Process is a scary word for many, invoking visions of people mindlessly performing small-grained repetitive tasks. Viewed like this, process is a straitjacket, turning humans into robots.

But that’s because we’re thinking of processes written for machines. That take everything literally.

For humans, process can be a way to ensure consistency, a helpful prop to support them in what they have to do, a useful resource that means they don’t have to keep everything inside their heads.

A springboard even. With enough give to be able to support different people, and enough resistance to help them really take off.

In fact, right now in your business, people are already using process this way. It’s just that the processes they use are not shared, are not necessarily consistent with each other, and not necessarily consistent with your promise of value. They may not even be written down.

So your next job in preparation for that break is to start getting everyone comfortable with writing down processes you will share.

Do this as a team, for an hour or so each day, and you’ll soon have useful processes that everyone can live with.

Start with some really small processes, such as answering the phone:

• How many rings before your answer?
• How do you make sure you pick up in the right frame of mind?
• What greeting do you use?
• How do you reassure the caller that they’ve come through to the right place?
• How do you prompt them to tell you their name and the reason they called?

Or logging a new Frequently Asked Question:

• Where does it go?
• Who does it?
• How do you check it hasn’t already been answered?
• How do you make sure everyone uses the up to date list?

Or answering a client’s query:

• Do you answer immediately if you can?
• If you can’t answer immediately what should happen?
• How will that affect work for other clients?

Then graduate to bigger, but fairly routine processes, such as starting the business day:

• When does the day start for clients?
• When do you have to be ready for that?
• What does it mean to be ready?
  • Is that different for different roles or people?
• Are there activities you want to do together as part of it?
  • If so, what are they?
  • When should they happen?
  • How long should they take?
  • Who takes part?

And of course, ending the business day too:

• When does the day finish for clients?
• How do you make sure you’re still there for that?
• What does it mean to end the day?
  • Is that different for different roles or people?
• Are there activities you want to do together as part of it?
  • If so, what are they?
  • When should they happen?
  • How long should they take?
  • Who takes part?

Don’t overthink it. Document the resulting processes as bullet points, and/or for visual people, as a simple diagram like this:

These are prompts, remember, for people who know what they’re doing. People who will bring their own personality to bear too. It’s the getting things down so they can be shared that’s important.

Remember too that people will have different preferences for how they work. Some will be happier following a process than others. You’re not after everyone to be ecstatic with your processes, just able to live with using them consistently. Because it’s not about controlling them, it’s about reassuring yourself and each other that the business will consistently keep the promises it makes to its clients while you, the boss, are away.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue this theme with some outlines for more critical processes that will enable you to relax even more while you’re on that beach.