Effective Process Management: The 'Cult of Process' V The 'Cult of Personality'

Does effective process management impair dynamic management decision-making???   

We all have grown up with regaling stories of leaders whom have left footprints on society’s journey that are celebrated for their enormity as much as their achievements. Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela, Jalal-Ad Din Muhammad Rumi, Mahatma Ghandi and President Abraham Lincoln are all such individuals whom have impressed us and fit the bill as great leaders!

Its easy to forget that even as we stand on the shoulders of giants, those pivotal moments in our history were always fraught with issues that surrounded great people whose charisma seemed to be the salvation to our problems when in fact, their brilliance lay in their message that inspired a process which delivered a successful outcome in that moment. So in business, why is there an apparent clash between process and personality when it comes to ‘great leaders’ making decisions?

I would say firstly that great leaders are defined in hindsight for their character as much as their achievements, which just leaves leaders, their decisions and the outcomes. So, “why does effective process management inhibit great decisions by leaders?”

The short answer is “it should not!”… However, it can and does due to many reasons, which can include:

Process design can be overly burdensome curtailing leader effectiveness by removing or drastically reducing decision-making ability. This can slow up organisational responsiveness to market changes and can become an inherent threat to the company’s long-term interests. Conversely, process design that does not control leader authority through setting justifiable boundaries can expose the company in many areas due to bad leader decisions that go unchecked to implementation. Balance in process design on leader authority is key.

Personality of powerful leaders can override process compromising its integrity. Accordingly, it looses effectiveness when others see how one leader can be the exception to process driven rule(s) they should all follow. This is cancerous in large organisations where unmanaged and unaccounted for exceptions can grind process structures to a disastrous halt creating a new suite of costly problems and risks for the company.

Divergent priorities of leaders to the company’s best interests set out in processes can be catalyst for conflict between process control ‘enforcers’ and leaders; inhibiting the leader’s ability to execute a decision he or she feels is a great one. A key to great process management is internal business acceptance of the structures. An impacted leader not included in any stage of a process design or upgrade will be more likely to resist process requirements.

So thinking about some of the common pitfalls in business, what helps in combining great leaders with great processes producing great moments in time?

Who takes the lead? The process manager should establish roles and responsibilities in the project initiation (stakeholder analysis) stages of any process revision clearly linking company objectives for the process and/or processes to function(s), to leader(s) and other stakeholders. This should form part of the stakeholder engagement process.

Reconciling Objectives. The project manager should solicit feedback on the process vision presented to the stakeholders noting any variances and the reasons for same. Identified issues should be recorded and managed to resolution via a working risk register.

Defined Goals, One vision. This should be the mantra of all process stakeholders. Anything else endangers process and organisational effectiveness especially if the customer has to work harder to effectively complete the process.

Create value, not paperwork. If a process step does not create value in its execution, then it should not be there. If a process can work effectively without it, then it should be removed.

Process Controls should be sewn into process design, not placed on top of them. A process control should never add work; it should add value by being a critical part of the process sequence creating value in process delivery whilst delivering feedback relevant on the risk identified in the process control.

Manage exceptions or they will manage you. A balance between leader decision-making scope and process control needs to be found in business practice, which critically influences company culture in many unseen ways over time. Managing process exceptions with a clear lean process flow helps by allowing the company to map out the impact of approved exceptions in terms of their risks, opportunities and outcomes.

So considering the above, the ability for leaders to be earthed in a good process matrix truly can be positive for all concerned. Like all the greats whom have gone before, a leader’s vision indelibly linked to inspired process structures translates vision into accomplishments which history can judge as being great.

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The back office, a single vision and the value proposition

Many value propositions synergised into one…

When thinking about the value proposition in business, we often confuse true value with just profitability, especially when thinking of the back office. This is fine if the business or proposition does not have sustainability in its design, which can be an appropriate omission in some industries, markets and territories. For the rest of us, sustainable business can be an attractive proposal, even radical when we think of how we could reposition our functions, structures and approach in the market place to make us more responsive, flexible and insightful in how we conduct business, why we conduct business and how we deliver our message of “who we are” to the customer in a seamless delivery with our goods and services. This concept transforms the value proposition of the back office formalising the interdependency between business development and structural consolidation of the business in growth, which has management, organisational and process management implications.

