In praise of systems
A system can be as simple as your Monday morning check list or the Tuesday afternoon team meeting.
Managers build systems. On the other hand, leaders break systems.
Personally, I don’t like systems. I feel they are boring. I’m not saying that’s a good thing. It’s just how I am. To my way of seeing, systems are stagnant organizational ponds covered with green slime. However, I’ll admit, a good system is a thing of beauty. It lowers stress, enables tracking, facilitates delegation, nurtures creativity, enhances productivity, facilitates creativity, and so much more. Individuals, families, and organizations need systems.
You need systems if:
- The same things keep falling through the cracks
- You consistently worry about forgetting required tasks
- Specific tasks are regularly repeated
- Tasks are delegated
- Consistent quality is essential
- You engage in highly complex tasks
- Projects extend over long time-frames
Many of you are reading this and wondering what the big deal is. Everyone knows this stuff. If you’re thinking this way, you’re a great manager. You understand that systems create sustainable sameness. And sameness is the foundation of predictable production. On the other hand, some are reading this, and like me, their heads hurt because systems seem like carnage. They kill creativity, vision, and innovation. Or do they?
Systems free minds, settle spirits, and open doors to productivity. If you know the Monday morning staff meeting has the same five agenda items, your mind is free to prepare. Furthermore, if you don’t know the agenda, you speculate, stress out, and waste time preparing for questions that don’t come up. It’s true, the same agenda is boring. However, predictability creates stability and stability frees the mind for more challenging endeavors.
This article is for leaders who thrive on instability, creativity, and innovation.
Boredom sets you free. Sameness enhances productivity. Young leaders will go further embracing good systems.
What personal systems have you developed that enhance your success?
What great systems, that set people free, are implemented in your organization?
Glad you’re a creative Dan. I think systems are great and that is what great P.A.’s and accountants are for! My basic system is what must I do today that bores me to tears – right let’s do that and then have some fun. I also nurture strong bonds wit those who love systems. So I never accept boredom but I realise what sets me free. Kind wish. Richard
Richard,
You are very kind. Thanks for the good word.
YUP! Do the boring stuff first! Hasn’t someone said something about eating the frog early?
On building relationships with system builders. I agree. Sadly, I’m loosing one next week and I don’t like it.
Best to you,
Dan
Do you believe in serendipity? Having just found you on Twitter yesterday, this is the first blog post I’ve read. AND it speaks to exactly the issue I am having today!
Our organization has always been a growing and agile organization. Great for responding to the community change we address…but sometimes a nightmare when it comes to consistent quality production and efficiency.
I’m looking at introducing some systems and really value your “systems are boring but important” perspective.
Thanks for being exactly what I needed today!
Suzy
Hi, Dan!
You might enjoy this article on Standardized Work. It’s written from a amufacturing POV, but the concepts can be applied across a wide spectrum:
http://learnsigma.com/the-no-nonsense-guide-to-standardized-work/
A system has to be strong, but more than that its reinforcement. Any system can be simplified by effective delegation. If strong system and its reinforcement were in place, we could have stopped sub prime crisis fallout. Leaders and mangers both are required in the organisation because they work as a check and balance system. One creates boundary and explores opportunity, other manages it. One follows rules, other challenges the existing norms and practices. In fact, both are complementary to each others. But the hindsight of both the personalities is that, managers manage self and routine tasks and does not normally contribute much towards society, whereas leaders have much more potentials to help and contribute towards society and people because of their risk taking capabilities and looking beyond boundaries. Predictability is a sign of complacency and taking the things guaranteed can stop your progress and growth. That is why; today we need unpredictability in our approach, efforts to be ahead and to neutralize the competition like how I pad. makes the competition irrelevant.
As an applied systems thinker, my practice focuses on creating systems that my client’s employees believe they own and are enthusiastic about using. So often, systems that fail to produce the desired results are those that are imposed from the top down. Building systems from the bottom up have a great chance of surviving.
If you want to read an enjoyable book about systems, I would recommend Russell Ackoff’s “Beating the System – Using Creativity to Outsmart Bureaucracies.”
Jim,
I hoped you would chime in on this one. Thanks for recommending a useful tool to help leaders build effective systems.
Regards,
Dan
Jim regularly adds value to the LF community. His website: http://www.leemanngroup.com/
I am both a systems leader AND a creative. I bridge the gap between the two worlds, daily.
If a system in an organization is a ‘stagnant pond covered with green slime’, it’s not a viable system. (It’s likely quicksand, where the only reliable direction is down and under.) Using the same analogy, ponds are not stagnant bodies of water. There is motion, exchange, and movement regularly below the surface … leading to pond clarity, beauty and balance. A living pond is a balance between quicksand and tsunami (stasis/decay and out-of-context chaos). Organization do well as living ponds.
There is a distinct difference between those who create and innovate with purpose and goal in mind – and those who gain glee and power in – and keep their fear at bay by – constantly keeping things unstable and in flux (in the name of “creativity”, “innovation”, “change” or whatever marketable term of the moment they prefer). Constant instability reduces effective results. Those who create constant chaos and instability are ineffective as leaders. Check out this post for more on this addiction: http://tracyelpoured.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/is-“change”-your-organizational-drug-of-choice/
There is a time for everything under the sun. There’s a time for change-innovation-creativity – and there’s a time for stability-results multiplication-advancement. The two CAN co-exist in harmony inside an organization .. and at times, they do.
it seems to me that systems are problems when they are there for their own sake and are getting in the way of rather than advancing the objectives of the organisation through supporting the people in it. After all, systems make things possible, people make things happen.