Today I am going to talk about process, sales and modern military training.

Whether it was private industry or working in the public sector, I have frequently been challenged by the concept of “adhering to the process”. In the work I perform today, there are so many individual factors that affect the people I serve whether they be students, staff and faculty across the college or my own team that I lead, that just as often as a process simplifies work, it also does not always suit the individual situation or context I am problem solving thereby making the situation worse.

So, why do we have processes?

Processes in organisations exist to provide a framework for how to handle a given and understood situation. This can be a system process where to place an order, you search for an item, select it and the quantity, pay and then you receive the item.

In this scenario, a process works very well…until it doesn’t.

What if the person does not have a credit card? What if the quantity to purchase does not match the need of the client? What if internet access is sporadic and the person is unable to complete the order online?

For these scenarios, as they arise, we develop new processes called contingencies.?When in sales, the contingency is designed to adjust to the needs of the client which, if done well, perpetuates and can even promote sales.

It also provides clarity for staff. Imagine having to figure out every single situation without the guidance of a process? How would you ever know if a new situation happened that impacted the efficacy of the process? How would you maintain client and staff satisfaction when everyone is in a state of problem-solving without a framework to operate in?

This leads to the reason why processes are developed.

Processes are developed for principally three reasons.

1. To facilitate transactions between clients and the provider of the service or product
2. To provide consistency in service or product delivery making it easier for staff to operate independently
3. To provide alignment with the other institutional or business systems and processes

I think we can all agree that processes are extremely important and that it is imperative that they are followed to make sure that the entire organizational system does not grind to a halt. Processes also allow for new processes to be built to solve new challenges that arise however this is where people in organisations frequently misunderstand the purpose of processes.

Organisations often do not recognize when staff and systems become dependent on a process and will take situations that fall outside of existing processes and try to fit them into them. Think of trying to fit a square shape into a triangular hole. Sometimes, the square is small enough you can fit it in but the hole remains non-adaptive to the new form so while it can get in there, it may need to be forced into the hole.?Another example is when IT systems are built around a specific need at the time but do not take into consideration the possibility of those needs changing at some point in the future. In this example, the system built does not have the capacity to change as needs change.

The same thing happens with people. When we create a faith and unquestioning adherence to established process amongst our staff, we remove the responsibility and ability of staff to question if the process we have is the right one for those we are attempting to serve.

This leads to a few things

1. Lower client satisfaction as their specific needs are not being addressed or sometimes even recognized
2. Expediency in service at the expense of efficacy of the service or product and staff disengagement
3. Deferring the problem created by the situation until it is further in the service or product delivery pipeline making a resolution more complex

This leads to the question, when should we change our processes?

How often do you hear at your workplace, “I know it is not perfect, but this is the process”? as soon as you hear the statement, “this is not perfect…”, that is a clear sign that it needs to be examined. Processes are never perfect because the environment they were created in is not the same environment they operate in.

Think of the way modern military leaders train their regiments and officers. In the past, strict adherence was expected, if the enemy did X, the response was Y. In modern times, officers and military personnel are provided a series of frameworks. Best practices and processes that can be adapted based on the context they are in. This means that because they have a framework that says, we have a process that may in part or totality, work in this situation, the officer can adjust some or many parts of it to suit the context they are in. In fact, they are designed to be adaptive and modular so they can be implemented in full or in small parts and new ones can be added as needed based on new situations and circumstances. This means that they do not need to start from scratch, they simply only use the parts of existing practices that apply to the situation and if new ones are needed, they have a framework to work in where they can reasonably create, modify, and add them to their inventory.

Organisations that aim to have high customer satisfaction as well as high employee engagement need to focus on developing frameworks that allow for staff to adjust processes to suit the situations they are dealing with at the time. They also need to create a culture that of curiosity and inquisitiveness that promotes the individuals and teams in the organization to creatively approach a situation, problem or need.

So when should you change your process? The answer is they should always be evolving. For high performing teams and organisations, the question should really be, when should we not change a process? Just like everything else, they need to evolve, change, mutate and be specific to the context. So, when you are presented with a situation, if you are being specific to that situation, you will likely find ways to improve, change or modify the process or find parts of it do not apply. Without the freedom to modify approaches and without a framework to do so, people typically apply what is established and, to the best of their ability, make it work. A lot like the square and the triangle.

In today’s world, it is the organisation’s responsibility to establish frameworks where staff can be adaptive. It is the team’s responsibility to advocate for their clients and colleagues. It is the leaders’ responsibility to promote organisational improvement and champion disruption of the status quo.