From Scattered to Aligned

Your company’s operations get complicated when everything is scattered: WhatsApp, notebooks, spreadsheets, shared folders, emails, and people’s memory.

It becomes even more complex because your company has different dimensions: clients, suppliers, services, internal projects, and your team members.

When everything is scattered, it takes a lot of time to gather the information you need to make any decision.

The immediacy of communication tools adds to the chaos. We believe that sending the classic message: "I urgently need the report" will make the other person know exactly what to do and send the information on time.

The reality is that this rarely happens. The message gets lost among many others, including some memes.

Talking about this with a business owner, they asked me: “Why don’t you like WhatsApp if it’s immediate?”

I said, let’s do a quick exercise: “Imagine I’m the person on your team to whom you delegate the most through WhatsApp. Now tell me how many tasks you’ve asked me to do this week, and of those, how many have I completed, how many are overdue, and how many are on time.”

They replied: “Well, I’d have to check all the chats, and it would take me a while to find them. It’s easier to send a message and ask.”

Me: "You’re just shifting the problem. That person will also have to go investigate, and they’ll stop doing other tasks you assigned just to answer you."

Accountability

This fancy term refers to each person’s responsibility in the organization to complete the tasks assigned to them on time and correctly.

The problem with having everything scattered is that, in most cases, tasks are never properly assigned to the right people.

Then tasks start popping like popcorn, the operational chaos grows, and everything becomes urgent in the company.

People are always in reactive mode, delegating upward, and flying emails and urgent messages all around.

You never really know who’s getting things done and who isn’t, what’s working in your company and what isn’t.

Worst of all, this situation creates many unfair circumstances, where the people who do get things done have to carry those who take advantage of the chaos to slack off.

Operating like this is extremely expensive for two reasons: You waste the resources you already have, and you can’t grow.

You and I Are One

What I mean is that everything in the company should work as one entity.

It’s not the sales team, the operations team, and the admin team. We’re a team.

Everything is connected, everything works thanks to everyone’s efforts. Of course, it works best when everyone’s efforts are aligned in the same direction.

Just like in sports teams, you don’t say, "I’m rooting for Joe, the striker." You’re a fan of the whole hockey team. Of the whole team.

The team participates in tournaments to win as a team. Of course, each player has a position and specializes in something, but success comes when everyone does their part (Accountability).

Continuing with this metaphor, in sports, the whole team watches in real-time what’s happening. Where the puck is going, how the other team’s players are moving. The best teams are those that can use this visibility to anticipate their opponent and score more goals.

In your company, you need exactly the same thing: that everyone has visibility into what’s happening to anticipate situations. In other words, for everyone to work as one.

Playbook (Operational Definition)

This other fancy term comes from the world of sports. Coaches of the best teams create a playbook that describes how the game strategy will be executed. Who, how, when, what yes, what no.

The Operational Definition of your company describes the teamwork of areas and individuals based on the tasks each person must perform in their daily work.

This task list serves as a clear reference to keep the company aligned and allows you to spot deviations as soon as they start.

Once the Operational Definition is ready, we train the entire team and put the tasks into our collaboration platform, which allows managing and visualizing all activities immediately according to their dimension.

In this scenario, when I ask an Owner: "What is Joe doing?"

They simply check the person’s dashboard and immediately reply: "He’s working on 10 tasks, completed 20. Of those 30 tasks, 20 are for clients, 5 are for an internal project, and 5 are personal work."

Visibility is the name of the game. When all operational management is done in one place, everyone knows exactly what to do and when.

Your company becomes more productive because you make better use of what you already have, and that allows you to go after more productive clients.

As an Owner, you no longer need to be on the field playing as a goalie and defender. You can make decisions like a Coach: from outside the field, directing your players to win the game.

Let’s talk about how I can help you create your company’s Playbook.

Remember: Visibility in one place.