your business and truly step into the role of business owner.