Do you have fast reactions to problems?
Or perhaps a more accurate question is, do you have good "automatic" reactions, or do you need to think about everything?
As I prepare to teach the next big 5-week course on Core SOPs for Managed Service, I'm tuning up a slide with one of my favorite quotes:
“Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it."
-- Horace Mann
Our habits really do control us. Or, as Mann suggests, we control them until they control us.
The reason I'm kind of a freak about SOPs is that my habits have helped me create great processes, great companies, and great teams full of people. This is true because we move things from the realm of "open for discussion" to just execute.
You certainly have some habits that fall into the same category. You might not store license keys or license information in the same place we do, but I'll bet you have a place where that information is stored. And by "a place," I mean one place, the place, the only place.
As a result, you never have to ask where to look for license keys. They in the only place they could be - The Place.
Some people think this is a minor point, but it's really huge. If you have five habits that each save your team fifteen minutes a month, that's good. If you have five hundred, that's a major factor in your efficiency - both as individuals and as a team.
The Right Choice
Habits aren't just about doing something consistently or efficiently, they're about doing things the right way - automatically. When your team builds strong habits, it executes daily activities the right way every time. There's no need for discussion or debate.
"This is the way we do it."
A great example for my team is tracking transactions. When we set up a new service or a new ways of accepting payment, we need to keep track of it. And since most transactions have to be managed in a web site, with a payment gateway, and entered into QuickBooks, we have to create a way to track transactions across multiple platforms all the time.
For example, a storefront will generate a store invoice number. The payment will generate a transaction ID. We create an invoice in QuickBooks with a different invoice number. If there are recurring payments, we need to make sure they are attached to the right transactions.
For us, creating a new tracking system is absolutely automatic. The precise layout of the Excel spreadsheet might change. But the spreadsheet will be created for a new process. It will go in in the only location that makes sense. And it will have a name that is exactly what I would have called it if I created it.
And, of course, the documentation for this process will go in the only place any of us will look and have a name that is just what we expect.
The Primary Rule for growing your business should be: If something will be repeated again and again, it must have a documented process. After all, if everyone does things differently, they're not building your brand: They just doing work.
Sadly, most businesses survive by just doing the work. Maybe it's a little different each time, but the work gets done. You can't always replicate it, but at least it's done. Quality varies by technician. You can't predict how long it will take. And when there's rework, another technician can never be sure what the first tech did. But at least the work is done.
Commit to building great habits - And your reflexes will grow faster over time.
