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I was sitting at my desk at work, munching on hazelnuts, and writing a process document. I shared an office with a freelance consultant - a foreigner, much older than me, and very experienced. He had traveled the world due to his job. I, however, still lived in my home country and had no intention of relocating. He was trying to convince me otherwise.

“I see something in you”, he told me. “Something that you’ll need if you relocate out of Bulgaria.”

“I have no plans of relocating”, I said.

“You will”, he replied.

That was funny. “Why do you think so?” I asked him.

“This place is too small for you,” he answered, in all seriousness.

I wasn’t sure I understood where this was going, but I was curious.

“In any case”, he continued, “I don’t want to come back here five or ten years from now and see you still sitting at that same desk, eating those nuts.”

I laughed. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Oh, nothing! It’s just not meant for people like us.”

“‘People like us’?! What do you mean?”

“People who have a backbone. People who can achieve things. And people who know how to be alone.”

I ignored the first characteristics, but that last one struck a chord. “‘Know how to be alone’?! What exactly are you saying? Are you feeling lonely here?”

“Not necessarily lonely, but I am alone, yes.”

“But there are so many people around you”, I replied in the full naivety of my 20+ years.

“Like, who? These are all colleagues. There’s no one waiting for me at home.”

“But I live alone, too. By the same token, I’m alone too. These people here are all just colleagues…”

“Darling, you’re in your home country. You’re not alone.”

“Of course, I am!”

“No, you’re not. You don’t know what ‘alone’ means”, he smiled at me. “Not yet, at least.”

Fast forward 20 years, I’m sitting at my desk in my apartment in Berlin, Germany, as I’m writing this story. I’m munching on my late breakfast and looking at the grey clouds outside. Another day of rain - while down south, the Balkans are baking at 40+ degrees Celsius and fighting wildfires.

I didn’t relocate straight to Germany. One year after the above conversation, I was on my way to the Netherlands, with a car full of all my belongings, and a heart full of hopes and aspirations. This was a recipe for disaster - I know this now. You easily get disappointed if your expectations are high.

It only took 1,5 years for me to crash and burn in the Netherlands. I went back to Bulgaria, determined I wasn’t going to relocate ever again. Relocating is a huge step, and failing at it is too painful. But a friend of mine tried to convince me not to give up.

“You just haven’t found your place yet, that’s all. You should keep trying,” she said.

“Theoretically, I may never find my place,” I replied.

“Theoretically, that’s true. But, in practice, you will.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do - trust me on this one!”

Half a year later, I moved to Germany - and, this time, with zero hopes and expectations. Only with my bags, and no excitement whatsoever. That must have been so apparent that even my Mum, when driving me to the airport, gave me the following parting advice:

“Try to keep an open heart and mind. You never know what might happen.”

This was strange coming from her, as she had never lived abroad. She didn’t even speak a foreign language. But the advice was solid, so I took it. No hopes and expectations, but an open heart and mind - got it!

15 years later, I am still in Germany. I haven’t changed the country; I haven’t even changed the city. I have friends here; I found my husband here; I run a business here. But would I call it ‘home’? What does ‘home’ even mean?

If we go by the dictionary definition, ‘home’ is “a place of residence”, “a familiar or usual setting”, or “a base of operations”. That means I have a lot of homes: Bulgaria, Germany, Poland (my husband is Polish and we travel to Poland just as often as we do to Bulgaria, if not more often, because it’s simply closer to Germany), and possibly others.

According to the same dictionary definition, ‘home’ can also be “a place of origin”. That narrows it down to Bulgaria only. So, is Bulgaria my home then?

No, it isn’t. As sad as it may be, I’m not very Bulgarian now. And neither am I German, or Polish, or any other. If I have to choose a place to call ‘home’, there is no such place. I don’t belong anywhere anymore.

Bulgaria shaped who I am - up until I left it. You can still see certain Bulgarian traits in me, but in general, I don’t think like a Bulgarian, I don’t act like a Bulgarian, and I don’t communicate like a Bulgarian. This is the most apparent when I talk with someone who has never left Bulgaria - their world view is different from mine. When I’m there, I speak Bulgarian, but I’m actually a foreigner.

And I’m a foreigner in Germany, too. Regardless of whether I speak the language or not, I’ll always be a foreigner, because I don’t fully think or act as a German either. And I’m a foreigner in Poland, too - for exactly the same reasons. And I’ll be a foreigner anywhere else I go.

Here’s what my well-traveled colleague didn’t tell me 20 years back, when we had that nice chat about relocating: Once you step out of your home country, you cut your ties to any place. Your home country will change, and you will change, irrespective of each other. After a few years, you two won’t be compatible anymore. And you’ll never be compatible with any other place either, because it didn’t single-handedly shape you. Eventually, you’ll never have a place where you truly belong.

However, is ‘belonging’ really that important? Turns out, it is. ‘Belonging’ is not about a place, but about the people. You do need your own tribe: a network of people to share your internal world with, to have fun with when times are good, and to support and guide you when times are tough.

In 2011, Dr. Martin Seligman listed relationships as a key component of well-being in his book Flourish*:

There are many examples that prove relationships are an essential part of well-being, such as:

• There’s plenty of global research: World Health Organization (WHO), Swiss Re Institute, Statista.

• Top athletes talk about it: Carlos Alcaraz, Conor Niland, Christopher McCandless.

• Research on Japan’s longevity points to it:

“Without question, the international superstar of longevity is Japan, which has the highest life expectancy of any country in the world. In addition to a healthy diet […] and an integrated health care system […], longevity in Japan is closely tied to its culture […].

“The sense of community, and the fact that Japanese people make an effort to stay active until the very end, are key elements of their secret to long life.

“[…] Surround yourself with good friends. Friends are the best medicine there is for confiding worries over a good chat, sharing stories that brighten your day, getting advice, having fun, dreaming… in other words, living.”

Excerpt from Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life* by Héctor García & Francesc Miralles

Loneliness and isolation are seen as a major public health issue in today’s world - a silently growing epidemic. They lead to serious physical and mental health problems, comparable to the ones of smoking or being obese. They’re also associated with a high risk of premature death.

* Amazon affiliate link

Living the life of an expat means we (can) relocate quite a lot. And the more we change locations, the harder it is to maintain relationships. Because relationships are like plants - they need constant care, sun, water, love. If you only provide that from time to time, at best, your plants won’t grow as strong as you want them to be, and at worst, they will die.

I must also mention how easy it is to form relationships when you’re younger, and how much more difficult it becomes the older you get. We tend to close ourselves into our own worlds, into our areas of comfort - and we don’t like getting out. While I don’t know for sure why that is, I think it’s because we have a certain level of fear - of life itself, based on how equipped we are to face it - that intensifies with age as our capabilities diminish. But this is a topic for another article.

For now, I’ll leave you with this question to ponder…

…and with a list of 15 things to do when you’re feeling lonely.

My Website | Freelance Revolution | LinkedIn | Instagram | Mastodon

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👑 Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Have you noticed how some companies are so overburdened with their own importance that they believe they're invincible? That we can't live without them and they’re doing us a favor if they even glance in our direction, let alone hire us to work for them? We ought to fall to our knees in thanks 🙄

Here’s why this doesn’t sit right with me:

1️⃣ For starters, it’s not true. I’m sure certain companies would like everyone to believe it is; I also see some people do believe it (“a lie repeated a hundred times becomes the truth”). But no, it’s not true.

Companies need employees as much as employees need companies. It’s a mutually beneficial business transaction: people provide work, and companies sell that work - then everybody takes their piece of the money pie. So, companies need people to stay alive, and people need companies for the exact same reason.

Can people survive without companies? Yes. They can run a business on their own, like they’ve done for centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution. It’s harder, but it’s doable.

Can companies survive without people? No. Companies are made up of people, hence the name. A company without even one person in it makes no legal or business sense (for now, at least - let’s see what AI brings).

Who needs whom more, then?

2️⃣ In addition, I don’t like power games and politics; I believe in equal opportunities and meritocracy. However, the hierarchical structure that most companies still employ today breeds an abundance of power inequalities and all the mental aberrations that stem from that. Everybody is constantly involved in a game of cat and mouse that, at best, distracts companies from their main purpose and business activities, and at worst, destroys companies from the inside like a disease.

Moreover, the internal company environment always spills over to the outside. Sooner or later, customers, clients, partners, investors, etc., realize what kind of company they’re dealing with - mainly because they have to follow some of its processes, but also because they’re seeing the results of those processes. And this never ends up well for the company.

One doesn’t even need to look very far. It’s enough to apply for a job at one of those companies to take a peek at what’s really going on inside. The whole recruitment process raises plenty of red flags.

Let me take you on a journey:

💥 Career Pages

If you want to understand how a company works, good luck! The career pages are just shiny ads and nothing more. Anyone who’s into Marketing & Sales can recognize the methods used from far away - what the company stands for, who it works with, testimonials, etc. - all great on paper, but no substance.

The real meat is in the Employee Handbook (or a similar document). But that is usually off limits to external people. See here how to get to it - and, alternatively, check out the company reviews on Glassdoor.