 So which saying is cooler...“Sell Sell Sell”, “Everybody is a Marketer” or “Cash Is King”??? For me, it’s “Cash is King” given my finance background, but in reality, all three are valid yet the customer is only interested in one answer to the question of “who we are”?  Are we the company that satisfies our customer’s needs on every level, in every area and on every approach? Do we deliver satisfaction and the same message managing expectations on a single strand that flows from initial approach to a 10-year account review?  Is our relationship with our customers evolutionary where we grow our business in partnership with our customers and our employees?

Once we fully determine who we are, we can then set about delivering our brand message to our customers that resonates as a “reason d’etre” for our employees, our customers and our management group. Synergy and integration lies at the centre of this wonderful picture, which brings us to how our overall performance as a company can translate into an effective sales message, which in turn lends credence to our sales approach revealing the value proposition in the eyes of the customer.

The key to this in integrated and synergistic approach is in my view lies within the process infrastructure of the business and how it binds the difference functions together in everything from planning to daily operations.

When we think of our function whether it be sales, production, finance, marketing, etc, it is easy to become lost in our functional interests making changing market demands difficult to respond to as a function and as company. Most can’t even entertain the concept of being flexible enough to reposition our organisations early to capitalise on identified market changes reaping the rewards of being one step closer to the customer and thus one step ahead of the competition.

 So, what to do??.... Chip sides of the customer and the organisation through Limit, Inhibit, Prevent, Control???? The response is indeed appropriate in some industries that has well defined inelastic products, are inflexibly vertical in their management structure and autocratic in nature. However, in companies that are in industries which have company cultures facilitating innovation and flexibility, the ability to “be as one” in a single message meeting customer needs is a thought intensive and demanding process. So where to be begin?

Start with the end in mind. Before the details can be worked out, the company needs to think of the desired value proposition, how much is left with suppliers, how much is retained in the company and how much is passed onto the customer through the provision of goods, services and ideas? Is the platform suitable in terms of process infrastructure such as lean six sigma, which delivers value and responsiveness in process infrastructure design, improving with time and changing market conditions?? Is the process platform ‘customer friendly’ delivering a balance of maximum returns with minimal effort on the customer’s part?

Understand your market(s), map your strategic plan and develop your process infrastructure to meet the requirements of your customers through hearing, seeing and feeling one penetrating ‘company message’ from all functions in the delivery of goods, services and ideas. When developing your strategic plans, its advisable to use big data analytics gleaned from your internal and external sources in identifying trends and insights relevant to your plans. Those who do so effectively are likely to gain competitive advantage. Once the process design creates and distributes value in service as much as in products to the customer where the single message is heard (we are…), then your outputs will feed positively into company practice, performance and culture setting the long term potential of the company’s value proposition into motion.

Be mindful of current process structures, organisational inhibitors, company culture and existing practices both good and bad.  The need to understand your current internal organisation is on par with the need to understand the external marketplace. Great process design will not be effective if context is not accounted for in any project execution. Project plans, which do not include scheduled step-by-step actionable tasks from the work breakdown structure, will not effectively forward the process infrastructure from its current state to its desired state. In some companies, effective process management can take years to get right, but as my dear old mother once said to me “the sooner you start, the sooner you will be finished!”  

Realism, not idealism is needed in planning change.  Be careful to appropriately plan your change initiative understanding its scope, impact and timing to deliver a comprehensive unified process infrastructure to the company as a platform with realistic cost estimations, risk management, timing calibrations and completeness in the project plan. Whilst important to not ‘pad’ your numbers and estimations, its also important to be able to stand over your stress tested plan, to sell it and not be pushed into compromising concessions by questioning and possibly unruly senior managers who should know better. After all, starting with the end in mind is enabling the business to reap a return for its investment through a value creating process platform that integrates the business as much as it does people and processes, by binding them together.

Being able to stand in front of a customer and say “we are…” is truly a wonderful feeling when we are part of something that is greater then the sum of our parts in a verifiable and unified way. The value proposition transcends monetization and creates intrinsic value in commitment, engagement, innovation and longevity in a company who would find itself bound and driven forward by its people as much as its management team and processes.

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