by Rick Baker
On Jan 16, 2014
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:
- Delegation - introduced above
- Tools - created by people to assist work performance and to assist delegation
In business, tools range:
- from monitors to metal lathes
- from wrenches to robots
- from software solutions to 'STRENGTHSFINDER' assessments
- from French curves to Facebook
- from 1-Page Tools to a truck for two men
About Delegation & Tools
When business people delegate they are Bringing Process to People in two different forms:
- They are Bringing Future-Work Process to People - setting expectations and transferring responsibility & accountability.
- They are Bringing Delegation-Communication Process to People - possibly consistent with setting expectations and transferring responsibility & accountability or possibly not consistent with those objectives.
In general, Canadian business people do not invest enough time designing clear work-process and they invest even less time - often, no time - designing ways to delegate effectively. We Canadians need to remedy these shortfalls so we are better able to influence people, inspire action, and grow business wealth. Delegation is a good place to start applying our remedies. After all, Delegation is the Decision-Making Engine of Business.
If we want our business people to excel, we need to prove we care about keeping our decision-making engines humming.
We can use a range of tools to help keep our engines humming.
1-Page Tools are particularly helpful because they can be customized to fit specific needs and each individual's learning style.
...to be cont'd