💥 Job Ads

A job opening comes as a result of identifying tasks that need to be done, but no one inside the company has the knowledge and skills, or capacity (or maybe even desire) to do them. These tasks emerge from identifying the Problem → Solution → Implementation (Tasks). What you see in the job ads are the implementation tasks and what one needs to know to do them, but not the problem to be solved or the solution to that problem - to the point where jobs ads for Project Managers don’t mention the project, job ads for Product Managers don’t mention the product, etc.

This might not be such a problem if you’re a Junior employee and you’ll be learning on the job. However, Senior employees are at the level where they either create solutions to problems or identify the problems to begin with. So, for someone like me, for example, to know what type of solution to create, I need to know what problem we’re trying to solve. And if my manager (or contact point) doesn’t know this, I can’t proceed (unless I go above and beyond them, which makes them irrelevant).

💥 Salary

Nothing screams “inequality” louder than having a mandatory field for listing your expected salary, whereas the job ad doesn’t contain any information about it. The truth is, no company can open a new position without having approved a certain budget for it. And if they’re not willing to share it with you, but they demand you share your numbers, that already tells you where you stand.

@expertinterviewersRaise your hand if you want more pay transparency in interviews 🙋🏻‍♀️ #interviewing #interviewer #interviewquestions #hiring #hiringmanager #interview #interviewtips #hr #humanresources #corporatetok #recruitertok

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💥 Account Creation

So, you’ve spent the time writing a CV, then spent the time customizing that CV according to the specific job opening, then even spent the time writing a Cover Letter, only to see you now have to create an account in the company’s internal system with all the data you’ve already listed in your CV and Cover Letter. And after your job search, you end up with hundreds of accounts all over the Internet that you cannot possibly remember or care to maintain, that only take up additional time and effort, and bring you little to no value. Might be great for all those recruiters to have everything pre-populated in the system for them, sure, but not so great for you.

Applicants are clearly so fed up with this practice that now I see more and more companies saying you don’t need an account when you start applying - and that’s great because I, for example, don’t apply if I need to create an account.

💥 Mandatory Fields

Even if you’re not creating an account, but simply filling out an application form, you’re sometimes asked mandatory questions that have no relation to how suitable you are for the job - exact address being one of them. While the need to know the city and the country is understandable, the street, block, entrance, and floor are certainly not needed at this point in the application process. Not unless the company intends to send you the rejection letter via post.

💥 Other Information

That said, some companies really want to stand out and make a lasting impression by asking truly unbelievable questions, such as shoe size or star sign 🫣

And others simply don’t care enough to even proofread what they’re posting:

💥 Automation

While there’s nothing wrong with automated screening tools like Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), they must be used by human intelligence, not left alone to do the full work. Nowadays, I can already see the job ad was written by AI, then the recruiter calls to say they want to see “the exact code words from the ad in my CV” because “the client is really picky” - which in plain English means “I’m too lazy to do my job, so you need to do it for me” - then I’ll use AI to adjust my CV, send it over, and then AI will scan it on the other side too and, hopefully, move me further in the process. In other words, we’re all just pretending that some candidate selection is happening here because there’s money up for grabs.

This has gotten so out of hand that now recruiters are making a point when humans screen the CVs:

💥 Interviews

Interviews are supposed to be a two-way street, but very often they’re not. Some recruiters have specialized in the domain they recruit for, but most have not. Asking them questions is pointless - they have no clue what the role does or what you do. The whole time, only they ask questions and you answer - it resembles more an interrogation. And yet, you do have to please them so they can move your application forward - you’re literally dancing on the sharp edge of the knife here.

I had such a conversation with a lady who was headhunting me on LinkedIn. She was an internal recruiter and had no idea what the job she was recruiting for was all about, so I also didn’t know how she decided that I was a match. All that aside, she opened up the interview with the following question:

“Why do you want to work at our company?”

I paused for a second, then said:

“I thought you were headhunting me. Why do YOU want me to work at your company?”

It went only downhill from there.

💥 Career Gaps

Don’t you just love it when recruiters start investigating a gap in your career, as if you’ve spent time in prison? Well, funny enough, they can easily check if you’ve indeed been to prison, so that can’t be it. The underlying message is that you have to be slaving away, non-stop, from the time you finish studies until the time you retire or die - whichever comes first. How dare you take a break for whatever reason?! Even if that reason is totally unrelated to your work, knowledge, and skills.

Until recently, candidates were under the same scrutiny when they changed their jobs too often - they were considered a high risk and rejected on those grounds. However, multiple studies showed that if you stay in a job for over two years, you start losing money because your salary lags behind market rates. Thankfully, we don’t have to discuss this topic at job interviews anymore, but the topic of career gaps is still very much present.

💥 Tests

Passing some kind of test is typical during the selection process. However, some companies push this further and use it to collect strategic, implementation, and other plans and analysis for free - after which they reject all candidates. To avoid this situation, inform the company in advance about your fees and that you’ll be issuing them an invoice afterwards.

💥 Being Ghosted

Recruiters often don’t bother to communicate when internal priorities shift and roles get quietly deprioritized or, on the contrary, get filled out. It’s easier to just disappear than to deliver an uncomfortable “no”. The hidden message to the candidate is: You’re disposable.

💥 Rejection Letters

Rejection letters these days are all automatic - which means, written by robots for robots. They are all the same, and they bring zero value - I actually stop reading after “unfortunately” or “we regret to inform you”. Certainly, it’s better to know you were rejected than to be completely ghosted, but it would’ve been even better if you knew WHY you were rejected, so you know what to improve.

💥 Job Scams

It gets worse when the job opening was never real to begin with. Companies might already have an internal hire lined up and run a fake selection process just to tick boxes, or they’re up to some other shady business (as explained in the video below). And in the worst cases, it’s not even a company - it’s a scam, and they’re after your personal data or trying to hack into your PC.

💥 Welcome to the Chaos

You finally get the job, but by the time you actually start (months later, could even be more than half a year), the company has restructured at least once, your future manager has quit, and the role you were hired for? Gone.

Yep, that’s a true story - and sadly, one that keeps repeating.

😎 Convinced yet?

The way I see it, the recruitment process needs a total overhaul. However, to fix it, one has to fix the company from the inside - because that’s where the root cause of the problem lies. And that’s neither easy, nor fast.

So, until we get to where we should be, I leave you with this great piece of advice 😁

My Website | Freelance Revolution | LinkedIn | Instagram | BlueSky

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👾 Digitalization Is About Removing, Not Adding

I see so many people trying to “digitalize” a process without changing it one bit - just adding a few more steps here and there, which are done on a PC. After all, if we're using a PC, we're definitely digital, right? Right…

I even get why someone would consider doing digitalization in this way: they don't want to introduce too many changes. They don't want to have everyone learn a whole new process from scratch when they can learn just a couple of additional steps. Isn’t that practical?!

While I understand the intent, it beats the whole purpose of changing a process in the first place. The main goal of Process Re-Engineering is to make the process better in a way: simpler, faster, cheaper, smarter, more resilient, less risky, producing a higher quality end deliverable, and so on. Meaning, the result must be an improvement of sorts - especially since you'll be disrupting the business for it.

And if it's not going to be an improvement? Well, you know what they say: “If it ain't broke, don't fix it!” I'm pretty sure I know how this saying came to be 🙄

🫥 Digitalization & Automation

First things first: What is digitalization? It’s supporting an analog process with an IT system. If you only turn the process assets from analog to digital, that’s called digitization. For example, if previously you had to maintain a paper file in a physical folder on a bookshelf, now you can maintain a digital file (digitization) in a dedicated IT system (digitalization) in the cloud. In that sense, digitization is a necessary part of digitalization.

What is not digitalization? It’s not automation. Automation means that you convert manual steps of the process into technological ones - i.e., substituting humans with technology. For example, you receive an e-mail and then manually input the sender's name into a database. When you automate this step, the e-mail will trigger another IT system that will input the sender's name into the database without you having to do anything.

From these definitions, you might conclude that to automate a process, its steps must already be digitized. This is certainly convenient but it’s not a necessity, especially in sectors like manufacturing. We can automate a manual process without digitizing it first if we only improve the triggers (e.g., a conveyor belt moving products from station A to station B) or if we use machines to perform the process (e.g., robotic hands programmed to cook food).

Why is digitalization about removing, and not adding? Because improving a process requires us to a) look at it end-to-end, b) from the perspectives of all participants - and then we decide what we can digitalize. Technology makes our processes leaner, not more cumbersome, which is precisely why we use it. It saves us resources and speeds things up. So the more digitalization (and automation) we have, the better.

However, simply adding more steps to an existing process is not an improvement. Especially when those steps are digital, whereas before we had a fully working analog process - at best, they’ll act like a patch and use up more of our resources, and at worst, they’ll put us in ridiculously illogical situations and cause confusion and frustration among all participants.

Let me show you what this looks like in practice:

🖨 Digitalization in German Healthcare

A couple of months back, my health insurance card got blocked. Yet, I received a letter from my health insurer that if I had “acute illness”, I could still go to the doctor and they’d cover it. And sure enough, in the middle of winter, I got the flu.

