With employees running your systems and making sure your company standards and procedures are being embodied, at the most basic level, all employee could assume this basic title that should describe their role in your business.
Systems Manager with Creative Authority
All small businesses should be running on systems, SOPs, and best practices. So all employees are essentially managers of those systems.
Some people think systems and people don’t go together. And that systems are made to replace people, to reduce overhead and the need for human resources, and maybe it is true in some cases. Like in Manufacturing or something similar. I’m referring to the average mom and pop small business. For the most part, systems are a support and provide leverage to the business owner and employees. Not all systems can be automated, but automated systems make this leverage even more powerful… leverage x infinity.
Human beings bring discretion, empathy, caring, and discernment. We add the warmth and friendliness and the meaning in business and without people the systems would be wooden, mechanical, cold, and unfriendly. Maybe even harsh and unfair at times.
When people are managing systemized processes, time is freed up for being creative, inventive, and innovative. The wheel does not need to be reinvented for each iteration of a task or process. The wheel does not need to be reinvented for each new customer.
Robin Sharma says in his book, The Greatness Guide: Powerful Secrets for Getting to World Class,
“What gets measured gets improved.”
When employees can spend quality time tracking and measuring results and then analyzing the results and implementing small improvements on a consistent basis, miraculous things begin to happen in your business.
Systems are great for quality assurance and freeing people up to focus on consistent improvement.
Automated systems are able to exponentially increase the existing leverage the manual system created.
People… your people are the GOLD.
Gold appreciates, just like your investment in good people of strong character and ability. Just like your investment in creating a company culture of ownership, accountability, and improvement.
Your systems help your employees and your employees help your systems. All to the end of adding more meaning to your business and increasing your impact by delighting more customers.
If your employees are doing a good job, they are effectively running your systems and making sure your company standards and procedures are being embodied. And this the role of the Systems Manager with Creative Authority. (Oh, I guess I should explain the Creative Authority part)
If you’re not giving your employees the authority to be creative when it comes to solving internal problems as well a customer satisfaction issues, you’re making a big mistake and I bet your customers feel it on some level.
This is one way your customers can feel your care. They can have a felt experience of your employees and managers having the authority to make them happy. This has the potential to be a huge differentiator for you.
