Link to Part 1

Bringing People to Process - What does that mean?

We can lead a horse to water but we can't make it drink.

We can lead a person to work but we can't make them do it right.

Horses have to want to drink before they drink.

People have to want to do work right before they do work right.

The Key Message: When People want to do work right, their businesses excel.

So, let's focus on helping people want to do work right. Let's not just delegate work to them, let's make sure the work to be delegated makes sense and let's make sure the delegation is performed in a most-influencing way.

The work to be delegated - that's the ingredients.

Influence - that's the key secret spice, the flavouring for success.

To do a better job of Bringing People to Process, we need better preparation. To prepare, we need to learn about people so we have a good working knowledge of WHY people become motivated and HOW we can assist them in becoming motivated. After we know these things we need to adjust our delegation processes. We also need to adjust the tools we use to communicate work-process.

Here's a 'prime example': Taking Talent to Task...i.e., to fit the context of this 3-Part series of Thought Posts, re-word that - Bring Talent to Task. 

NOTE: There is a very special relationship between Talents/Strengths and motivation/ability to perform Tasks well. That's why Bringing Talent to Task is a 'prime example' of how to improve your business performance.

We Bring Talent to Task when we:

1. Know individuals' Talents & Strengths,
2. Know the details of the work we want done [the nature of the work-process, the details of the Tasks, and the specifics of the required actions],
3. Know how to delegate in ways that influence and cause people to feel accountable, &
4. Perform the delegation successfully.

Conclusion:

Anyone can bring process to people. The best leaders know it takes thought, commitment, and effort to excel at process design, including communication design and especially delegation design.

Anyone can bring people to process. The best leaders know the keys to success are individuals' self-motivation and how leaders influence people in ways that inspire the right actions to generate the right results.

Link to Part 1

Bringing Process to People - What does that mean?

There's a spectrum of answers to that question. The spectrum ranges from Delegation to dumping. Since dumping just creates a pile of garbage we will focus on delegation. Delegation is about assigning and transferring authority from one person to another. So, delegation is the decision-making engine of business.

Delegation is a business Process performed by People. To be more specific, delegation is the Process of assigning and transferring decision-making Processes to People. People can do this Process directly [face-to-face] or indirectly [using tools ranging from memos to phones to email, etc.].

While that's a laborious description...based on how poorly many business people handle delegation it is of value to try new tactics to cause them to give the process of delegation more thought.

There's more to Bringing Process to People.

In summary, there are 2 ways business Processes meet business People:

1. Delegation - introduced above
2. Tools - created by people to assist work performance and to assist delegation

Process - What does that mean?

Processes are sequences of tasks, performed by People or machines.

The sequences of tasks can be simple. For example, a Process might have 4 task-steps which are performed in series...in a defined chronological order...the next task starts after the current task is completed. Think of making cookies from a box of pre-mixed ingredients: that's a simple Process.

The sequences of tasks can also be complicated or complex. For example, sending a man to the moon and back involves numerous task-steps sometimes happening in simple sequences, sometimes happening simultaneously [co-existing], and sometimes causing real-time adjustments to other tasks [interactive co-existence].

Processes can be easy or most-challenging.

Processes happen in either planned or unplanned ways.

And, Business Contains Only 3 Things: People, Process, & Situations.

People - What do they mean?

Now, isn't that a loaded question?

Yes...intentionally.

On the one hand, People are easy to define: they are folks just like you and me. 

On the other hand, each of us is unique.

While certain Processes are easy to define using words like simple, complicated, and complex, it is dangerous to assume such descriptions or definitions can be used with reliability when the topic is People. The word 'assume' was underlined to highlight the difference between assume and conclude.

With that done...

While certain Processes are easy to define using words like simple, complicated, and complex, it can be very helpful to conclude such descriptions or definitions can be used with reliability when the topic is People.

However, before concluding things about other People it is essential to know:

1. WHY it is wrong to assume but often helpful to conclude,
2. WHY you must conclude if you are to be successful at influencing people, &
3. HOW to go about assessing whether or not concluding fits the specific person and situation.