My symptoms went progressively worse until one fine day, already having a terrible cough, I decided to see my GP. I went to the doctor’s office and explained my troubles at the Reception. The lady behind the desk asked for my health insurance card, but when she put it into her computer, it didn’t work - as expected. So, she told me I should call my health insurer and they’d fax her a certificate for me. She gave me the fax number, and I stepped outside the office to make the call.

My health insurer understood the situation immediately. However, they said they couldn’t send a fax (didn’t say why), but they could send the certificate to my healthcare app. Was I carrying my mobile? Yes, I was calling from it. OK, then they’d be sending the certificate to my app right away.

20 minutes later, that certificate still hadn’t arrived. I gave my health insurer a second call. Yes, they had indeed sent the certificate immediately after our call, but their system needed approximately 30-40 minutes to sync. I ended the call in dismay. I work in IT, after all. In this day and age, what IT system needs 30-40 minutes to sync?! If they had sent me the certificate via email, it would’ve arrived instantly. Even if they had sent me the certificate via pigeon, being in the same city, it would’ve arrived faster than 30-40 minutes.

Anyhow, 40 minutes after my call, the certificate finally arrived. I went back to the Reception and showed it to the lady on my phone - as I was instructed by my health insurer. However, she went into a full-blown panic mode:

“No!!!!! What is this??? I need the fax!!”

“But you said you wanted a certificate, and here’s the certificate,” I tried explaining.

“Nooo, I need the paper! THE PAPER!!!”

“OK, so if you give me your printer details, I can print it for you from my mobile.”

“We don’t have a printer!”

“You don’t have a printer?? Strange… Then how about I send it to you via e-mail?”

“We don’t have e-mail either!”

“What?! You’re at least five people in here right now, and none of you has an e-mail address?”

“No, we don’t have e-mail!!!”

“OK… So, what do you suggest I do now?”

“You have to print this! I need the paper!!”

“My printer is at home, and I don’t intend to go home to print it and come back, losing hours in the process.”

“There is a print café at the corner - go there, they’ll print it!”

“What print café at the corner? I haven’t seen anything like it.”

“No, there is one - go there and come back with the paper!”

I went out, walked two blocks, turned around the corner, and… there was a print café, indeed, but it was closed.

At that moment, I was seriously torn between two options: go back and do a big-mama scandal as only I can (because it shouldn’t be my problem that they can’t handle a digital file) OR walk around the city, sick as hell in the middle of winter, until I find another print café and get the damn paper. I decided to give the latter just one more try, and then revert to the former.

I pulled out my map, not even knowing what to search for. Internet café? That might not have printers, though. A print house of some sort? Maybe a bookstore? How is that even called in German?! I settled for a bookstore. The closest one was ten blocks away 😖

I arrived at the place. The bookstore was there. It was open. It had printers. But now I was up against challenge No.2.

I went inside and told the guy behind the counter:

“I have the following problem: I have a document full of my personal data, which is on my phone, and I need to print it. What are my options?”

“Well, you can send it to my e-mail and I’ll print it for you.”

“Yeah, but all my personal data is in it.”

“Ah, so you don’t want me to see it.”

“I don’t mind you seeing it, but I don’t want you to have it.”

“Well, another option is to send it to yourself, then use the computer the printer is connected to to log into your e-mail address, and print from there. Just don’t forget to log out afterwards.”

“Hmm, there’s also a third option: My phone can read a USB stick, and I have a USB stick, but I need a converter from USB-A to USB-C. Do you happen to have one?”

The guy went into a room behind him and came back with a USB-C stick.

“Ah, thanks! That’s convenient,” I said, taking the stick and porting it to my phone. I transferred the file to the stick and went to the printer. I could see the USB-A port of the printer, but not a USB-C one.

“Excuse me,” I turned to the guy again. “Where do I plug in the USB-C stick?”

“There’s a switch on the stick,” he told me. Before he finished his sentence, I saw a small button on the side, which hid the USB-C port and pulled out a USB-A one.

“Ah, yes, I saw it,” I said and placed the stick into the USB-A port of the printer. I navigated to my file, double-clicked… and the file didn’t open. I tried again, tried with different programs - nothing helped.

“Excuse me,” I asked the guy again. “I can’t open my file for some reason.”

He came to take a look and immediately saw that the file size was 0 KB.

“That file didn’t copy correctly,” he said - and he was right.

I pulled out the stick, switched from USB-A to USB-C, placed it in my phone, copied the file again, made sure it copied correctly, unplugged the stick safely, switched from USB-C to USB-A, plugged it into the printer, finally opened the file there, and pressed print. All three pages got printed. I could hear it. But I couldn’t see the pages anywhere.

I looked on the left side of the printer - no trays and no paper. Looked on the right side - again, no trays and no paper. Looked on the top (which I’d been looking at the whole time anyway) - there were trays, but no paper.

“Excuse me,” I turned to the guy for a third time, already laughing internally to myself - was I sure I worked in IT?! 🙈 “Where are those pages that just got printed?”

“In the middle,” he told me. “Just look in the middle.”

So, I had to lean down and look in between all the printer stacks to see a small horizontal opening. The pages couldn’t be seen, but when I placed my hand there, I could feel them. I pulled them out. Finally - success!!

I pulled the USB stick out of the printer… and at that moment, I remembered that my file was still on it. I switched from USB-A to USB-C, plugged it into my phone, deleted the file, removed the stick… and my phone crashed and began restarting, right before I could verify that the file was indeed deleted.

I put my phone in my pocket, switched the stick back from USB-C to USB-A, plugged it into the printer, opened it, saw no traces of my file anywhere, removed the stick, and gave it back to the guy. I also paid for my three pages - 0.25 EUR each; 0.75 EUR in total - and left.

An hour and a half later, after I first set foot in the doctor’s office that day, coughing like crazy, I entered it for the third time - and this time, I had the golden papers in my hand!

Here I have to make a small side note:

The doctor’s office had signs everywhere saying that face masks are mandatory, starting right from the front door. Naturally, I put my face mask on when I first entered and went to the Reception. However, when I said why I was there, the lady told me:

“I don’t understand anything - you’re wearing a mask!”

The fact that her English is not very good, and neither is my German, didn’t improve the situation. So, I removed the mask and said again what I had to say.

The second time I entered the place, the same thing repeated. I wore my mask, explained I now had the certificate, and she went:

“I don’t understand anything - you’re wearing a mask!”

Again, I removed my mask and repeated what I had said.

The third time I went in, I didn’t even bother putting the mask on. I went straight to the Reception to give her the printout. But before I could say anything, she looked at me, pointed at my face, and scolded me:

“You’re not wearing a mask!!”

So I put on my mask - on my chin! Because I had to have a mask on, but I couldn’t have a mask on 😵‍💫

“Here are the papers you wanted,” I said, beaming with glory. I handed them to the lady.

She took the papers, inspected each page, and got visibly relieved. I apparently had what was needed. Needless to say, I was way more relieved than she was.

“Thank you,” she said with a hint of a smile. “Just wait for a minute now; I’ll go to the other room to scan the document and I’ll bring it back to you.”

“Excuse me, what?” I was sure there must have been a mistake. “Did you just say you’ll scan those papers??”

“Yes,” she replied, confused. “I need to scan the papers now, and then I’ll give them back to you.”

“But I told you I had those papers in digital form,” I started yelling. I was sure I was going insane. “I could’ve sent them to you! In fact, I WANTED to send them to you!!!”

“No, but I needed the paper,” she started yelling back.

“Why? So you can scan it??”

“Yes, I have to scan it so I can put it into the computer! How else would I put it into the computer?!?”

😳😳😳

Make that make sense.

📃 Lessons Learned

You might think I fell between the cracks of an otherwise perfectly working process. That somehow I was the exception to the rule. I certainly thought that - and then I saw this video:

You cannot make this 💩 up: apparently, this is THE process. Someone had decided not to stir the muddy waters too much and just glued the last scanning step onto a process that has remained unchanged since the fax was first invented. And maybe it even works well in the eyes of those poor Reception ladies in the doctor’s office (why is 99% of them ladies, anyway??), who had to learn how to use a PC, a scanner, and the Internet - all in the last 20 years or so, and in no relation to the doctor’s profession whatsoever.

