Process

How important are processes to the overall success of the team, concrete, specific, documented processes?

How closely linked is the respective process to your day-to-day work? Is it flexible? Can it be modified to the realities of your work? Or is it theoretical, abstract, detached from the realities “on the ground”?

Is the individual process a guaranty of good results or is it more or less a tool, which can be “used and abused” in order to “get the job done”?

This is really important. Look at each of the key processes you have selected. Where are the critical points in each of the processes? Critical in the sense of recognizing when you need to “stick to the letter of the law”, meaning little or no deviation, or when you should deviate from, or interpret, the process in order to continue forward movement?

Because processes determine how the work is done, they are the internal rules of the game. Whoever has the say about the rules has the say about how the game is played. Identify if, when and how your key processes are being misused based on internal power struggles. Then decide how to reduce that misuse.

In your business culture, when is a work process truly helpful?

You’re a high-level attorney, a single parent raising two girls: Marie 15, Anna 12. You and your girls live in a lovely home in the Washington, D.C. suburbs with almost half an acre of land. The summers are hot, humid, often rainy. The grass needs to be cut once a week. It’s time for Marie to take over mowing the lawn. It’s a little tricky, though. Tree roots pop up in unexpected spots. There is lots of mowing around bushes. The winds at night leave twigs strewn across the lawn. Tiny stones can shoot off like bullets into all sorts of directions. And the powerful mower is to be handled carefully. You need to explain to Marie how to cut the lawn efficiently, and without injuring herself or anyone else.

You are American. Because you can type fast, you pull out your laptop computer in order to write a process description for Marie. What will that little process handbook look like: topics, sequence of chapters, length, depth, etc.? 

You are German. Your home is in a small town outside of Leipzig. Because you can type fast, you pull out your laptop computer in order to write a process description for Marie. What will that little process handbook look like: topics, sequence of chapters, length, depth, etc.?

ou are neither American nor German. Your home is in the suburb of a city. Because you can type fast, you pull out your laptop computer in order to write a process description for your 15 year old daughter. What will that little process handbook look like: topics, sequence of chapters, length, depth, etc.?