One thing that Clay teaches in his business coaching book Start Here is the importance of checklists, guardrails, and quality control loops. These systems are all around us whenever we go into large businesses. If you have ever gotten your oil changed at Jiffy Lube you have experienced a checklist. The technician points at the screen and says “This is what is highly recommended and is what you should really go with.” The technician is not a professional about your specific car model nor is he a professional salesman. He is simply an employee hired to complete a checklist over and over again without any specialized knowledge. Even though they are not automotive Jedi’s, they are still able to sell millions of dollars of add-ons to your simple $19.99 oil change.
It is a complete waste of time to create a system or a checklist so complex or unorganized that no one understands how to complete it.
John D. Rockefeller, the high school dropout who made himself the wealthiest man on the earth, said, “Good management consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.” This means that good management starts with process creation. This is the first layer of system creation. This layer consists of creating the step by step actions your employees need to complete on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. The goal of the business coaching process layer is to create a product or service that has a consistent quality for your customers, create positions instead of relying on specific humans, and to create time freedom for you as the owner so that you are not wearing every single hat in the company.
The next layer in system creation is the presentation layer. You have to present the systems to your team and new hires in a way that is so simple to understand that a third-grader could successfully complete. It is a complete waste of time to create a system or a checklist so complex or unorganized that no one understands how to complete it. You have to focus on creating a simple and repeatable system so that you can build time and financial freedom for yourself.
The third layer of system creation is explaining the “why” behind the system. If you are recruiting people to complete your business coaching systems on a daily basis, they will want to know the reason why they are completing the system. If you’re wondering why people don’t just show up to work, do their job, earn a wage, and invest their money to create their own “why,” it is because that would be an entrepreneur. All of the entrepreneurs are currently starting companies or have already created a successful business. We are looking for people who can simply perform their daily tasks and those people will need a consistent reminder as to why they need to do their job. Companies that have an obvious giveback or are visibly helping other people have a very easy time keeping their employees engaged because they have a common “why”.
When you look at your business, you might be slightly overwhelmed by the number of systems that need to be created but don’t fret. You do not, and should not, need to stop everything and create five hundred systems and checklists. You should create checklists and systems when you see something that is done repeatedly in your business or when you see something being done very well by someone. Again, this is not all at once, but when you see the need, you should make a note of it and create that system in your scheduled system creation/optimization time.