Has anyone looked at the end-to-end logic of this process? Clearly, not. Has anyone considered the patients’ (or even the health insurers’) perspective in this process? Clearly, not. Has anyone tested the process before rolling it out at full scale? Clearly, not. Is anyone collecting feedback for this process to identify opportunities for improvement? Clearly, not. So, all the basic Business Process Management steps have been skipped - for fax’ sake! - and yet, this process is still THE process being used? You bet!

~~~

To wrap this up, if you live in Germany, here are the lessons learned that might come in handy:

1. If your health insurance card is blocked, make sure you contact your health insurer well in advance, so they can send you a certificate instead - that’s at least 1 hour before you need to leave for the doctor’s office. (Note: You probably don’t want to contact them too early - although I don’t know what too early means; I assume a few days in advance - because then the doctor’s office might decide the certificate date is problematic. After all, that certificate is only issued because you have an “acute illness”, and that might be questioned if you’ve preplanned the event by a week or two.)

2. Once you receive the certificate, make sure you’re somewhere where you can print it out. Go to the doctor’s office only with the printout in hand.

3. In the doctor’s office, they’ll scan your printout and return it to you. Maintain your composure, especially if you work in IT. You have bigger fish to fry, and you won’t be able to change the whole country in one swift blow. Not today, at least.

Good luck!

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👉 Understanding the Process Is More Important Than Following It

Many people don’t realize this, especially when it comes to servicing direct customers. They feel that if there is a process, it was designed by someone smarter for reasons only known to them, therefore we all (customers included) must follow the process even if we don’t understand it.

Here is where this logic falls short: There is no such thing as a perfect process. That means we’ll always have use cases that are outside of what our process can handle. This is exactly why we need to hire a person to address those edge use cases - and that’s what a Customer Care team does.

If you are a Customer Care representative, your job is to figure out how the customers can get your product or service (and experience all of its features), even though they cannot follow your process (fully). Your job is NOT to force fit the customers into your process - they already tried it and it didn’t work for them. Now, you have to find a way to achieve the same results by designing a workaround.

To design viable workarounds, you’ll need to know two things:

1. WHAT your process aims to achieve and HOW (more details here).

2. What your customer’s constraints are in terms of following the process (the HOW).

You won’t be able to design working solutions if you only know your customer’s constraints, but not what your process aims to achieve. Why is that?

Imagine your process takes someone from point A to point B, and then to point C (the end goal). However, your customer is in point E (see diagram below). They call you and ask how they can get to C.

After analyzing their situation, you realize that the related points to them are D and F. However, they cannot reach point D; they can only reach point F (see arrow direction). And since A and B are out of reach as well, their only path is E to F to C.

Now, imagine the link to C doesn’t exist (diagram below). Meaning, you only know you have to do A and B in your process, but you have no idea why. Your customer calls you with their problem, and you realize they’re in point E. How can you help them? You can’t. All you know is A and B, and unless they are in one of these two points, it looks like all Hell will break loose - and that cannot be allowed, can it? 😉

Let me tell you a story:

🥜 The Nuts That Drive You Nuts

One winter evening my husband and I went to a Christmas market. We saw a stand selling a huge selection of caramelized nuts. Each box contained a different type of nuts, each of them priced at €4 for 100 grams. Then there was one box with mixed nuts of all the types - also €4/100gr.

I wanted mixed nuts, but not from all types - just from three of them. And the pricing was very convenient - I knew that whatever combination I made, I had to pay €4/100gr, no brainer. My husband only wanted hazelnuts.

So, I approached the lady behind the counter and said:

“I'd like to have 100 grams of these three types of nuts. Would you please mix them in one bag for me? And, also…”

“No, I can't,” she replied.

“You can't what?” I asked surprised.

“I can't make you a custom mix,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because we already have mixed nuts. I can put you from those.”

“But they are more than ten different types and I only want three. I don't eat the other types.”

“No, I can't do that.”

Now, at this point, I started getting annoyed since, obviously, this process made no sense.

“What's preventing you from mixing three types of nuts for me for 100 grams?” I started investigating. “It's certainly not the pricing, because clearly I'll pay €4 for them. So what is it?”

“It's not the pricing; it's our policy - we already have mixed nuts,” she replied.

“But those are not the mixed nuts I want,” I continued.

“That doesn't matter. We already have mixed nuts - I can put you from them.”

“As I already said, I don't want from them.”

“Then there's nothing I can do for you.”

“Why not?” I was already angry. “Aren't you here to sell nuts?” I asked in an attempt to shift her focus to the main goal.

“Excuse me?”

“Aren't you here to sell nuts?” I repeated.

“Yes, of course, we are!”

“Good! Because I'm here to buy nuts. I want from these three types in one bag of 100 grams, please, and I already have my €4 waiting for you right here.”

I waved the money I was holding in my hand the whole time.

“I can't give you from these nuts,” she said again.

“Who says you can't give me from these nuts?”

“Excuse me?”

“Who designed that policy of yours that says you can't give me the nuts I want?”

“My manager!”

“Where is your manager? I want to speak to them.”

“You can't speak to my manager!”

“Why not? I want to speak to the manager, so bring the manager!”

At that point, she was utterly confused and started looking around for help. She had a colleague, a young boy, serving the other customers, while she and I were having this argument. He looked at her and asked:

“What's going on?”

“She wants a different type of mixed nuts,” the lady explained aghast.

“So what?” he said. “Give it to her.”

“But…” she was lost for words.

“Just give it to her,” the boy repeated. “Why is that a problem even?!” and he moved on to continue serving the other customers.

Seeing she had no other choice, she put the nuts I wanted in one bag, measured it to 100 grams, wrapped it up, and threw it in my face.

“Four euros!” she yelled at me.

“Yes, thank you,” I said in my sweetest voice. “And I also want another bag of 100 grams only with hazelnuts, please.”

She took another bag, put only hazelnuts in it, measured it to 100 grams, wrapped it up, and threw that in my face too.

“Eight euros!” she yelled a second time.

I paid my eight euros, took both bags, gave the hazelnuts to my husband, who was standing on the side speechless, watching the whole scene unfold, and we moved to a bar table to eat our nuts and drink Glühwein.

⛏️ Why You Should Dig Deeper

Luckily, this event didn't spoil our evening, quite the opposite - we had a good laugh. However, to this day, I'm amazed by how adamant some people are to follow processes to the letter. It doesn't matter what the process is: If there is a process, they'll go out of their way - and out of any logic - to follow it.

In my books, you should try to understand the process first, think about what you’re asked to do, and if you can't grasp the logic, dig deeper - or refuse to do it. After all, what if the process asks you to do something that’s in contradiction with your personal values - would you still do it? But if you understand the reasons behind it, you agree with those reasons, and you see there’s no other way, would you do it then?

How often do you see a process asking you point-blank to do something unethical, immoral, or illegal? Never, right? And yet, quite often we hear about the newest scandal with a company that broke some laws and regulations and is now facing huge fines, and even jail time for its CxOs.

How does that happen? It’s the “divide and conquer” principle in action: Break a huge process into endless steps, distribute those steps to different teams to execute, and voilà - no one will be able to track the process end-to-end and understand what it is they actually contribute to.

Who’s carrying the responsibility then? You can say it’s the CxO, and I’ll agree - on paper, it’s them. But if you knew you were a part of this too, would you be able to sleep well at night? After all, you did what needed to be done. Without countless people like you, the CxO plan would’ve never succeeded.

Here’s how it looks from the other side of the table: I design processes for a living and, as strange as this might sound, I need you to question me. I need your feedback on the processes I design - how else would I know what works and what doesn’t?! I literally can’t do my job effectively if you only follow blindly whatever I present to you.

That’s why I cringe when I hear “just give us the templates to follow so we can be compliant and that’s that”. No process can substitute for human thinking - not even an AI-based one. Always use your brains first, process second.

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Every change has two sides - technical and human.

Both are essential for implementing a successful transformation, but one may be slightly more than the other. Think it’s the technical one? Think again 😉

In the previous post, I shared the technical aspects of Compliance Transformation; in this post, I’ll focus on the human side.

Read on 👇

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🔮 Emotions Make Us Human

Dr. Antonio Damasio is a neuroscientist and professor whose research explores the connections between the brain, emotions, and decision-making. One of his most famous cases is the story of Elliot, a patient he met while studying individuals with brain injuries. Through Elliot’s story, Dr. Damasio learned how much we rely on emotions, even for logical decisions, which became the main theme of his book Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.

Elliot was a sharp, smart man with a great career and a family. One day, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and he needed surgery to remove it. The surgery went well, and Elliot survived, but something unexpected happened afterward. Although he could still think, remember things, and talk like before, he couldn’t make even simple decisions. If someone asked him what he wanted for lunch, he couldn’t decide. If he needed to pick between two job offers, he’d freeze. It wasn’t because he wasn’t smart - he was still very intelligent - but something was missing.

The surgery had damaged his ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the part of his brain that helps process emotions. Turns out, emotions act like guides, helping us feel what’s important and pushing us toward choices. Without emotions, Elliot couldn’t figure out what mattered most in a situation, no matter how logical or smart he was. For example, most of us feel a tug of preference - like hunger or craving - that helps us pick food without much thought. Elliot didn’t have that anymore, so every choice became impossible.

Elliot’s story shows that emotions aren’t just some extra feelings we have - they’re essential for guiding our thinking, making decisions, and navigating life. Therefore, emotions aren’t a weakness - they’re what makes us human.

⚠️ Why Most Transformations Fail

