Good Culture Has Good Process
by Miki SaxonYesterday I mentioned four basic traits of good culture. Today I want to talk about another one that many people, especially those running startups and small companies, often don’t like and don’t implement.
Process.
The problem is that people frequently confuse process and bureaucracy.
- Process is good—it helps to get things done smoothly and efficiently.
- Bureaucracy is bad—it’s process calcified, convoluted, politically corrupted, or just plain unnecessary.
The hallmarks of good process are
- easy-to-use and flexible method of accomplishing various business functions; and
- informal without being haphazard, and neither ambiguous or confusing.
Occasional surveys (internally asking staff and externally asking vendors and customers how things are working) alert you to when processes start to mutate. By creating a skeletal process and a corresponding graphic in areas where it is needed (financial controls, hiring, purchasing, etc.), you lay the framework for your growth in the future, no matter how hectic.
Bureaucracy stems from people, be it a CEO or first level supervisor, who believes that her staff is so incompetent that it is necessary to spell out exactly how every individual action, no matter how small, needs to be done.
To correct this, the manager responsible must
- must recognize and take responsibility;
- reduce his own insecurity;
- increase his belief in his current staff; and whenever possible
- hire people he thinks are smarter than himself!
Bureaucracy is also fed by people’s fear of change, “We’ve always done it like that.” and similar comments are dead giveaways.
Another significant factor that contributes to unnecessary bureaucracy is the failure to align responsibility and authority.
If a person has the responsibility to get something done (design a product, create a Human Resources department, meet a sales quota), she should have enough authority (spend money, hire people, negotiate with outside vendors) to get the job done.
Giving people responsibility without concomitant authority forces them to constantly ask their superiors for permission, thus reducing productivity, and lowering moral.
The final, and most important difference between process and bureaucracy is that people like working for companies with good process in place, and hate working for those mired in bureaucracy.
But not for long—they leave—making bureaucracy-eradication a major tool in the culture and retention game.
Image credit: flickr
