A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss

“A rolling stone gathers no moss”

The modern interpretation of this old proverb from the 1500’s, is about being agile and moving forward, but are you being agile in the right way and are you moving forward in the right direct?

In business a way to ensure you are, is to put in place a form of management operating system or MOS.

Basically this is an elegant framework or “system” to drive consistency and discipline in your business. It incorporates all the aspects of the Plan – Do – Review cycle but also encapsulates long term goals through to daily tasks. In other words, ensuring strategy drives the daily focus and the daily focus is aligned to strategy. 

To some, a fully implemented management control system is their worse nightmare as it provides full transparency of performance and surprisingly, some people do not like this. However, to others, a MOS provides the certainty and consistency of work being done to the required expectations, while also driving significant productivity benefits.

The key elements of a MOS are Forecast, Plan, Control, Report and Review: 

Another approach is what we do at Phykon with our outsourcing clients.

Regardless of client size, we recognise the importance of having systems by way of repeatable processes. What this means is that irrespective of the clients we are working with, specific activities occur at specific times.

We have implemented this approach because we realise that in outsourcing, maturity is key and hence there is a journey the client needs to go on and in partnership with ourselves in order to establish a long term sustainable relationship.

For us at Phykon, this relationship consists of three phases - Set Up, Scale Up and Sustain. Our objective is to take that specific client relationship to the Sustain phase in the shortest amount of time as possible – generally after six months, or two sprints of 90 days each.

For each phase there are pre-determined tasks, tools, processes and governance and at the end of each quarter, we go through a methodical process of which includes these four steps - Reflect, Recognise, Reinvent and Renew.

At each phase and at each step we work with our clients to ensure alignment. This ensure an environment of no surprises.

Now some of our clients can find this initially as an overkill, after all, they just wanted to have some simple outsourcing performed with minimal interaction. However, as we work with them and engage them in the process, they can see how important to their business that their outsourcing partner is being aligned to their specific goals and objectives.

In short, it is a win-win for all, but this is only being achieved because we have implemented our own management operating systems to make it this way.

However, there is something else that needs to be done in conjunction with your management operating systems and that is to ensure there is humanity as well. People are not machines! That is why it is important to celebrate the milstones achieved, provide the leadership and coaching where there are performance issues and engage everyone whenever possible. In our management operating system, the Recognise step is a key reminder for us on this.

What are the management operating systems that you can implement into your business that could drive improved performance and outcomes?

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Dr Ross McKenzie helps entrepreneurs and businesses to set up, scale up and sustain their business, so that they can focus on dreaming big, creating a vision and build an awesome legacy.

For more information, visit The Startup Business.