In today’s VUCA world, transformation is inevitable. Compliance Transformation, however, is a long-term investment. It requires thoughtful planning, careful execution, and a commitment to change. Above all, there are plenty of risks involved.

In 1995, John Kotter found that 70% of organizational transformations fail. In 2023, Harvard Business Review (HBR) redid the research and found that in three decades not much has changed: 67% of the surveyed leaders have experienced at least one unsuccessful transformation in the past five years.

So, how do we ensure the success of our transformation? One thing emerged as a key differentiator: embracing people’s emotional journeys. Transformation is very stressful for everyone involved. That’s why leaders must provide emotional support, turning stress into a positive force that drives change instead of stopping it.

To set up and run a successful Compliance Transformation program, we start by understanding the mindset and feelings of the parties involved. There are three main players in any Compliance Transformation that form a triangle of relationships:

1. the CEO (or COO, etc.) of a company in need of compliance, who acts as the Program Sponsor,

2. the Compliance Manager (or Business Process Manager, etc.), who leads the transformation program and acts as the Program Manager, and

3. the Organization (or Teams), whose processes are subject to change and who act as the users/consumers/customers of the program deliverable.

There’s one more unique type of role: the People Managers, who are also Process Owners. As People Managers, they act like the CEO, and as Process Owners, they act like the Organization. That’s why I haven’t taken them out as a distinct role, but do keep them in mind as you read further.

Let’s look at each of the three main roles separately:

💭 Understanding Individual Perspectives

🟠 CEO

🟠 Aspirations

The CEO’s main goal is to build a reputation as a reliable provider so they can win and keep high-value contracts. The CEO achieves this by following external standards and regulations. That makes the company a trustworthy partner, especially in Highly Regulated Environments (HREs). Also, early compliance helps avoid costly retrofits and disruptions as the business grows. The CEO fears client rejections, brand damage, and fines for non-compliance. These risks directly impact revenue, reputation, and legal standing.

🟠 Challenges

The CEO faces certain challenges in achieving their aspirations:

1. Navigating applicable standards and merging them with other best practices, frameworks, and methodologies.

2. Understanding client expectations beyond standard compliance that risk high-value contracts.

3. Lack of in-house compliance expertise to address all compliance requirements.

4. High compliance costs, especially for a startup/scale-up operating under budget constraints.

5. Too much time spent on meeting external requirements, which slows down growth and product/service development.

6. Balancing resource allocation between product development, scaling operations, and compliance transformation.

7. Unstructured compliance roadmap, which results in reactive and disjointed efforts.

8. Process integration issues that disrupt the pace of development or create silos.

9. Compliance culture mismatch, especially among growth-oriented teams that focus on speed and agility.

10. Change resistance from internal teams, which creates friction and slows down adoption.

11. Lack of standardization across projects, which makes compliance labor-intensive.

12. Strict documentation requirements that create an administrative burden and slow down production.

13. Compliance not being flexible or scalable, which makes it harder to grow and accommodate larger, more complex projects.

14. Maintaining compliance in agile environments, where iteration and speed conflict with traditional methodologies.

15. Balancing compliance with innovation, making it difficult to remain competitive.

16. Achieving compliance certification, which is often seen as a barrier to entry into an industry.

17. Client audits that might uncover compliance gaps or process deficiencies, resulting in lost business opportunities.

18. Ensuring compliance of third-party vendors and suppliers to avoid supply chain disruptions.

19. Non-compliance penalties that can damage the company’s reputation.

20. Maintaining compliance, which requires keeping up with evolving standards, conducting regular audits, and ensuring continued adherence to regulations to avoid lapses or setbacks.

To address these challenges, the CEO appoints a Compliance Manager to lead the transformation and ensure further compliance. The CEO, however, offers proactive support and remains accountable for the results. Read more about delegation here.

🟠 Expectations for the Compliance Manager

1. Alignment with Business Goals: The CEO wants the compliance initiatives to support the company’s business goals, especially around growth, reputation, and market expansion. They expect the Compliance Manager to focus on initiatives that help win key clients and ensure scalability.

2. Clear Communication and Transparency: The CEO wants regular updates on the compliance program's status, challenges, and immediate risks. They expect the Compliance Manager to simplify complex compliance issues, highlighting their business and financial impacts.

3. Proactive Risk Management: The CEO expects the Compliance Manager to run the program and also to foresee and handle compliance risks that might disrupt the business. This includes being aware of possible regulatory changes or internal weaknesses.

4. Efficient Use of Resources: The CEO expects the Compliance Manager to be cost-effective and not to drain resources from core operations. The Compliance Manager should also show good judgment in allocating the budget and resources without overspending.

5. Fostering a Compliance Culture: The CEO relies on the Compliance Manager to create a compliance-aware culture where all employees understand and respect the requirements. Furthermore, they expect the Compliance Manager to lead by example, gaining team support and promoting ongoing compliance.

🟠 Expectations for the Organization

The CEO expects the teams to embrace compliance initiatives and actively participate in implementing the necessary changes. They want team members to follow new processes, provide feedback on challenges, and suggest improvements. Ultimately, the CEO seeks a culture of compliance where everyone understands their role in achieving the organization's goals.

🟢 Compliance Manager

🟢 Aspirations

The person responsible for implementing the external standards - a Compliance Manager, Transformation Director, Business Process Manager, Program/Project Manager, or an external consultant - has a different but complementary view to that of the CEO. They are focused on the hands-on aspects of making compliance a reality within the organization, balancing the CEO’s high-level vision with practical execution.

Their main goal is to build a streamlined, effective compliance program that integrates well with existing operations. They want to implement all required standards, frameworks, and processes successfully and create a sustainable, scalable, low-maintenance operational framework. The successful solution will:

• Balance compliance with operational efficiency: Meet all required standards and regulations without adding unnecessary complexity or overloading staff.

• Minimize business disruption: Complete the transformation with as little disruption to day-to-day operations as possible, allowing the teams to focus on core operations.

• Build a self-sustaining compliance culture: Foster a continuous improvement mindset across the organization that values quality and compliance and understands their impact, reducing the need for constant oversight.

🟢 Challenges

1. Complexity of compliance requirements: The Compliance Manager must fully understand each standard, identify which requirements apply, and tailor them to the company's operations without over-complicating the processes. They have to interpret ambiguous or overlapping rules successfully and balance thoroughness with simplicity.

2. Internal buy-in and resistance to change: Compliance requires altering processes, documenting workflows, and shifting perceptions. This can often lead to pushback, especially from teams who feel compliance is bureaucratic or disruptive to productivity.

3. Time and resource constraints: Compliance implementation requires a lot of time, manpower, and budget, which can be difficult to secure in a fast-pace organization. Teams are juggling this project alongside other priorities, which can make it hard to focus and ensure quality.

4. Clear, measurable success criteria: The Compliance Manager wants to show clear, quantifiable evidence of their progress to the CEO, teams, and other stakeholders. If the criteria for success aren’t well-defined, stakeholders will feel frustrated by the ambiguity and will find it harder to justify ongoing support for the program.

5. Maintaining compliance over time: Compliance isn’t a one-time project, so the Compliance Manager must also ensure that standards are upheld over time. They know they need to set up ongoing monitoring, conduct regular audits, and keep up with any regulatory changes, but they want this maintenance process to be as automated as possible.

The Compliance Manager addresses the above challenges by creating a clear, step-by-step plan that provides guidance on tasks and priorities, roles and responsibilities, timelines, milestones, metrics, communication, tracking risks and issues, auditing, reporting, etc. The Compliance Manager also looks for tools and technologies to automate compliance tasks as much as possible. Finally, the Compliance Manager needs hands-on support from colleagues or consultants with deep expertise in regulatory, program, or process management and automation.

🟢 Expectations for the CEO

Leadership support is crucial for ensuring the Compliance Transformation is a success. Without it, no transformation will be effective, no matter how skilled the Compliance Manager is, how determined the teams are, or how much pressure the clients and partners apply.

The Compliance Manager needs the following from the CEO:

1. Clear vision and strategic prioritization: The CEO must clearly state the company's compliance goals and priorities. They should also constantly update the organization on any compliance changes in relation to other strategic goals. This guidance helps the Compliance Manager and the teams align and focus.

2. Executive buy-in and endorsement: The CEO must openly support compliance and ensure it is seen as a company-wide transformation, not an isolated initiative. They steer the organization by being a vocal advocate for compliance in both internal and external messaging. This endorsement from the top empowers the Compliance Manager to drive change effectively. It also helps the Compliance Manager gain cooperation from the teams.

3. Resource allocation and budget approval: No strategic priority can be achieved without resources and budget. The CEO must be available for timely coordination of the compliance budget and resources, providing flexibility as needs evolve. That will allow the Compliance Manager to proceed confidently.

4. Empowerment to drive change: The CEO must give the Compliance Manager the authority to make changes, such as restructuring processes or introducing new systems. They expect the CEO to back their initiatives, even if they introduce some short-term disruptions. This alignment between the CEO and the Compliance Manager reduces pushback and enhances collaboration across the organization.

5. Ongoing access and feedback: The CEO must be available to guide the Compliance Manager, especially when unexpected issues arise or when strategic pivots are needed. Regular check-ins and feedback loops help the CEO and the Compliance Manager stay aligned with the CEO’s vision and respond flexibly to changing priorities.

🟢 Expectations for the Organization

