I am also amazed at the size of the operational handbook your international department produced. It seems as if knowledge organizations, especially those with a long history, feel as if they need to catalog every step and every exception for every process. No one questions the operational processes; in fact, they are at pains to include each the nuances they have not thought of yet!
I remember hearing about a new manager at a regional office of IBM. His early observations were that they were drowning in bureaucracy. And he heard from customers and vendors how difficult it was to do business with them. So he called a meeting and asked each person to bring a binder of their standard operating procedures (SOPs) to the conference room and stack them on the table. The large table was soon covered five and six volumes deep. He then said that they each pick up two and follow him outside. He went around the back of the building to the dumpsters lined up for the daily refuse. He instructed each to throw the binders into the dumpsters and meet him back in the conference room. They level of unease was palpable. As they filed back into the building a number of employees grumbled about what they were supposed to do now?
The manager said clearly and succinctly, “you know how to run the business; now write down the processes you need to follow.” He then added, “But this time leave out what’s not essential (and what you don’t recall). Within a week, the SOPs were less than three binders.
What this story illustrates is the value of taking work out of the system. Whether step, reviews or decision points, only keep the minimum you need to get the work done. This applies to new systems as well, a topic for another day. |