More Important Than Growing a Business: Building a System

A business running properly when I am not there is worth more than it running properly when I am. That is the clearest lesson I have learned in my working life.

For someone who started on site, this is not easy to accept. On site you see everything yourself, solve it yourself, and you are fast. Then one day you realise the company lives only as long as your phone battery does.

Growth and system are not the same thing

Growth means taking on more work and employing more people. A system is the order that makes that work and those people produce the same result every time. Growth without a system also grows your mistakes. A problem you once fixed with a phone call costs you a customer once you are bigger.

Where do you start?

With honesty. Write down on paper how you work today. Who holds which decision? Where does which piece of information live? Who checks what before a job goes to the customer? If these questions have no written answers, you don't have a system yet. That is no shame; it is a starting point.

Three cornerstones

• Defined processes. Steps and checkpoints for every recurring job. You don't need a novel; one page is enough.
• Limits of authority. Who decides what, and how far? If everyone asks me everything, I haven't delegated.
• Regular measurement. What isn't counted can't be managed. A few indicators checked weekly do more than one long monthly meeting.

A system doesn't diminish people

The objection I hear most is: “If we build a system, the soul of the business will disappear.” I think the opposite is true. A system frees good people from solving the same problem for the hundredth time. You don't bore a talented person with a checklist. You save them for the hard work that never makes it onto the list.

When your company can go a week without you, that is when you have a company.

This can't be built in one go. I am still working on it myself. But when I enter a new business now, the first thing I ask is not “how big can it get” but “how will it run without me?”