The Compliance Program Manager wants the teams to engage openly with the transformation program, explaining their workflows and any obstacles they encounter. They need team members to collaborate in refining their processes based on real-world experience and be proactive in adopting new procedures. The teams' input, adoption, and ongoing feedback are crucial for ensuring that the implemented compliance measures are practical and effective.

🔵 Organization

🔵 Aspirations

The teams aim for clear, efficient, and effective workflows that enable them to perform their tasks with minimal confusion and maximum productivity. They want streamlined processes that embed compliance into their daily work, allowing them to meet requirements while focusing on their main tasks. The teams fear the increased workload and complexity that often comes with compliance changes. They want to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy that can lead to burnout, hinder their ability to deliver results, and complicate their already busy schedules.

🔵 Challenges

1. Lack of clarity: Teams often feel frustrated by vague or poorly communicated compliance requirements, making it difficult to understand what is expected of them. This can lead to confusion, mistakes, and inefficiencies.

2. Integration challenges: Installing new compliance methods in existing workflows can be problematic. Teams may feel that compliance is an additional burden rather than a supportive framework.

3. Resistance to change: Many team members may be resistant to new processes or reluctant to adopt changes, especially if they feel these changes complicate their existing workflows.

When teams get engaged and receive clear guidance, they can meet compliance needs better and work more effectively. Early involvement makes teams feel valued. Incorporating their feedback and showing how it shapes the final processes increases buy-in and acceptance. Implementing processes and tools that simplify tasks helps teams see how compliance increases their efficiency rather than hinders it.

🔵 Expectations for the CEO

The teams expect clear communication and support from the CEO regarding the importance of compliance and its impact on the organization’s success. They seek reassurance that leadership recognizes their challenges during the transition and values their contributions. Additionally, they hope for adequate resources and training to help them adapt to new compliance requirements without overwhelming their existing workloads.

🔵 Expectations for the Compliance Manager

The teams expect the Compliance Manager to give clear, actionable guidance and training on new processes and standards. They seek a collaborative approach where their feedback shapes the compliance framework to ensure alignment with their daily operations. They also expect ongoing support to help them navigate evolving compliance challenges.

💝 Managing the Human Side of Change

Change happens one person at a time. For a group or an organization to change, each person in it must change. That’s why if we want our Compliance Transformation to be successful, we must address it on an individual level.

The Prosci ADKAR Model is a great tool for managing individual change. ADKAR stands for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement. These steps are sequential and they build on each other - one must start with Awareness and move through each step in that order.

The five ADKAR outcomes in more detail:

1️⃣ Awareness of the need for change.

What we hear before addressing this step:

• “What a waste of time!”

• “It was working just fine before.”

• “They never tell us what’s going on!”

What we hear after addressing this step:

• “I understand why…”

2️⃣ Desire to participate and support the change.

What we hear before addressing this step:

• “I’m not interested in participating.”

• “What’s in it for me?”

• “I doubt they are really serious about this.”

What we hear after addressing this step:

• “I have decided to…”

3️⃣ Knowledge on how to change.

What we hear before addressing this step:

• “I don’t know what to do.”

• “The instructions are too confusing.”

• “I don’t even have access.”

What we hear after addressing this step:

• “I know how to…”

4️⃣ Ability to implement desired skills and behaviors.

What we hear before addressing this step:

• “I’m not getting these new steps completely right.”

• “I eventually get there but it takes me twice as long.”

• “I understand the manual, but when I have to do it, I freeze.”

What we hear after addressing this step:

• “I am able to…”

5️⃣ Reinforcement to sustain the change.

What we hear before addressing this step:

• “The new way just takes too long. I’m going to keep doing it my way.”

• “I did it in the old way by mistake and nothing happened.”

• “I keep forgetting to include the new department.”

What we hear after addressing this step:

• “I will continue to…”

The ADKAR lifecycle starts and ends with the Compliance Transformation program. It offers a structured framework and sequence to drive the people side of change. ADKAR serves as a strong foundation for key activities, such as readiness assessments, sponsorship, communication, coaching, training, recognition, and managing resistance.

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And that’s how we manage the human side of change. And in doing so, we don’t just navigate challenges and minimize risk; we create a culture of resilience and engagement that ensures the success of our Compliance Transformation.

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Is compliance holding you back or propelling you forward?

For companies ready to grow, compliance isn’t just a necessity; it’s a competitive edge. When integrated from the start, it boosts efficiency, builds client trust, and safeguards against costly surprises. But wait too long, and you risk severe fines, damage to your reputation, and operational disruptions.

Smart companies begin early - and here's how you can do it, too.

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⛽️ Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

In 2010, BP faced a crisis that would change its future forever. The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. It caused the largest marine oil spill in history. The disaster unleashed millions of barrels of oil into the ocean. It devastated local ecosystems and harmed fishing and tourism along the Gulf Coast.

After the incident, BP faced intense pressure from U.S. regulators and the public. This resulted in record fines and costs of over $65 billion. To manage the crisis, BP had to pay for the cleanup and legal settlements. It also had to overhaul its safety and environmental practices.

BP had to put in place new operational protocols. They covered everything from better blowout preventers to improved emergency response measures. This overhaul included independent safety audits and strict new environmental rules. BP made a large investment in training and technology. They had to meet higher standards and regain the trust of regulators and the public.

The compliance burden was monumental. Regulatory costs and safety audits raised expenses. The new protocols slowed operations, making them less flexible and more costly. To meet the higher standards and fund them, BP had to sell major assets. This helped BP stabilize its finances but also reduced its market share. It made it harder to compete with other big oil companies.

BP emerged from the crisis with a commitment to safety and the environment. Yet, the transformation came at a significant cost. BP's shift to renewable energy hurt its long-term profits and growth. It showed the high costs of prioritizing safety and compliance only after a crisis. Instead, safety and compliance should have been daily priorities from the start.

♻️ Compliance Transformation

What is compliance?

Compliance means following the laws, regulations, and best practices that apply to organizations in specific industries (global rules) and geographies (local rules). These rules set a certain standard for quality, which companies must meet at all times. As the rules change, companies need to stay aware and adapt to them, even though they themselves evolve and scale up or down.

What is Compliance Transformation?

Compliance Transformation is how organizations implement these external laws, regulations, standards, frameworks, or methodologies. The aim of such a transformation is twofold:

1. to enhance operational efficiency (internal goal = same as in Business Process Management), and

2. to build trust with customers, partners, and other stakeholders (external goal).

Without compliance, businesses risk facing hefty fines, reputational damage, and operational disruptions. But even more importantly, there can be irreparable damage to property, the environment, animal and human lives, etc., as seen in the above example with Deepwater Horizon.

What exactly does compliance transform?

In short: our processes. Compliance is about making small changes to how we do things. And when we make these changes, we’re always driven by two key questions:

• Are we doing the right thing? This focuses on effectiveness. It’s about ensuring we’re achieving the goals that we need to achieve.

• Are we doing the thing right? This focuses on efficiency. It’s about achieving our goals optimally. “Optimal” means delivering the highest quality with the least amount of resources. Of course, quality and resources pull in opposite directions, so finding that middle ground - our balance point - defines what’s optimal for us.

Together, effectiveness and efficiency form our performance. And our performance is the result of our operations, i.e. of our internal ways of working.

Both effectiveness and efficiency are crucial. We cannot have one without the other - that will not make any business sense. For example, we can have a product-market fit and plenty of customers, but we'll be draining ourselves dry if don't operate efficiently - and it will be very hard to reach our profit targets. Similarly, we can be extremely good at what we do, running like a well-oiled machine, and it won’t matter at all if we don’t deliver the right product to the right customers.

When should we do a Compliance Transformation?

Compliance should be part of daily operations from the start. This will ensure that regulations are consistently met, reducing the risk of costly fines, legal issues, and reputational harm. Early integration embeds compliance naturally into workflows. It avoids disruptive changes later and supports smoother, more efficient operations as the company grows. Also, this approach builds a culture of responsibility and trust that strengthens the relationship with clients, partners, and regulators.

If compliance isn’t addressed from the start, a Compliance Transformation will inevitably be needed later on. However, fixing compliance later is costly, time-intensive, and disruptive to the business. It requires overhauling ingrained processes and culture, implementing new technologies, and retraining staff. Delaying compliance also risks regulatory fines, reputational damage, and operational setbacks. That's why early compliance is the safer and more efficient choice.

✅ Compliance Transformation Pillars

Here’s an overview of the Compliance Transformation pillars I use, which I’ve developed and refined for myself over the years:

From the very beginning, before we even start the transformation, I focus on Purpose. During the transformation, I also ensure we keep each cycle as short as possible, following the Agile principles. And we cannot end the transformation - or even consider it a success - without closing this loop at least once.

Let’s take a closer look at each pillar:

🟠 Purpose

The Purpose is the foundation; everyone involved must understand what we’re trying to achieve and why. We need to get to the root cause of why a full transformation is needed, as this insight will drive every aspect of the program. This will be our North Star. Without it, we cannot proceed.

The Purpose pillar answers the questions:

• Where do we want to be? What is the problem we want to solve?

• Why is this a problem to begin with?

• What is the impact of this problem?

• How urgent is this problem?

• What would it look like when this problem is fixed?

• What happens if we don’t fix this problem?

🔵 Present

Present focuses on understanding our current situation compared to our goal. In a Compliance Transformation, this involves a Process Audit (aka Gap Analysis), repeated at regular intervals. The analysis done in Present sets the framework for our solution and keeps it relevant.

The Present pillar answers the questions:

• Where are we now?

• What are the gaps to where we want to be? How did we conclude that?

• What is the full scope of what we need to address? What is out of scope?

• What are our available budget, time, other resources?

• What are our assumptions?

• What are our constraints?

🟢 Path

Path is about defining the solution, explaining how we arrived at it, and planning its implementation. With each cycle of The 5Ps loop, we refine the solution, but we ensure we keep records of our past versions. This helps not only to measure the efficiency of our program but also to avoid solutions that we already proved are not working.

The Path pillar answers the questions:

• What is the solution to the problem?

• Why is this the optimal solution? What other solutions have we considered? Why did we reject them?

• How are we going to implement this solution (within the time, budget, resources, and other constraints we have)? What processes, tools, etc. are we going to use?

• What are the solution interfaces and dependencies?

• What are the risks we anticipate?

• What are the currently known issues?

🟡 People

People includes everyone involved, affected, or interested in the program. We assess and assign roles based on skills, provide training, and communicate frequently. In addition to these management tasks, we also use leadership skills to guide everybody through the change. To learn more about the human side of change, check out my other post.

The People pillar answers the questions:

• Who are the parties driving the program: sponsor, lead, team?

• Who are the additional stakeholders: teams to work with, affected teams, interested parties, others?

• Who is doing what, when, and how? And who is making sure each of these gets done? (See here for more details on Responsibilities and Accountabilities.)

• What kind of authorities does each party need? How are those ensured? (See here for more details on Authorities.)

• What is our skills assessment? What are the gaps to the desired skills and our training plan?

• What is our program’s communication plan?

⚫️ Progress

Progress is about tracking our journey and ensuring we stay on the right path. We define measurements to monitor our progress, troubleshoot when issues arise, and then go back to Purpose in an Agile loop.

The Progress pillar answers the questions:

• How will we know we have arrived at where we want to be? How will we know we have solved the initial problem?

• Even before that, how will we know we’re on the right path to there?

• What kind of manual checks we’ll need along the way?

• What are the automatic checks we already have in place?

• Where and how do we report progress?

• Where and how can someone receive information on the progress?

🪁 Top 10 Compliance Myths

Common myths and misconceptions can slow down or even block a Compliance Transformation. That’s why it’s essential to tackle these early on to shift the company’s culture and set the stage for success.

Here are the top 10 myths I’ve encountered in my career:

Myth 1: “External standards are very bureaucratic and add no real value.”

At first glance, standards might seem like an administrative nightmare. But their real purpose is to increase efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction. Standards are based on industry-proven best practices and, when implemented effectively, they improve operations, reduce risks, and build trust.

That said, implementing standards and frameworks only halfway will never work - even if they’re the best ones out there. Standards are designed with so many interdependencies that literally everything connects to everything else. We can and should adjust the best practices to fit our operations. But we cannot completely skip a part unless we fully understand what it’s meant to achieve and we’re already achieving it in another way.

How to address this myth:

To begin with, and as mentioned earlier, we must close The 5Ps loop at least once. The 5Ps loop is built with the PDCA/PDSA/3E logic of Continuous Process Improvement. Therefore, the first and most important rule is not to end the Compliance Transformation prematurely.

In addition, we must always communicate the purpose behind everything: why we’re doing a transformation program, why we need compliance, why we need a certain process, why a process step looks like it does, etc. Read more about purpose here:

Myth 2: “Compliance is just an extra cost with no return on investment.”

As with every other long-term investment, compliance comes with a significant cost. But we make long-term investments in the first place because we know they bring us higher returns down the line. Compliance prevents costly fines, reduces operational inefficiencies, improves trust from our clients, partners, and the public, and opens new revenue streams in regulated markets. So, while there is a big initial investment, the long-term savings and growth potential outweigh the costs.

How to address this myth:

We use metrics to highlight the importance of compliance. Two types of metrics come in handy:

• High-level, strategic metrics: The ratio of Cost of Quality vs. Cost of Poor Quality must remain smaller than 1 - meaning, the cost of having quality should always be lower than the cost of not having quality; otherwise, it wouldn’t make economic sense to implement higher quality standards.

• Low-level, process metrics: Processes must include KPIs which show that, with compliance in place, we now have fewer security incidents, faster onboarding of regulated clients, improved customer retention, etc.

Myth 3: “Only big companies need to worry about compliance.”

Big companies operate on a larger scope, which is why they often have to step into regulated industries. Smaller companies (startups or scale-ups) can focus on a single product in a specific market niche and, thus, stay away from regulators. However, that will also prevent them from scaling up and expanding into new markets.

Additionally, compliance requires structure and processes. Even though small companies are notorious for the creative chaos they operate in, they need order as they grow because scaling up chaos leads to even more chaos. This is crucial when seeking funding, as investors often favor structured, risk-aware management.

Lastly, smaller companies are more vulnerable to compliance risks due to the limited resources that accompany the fast pace of their growth. Taking care of compliance early on protects them from unexpected issues down the road and avoids the pressure of retrofitting compliance under a tight deadline.

How to address this myth:

This is down to the Leadership Team: If they believe in early compliance measures, they will advocate for them from the start. And if they don’t believe in them, they’ll unfortunately have to learn the hard way (as BP did in the above example with Deepwater Horizon).

Myth 4: “Compliance is just an IT or Security team issue.”

Processes have one very distinct feature: everything relates to everything. The same goes for external standards and process frameworks. While it might seem that they have a target scope, e.g. IT Security, in reality, they touch on aspects of quality, safety, customer service, data management, and so on, which affect every department. That’s why compliance is a company-wide responsibility and requires collaboration across all teams to be effective.

How to address this myth:

Compliance must be embedded in the company processes and not be seen as something separate. There shouldn't be compliance processes vs. company processes. There is only one set of processes and that’s the company processes. All of them must be alive and well. If any one of them is not used, it must be archived.

Myth 5: “External standards are rigid and don’t fit our business model.”

Many standards are designed to be flexible and adaptable to different industries, company sizes, and business models. Their goal is not to dictate a rigid process but to offer a framework that we can tailor to our specific needs. Even though standards refer to their requirements as “best practices”, “process areas”, or even “processes”, they're still just frameworks. And frameworks need to be customized, not followed word for word without considering the business's unique situation.

How to address this myth:

We first have to understand the intent behind each requirement - what it’s meant to accomplish, why it exists, and why it’s recognized as a best practice. Once we understand the purpose, we can figure out how to achieve it within the constraints and goals of our environment. We can think of the best practice as a strong recommendation, not an absolute rule.

And don’t worry about the auditors! As a Process Auditor myself, I can tell you this: If you meet the intent and purpose of the requirement and ensure no process connections are broken, no auditor will flag it as a gap. Remember, auditors have to follow rules and regulations too, and our work is audited as well - we have to prove we’re doing a good job! 😉

This is exactly where an external consultant can be a huge asset, whether they’re leading or supporting the Compliance Transformation. Consultants have extensive experience tailoring standards to fit real-world scenarios. They’ve seen countless solutions that work (and that don’t 🙄), so there’s no need for companies to reinvent the wheel - this knowledge is already out there.

Myth 6: “External standards limit innovation and flexibility.”

Out of all the compliance myths, this is probably the one I hear the most. As already covered in Myth 5, external standards are suggestions that we customize to fit our business needs. If we end up stifling our innovation and flexibility, then that’s on us - we've clearly failed to design company processes that address all our operational and stakeholder needs.

How to address this myth:

Same as with Myth 5. And I'll emphasize again how beneficial an external consultant can be - not only because we’ll tap into a vast knowledge of possible process solutions, but also because an organizational transformation will drain all our resources. We need all the help we can get.

Myth 7: “Compliance just means more and unnecessary paperwork.”

Documentation is indeed a part of compliance, but it should already be a part of our daily operations too. Documentation serves a critical purpose: When done properly, it clarifies responsibilities, reduces ambiguity, standardizes processes, and provides a basis for ongoing improvements. This in turn improves efficiency, transparency, and accountability.

Every professional should want to document their work thoroughly. We know that documentation accompanies everything. We cannot expect, for example, the client to read our software code to understand how the app works, or the newcomer to the team to magically know what to do and who to contact for what. Besides, when we know we’ve done a good job, we want to let everyone know it. We want to explain in the simplest way possible what a great thing we brought into existence. We want to share our art with the world - because art that’s not shared doesn’t serve any purpose.

How to address this myth:

To justify the need for anything, not only documentation, we have to show why it’s important, what purpose it serves, and what happens when we don’t have it. In the case of documentation, we need to show teams (with real-life examples, where possible) how it drives consistent results, enables them to replicate successful processes while avoiding known issues, provides clear guidance during audits, helps onboard new employees, etc. - ultimately saving time and effort in the long run.

Additionally, we can simplify documentation by focusing only on what’s necessary and providing useful templates and tools. To keep this true as our processes evolve, we can, for example, hold an annual organizational retreat dedicated to streamlining - spend a few days each year removing unnecessary complexity from our processes, systems, and related documentation.

Myth 8: “We’re starting from scratch; we have zero compliance in place.”

I can guarantee you that every company out there already has some degree of compliant practices in place. When we are operational in the market, delivering products and services to our customers, we certainly have repeatable methods of working, security protocols, quality checks, client communication, and so on. And the majority of these are part of external standards.

Moreover, each standard is a set of global best practices. Meaning, a lot of international experts came together, exchanged their ways of working in a specific area, and created a standard out of them. That’s why external standards are not theoretical - they come from real life by design.

How to address this myth:

Every Compliance Transformation program starts with a Gap Analysis against the given standard that will be implemented. The Gap Analysis reveals the existing compliance elements and identifies the areas for improvement. This serves two purposes:

1. enables us to plan the Compliance Transformation program better, and

2. helps teams see compliance as an extension of what they already do, not an overwhelming new project.

Furthermore, as with any other big program, it’s important to break it down into smaller chunks, set realistic goals within realistic timelines, make progress transparent, and celebrate small wins. This shows teams that achieving compliance isn’t as daunting and helps maintain momentum and morale.

Myth 9: “We just need to implement the processes and templates exactly as outlined in the standard.”

While standard processes and templates provide a foundation, they need to be customized to fit the specific operational environment of each organization. I'll say it again: Blindly following any standard by the book without aligning it to our business leads to ineffective, impractical, or utterly meaningless processes - and that doesn’t meet the actual compliance requirements. Besides, force-fitting every team into the same shoe size is simply not feasible. What we need to implement is the spirit of the standard, not the letter.

How to address this myth:

The teams have to own their solution, i.e. their customized and improved team processes, and for that they have to be involved and in the driver’s seat from the start. That means we need to:

1. educate relevant team members from the beginning on what the standard aims to achieve, as well as coach them throughout the Compliance Transformation program, and

2. guide them in customizing their processes to ensure they align with both the standard’s requirements (the part we know) and the organization’s ways of working (the part they know).

Additionally, we must define a level of standardization for the whole company and Tailoring Guidelines for when a team has to branch out and follow a slightly different process. This doesn’t have to be anything complicated, but it needs to be there to provide clarity to all on what “compliance” and “standardization” actually mean.

Myth 10: “Once we’re compliant, we don’t have to think about it again.”

The goal of any compliance is to ensure a sustainable level of product or service quality. And sustainable quality means Continuous Process Improvement. When we want to, for example, engage with a client or a partner long-term, we can praise our products and services all we want, but what the client/partner is actually interested in is:

• what our level of product/service quality is, and

• how we can prove that it’s sustainable.

The answer to these questions lies in our processes. We have to plan them, execute them as planned, monitor and measure them, and constantly improve them. Also, we have to keep ourselves updated and aligned with the evolving external standards and regulatory requirements.

Therefore, maintenance is key. Treating compliance as a one-time project not only puts the organization at risk but also brings operational costs up because every time a client/partner asks for proof that we’re compliant, we have to start implementing standards all over again. That’s why, once we implement any standard, this is only the beginning - from there on, we have to ensure we stay compliant at all times.

Some external standards, such as ISO 9001, address the lack of compliance maintenance head-on by enforcing a yearly certification schedule: Once we receive our certification, we can expect auditors to come and audit us each year. And if in any given year they find out we have too many major non-conformities, our certification is at risk.

How to address this myth:

Continuous Improvement has to be baked into everything we do - not as a separate item but as part of each team process. We’re playing the long game and we have to equip ourselves accordingly. Every decision, every process step, everything we come up with, we have to ask ourselves: “How does this serve the company in the long run?” Moreover, we have to ensure we have people within our teams with available resources to ask this question and take the necessary corrective actions. Quality cannot be an afterthought or an outsourced responsibility - it has to become the essence of what each of us does daily.

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And that’s how we steer our organization toward long-term success. By seeing compliance as a driver of growth and security, rather than a burden, we not only cultivate a culture of quality and continuous improvement but also position our business as a reliable provider and partner.

Happy World Quality Week 2024!

Next, see how to manage the human side of a transformation:

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

So many processes work great on paper but fall apart when put into practice.

That’s because process designs are static. What makes them dynamic is constant, proactive updates to reflect the ever changing reality. Without those updates - i.e. without Continuous Process Improvement - every process becomes obsolete in no time.

So, how do we continuously improve our processes?

Read on 👇

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⛔️ NOT the Way to Go

During the height of Corona, I flew home, rented a car, and after a week of driving around, I went back to the airport to return it. Simple enough, right? I parked the car in the designated return area - which was the car park under the airport - and took the lift up. I expected to walk into the terminal and out towards the subway, but that’s when things got interesting.

The lift doors opened, and there was this massive barrier all around, with two very helpful signs at both ends saying, “NOT an entrance!” Now, when you’re searching for the entrance, you really don’t care about all the places that are NOT an entrance - that list is pretty long and useless. I was left with the only option to take the lift back down to the car park and live there forever.

So, I did the only thing I could think of: I walked in through the "non-entrance." Immediately, a staff member jumped up because I’d crossed through a restricted area. He started yelling, “That’s NOT the entrance!” I said, “Fantastic. Where IS the entrance then?” He had no idea - his entire job was to guard the non-entrance. He wanted me to go back to the car park, and I refused to enter into this labyrinth they’d created. Not knowing what to do with me, he called security.

Thankfully, the security guy was someone I could reason with. He explained that the barriers were up because of Corona to manage the flow of people - which I already knew. The problem? They only planned for people arriving to pick up cars, not returning them. I broke the flow of their human traffic plan - except there were no other people around to disturb. In the end, he kindly escorted me through the actual airport entrance (and exit, as in this case).

Now, you might think that this is an isolated case because of Corona and so on. But airports are my absolute nightmare - such a process mess, every single time! My husband already jokes that I should carry a stack of business cards to hand out whenever we fly, but that can easily deforest a region the size of the Amazon. It might be better to just tattoo a QR code on my forehead 🙄

🔄 Continuous Improvement Process (CIP)

We don’t have to look very far to see examples of the above incident everywhere around us. Governments and state administrations often stack new laws, rules, and regulations on top of old ones, without much regard for how they fit together. Add some time into the mix and we have a perfect mess of contradictory steps, impossible to follow. For instance, you need a water supply to get permission to build a house, but you can’t get connected to the water supply network unless you already have permission to build the house. Catch-22 🧐

That said, continuous process improvement is essential. Nothing stays static, and processes must evolve to keep up with the current reality. So, how do we ensure that each process improvement indeed improves things? These three aspects must be in place:

1. The process must cover all possible use cases (unlike the airport example above). This must be true when first designing it, but it also applies when changing it.

2. All process interfaces must be identified and reviewed (unlike the water supply example above). Again, this must be true when first designing it, but any time a process gets changed we must ensure that:

   1. the list of process interfaces is updated accordingly, and

   2. all interfacing processes are also changed to remain consistent.

3. After implementing the changes, we must verify that our implementation solves the initial problem. Too often we get buried in the details of what we do, so we need this final check from a high-level, end-to-end perspective.

⚙️ PDSA/PDCA Cycle

I’ve already discussed the PDSA/PDCA Cycle (see here), but now I’d like to dive into more detail.

PDSA/PDCA stands for Plan → Do → Study/Check → Act:

1. Plan: Enable the execution.

2. Do: Execute.

3. Study/Check: Analyze the execution for things to improve.

4. Act: Improve; then start from the beginning.

The PDSA/PDCA cycle is the essence of the Continuous Improvement Process (CIP). It was developed during the industrial age and originates from manufacturing. This means it applies to the continuous improvement of both processes and physical products.

Below is a breakdown of the steps, distinguishing between process and product, along with the responsible roles:

Notice also the name Continuous Improvement Process (CIP). This is different from Continuous Process Improvement (CPI). CIP refers to the ongoing improvement of everything - products, processes, services, etc. In contrast, CPI focuses solely on improving processes.

And here’s where the confusion begins: Every process, by nature, involves a cycle of continuous improvement. That’s the general logic - we plan to do something, we do it, then we check on how we’ve done it, and we improve. But each process also handles a different type of work product*, such as a process, project, program, product, service, etc. Business Process Management focuses mainly on the processes, which is why it’s important to distinguish between the process and the process work products.

* NOTE: If the process roles are the subjects in each process, the process work products are the objects.

This layer of abstraction can be tricky to understand, but it becomes clearer once we start thinking about measurements and metrics (i.e. the Study vs. Check step) that show us what we need to improve:

As shown in the table, when checking the quality of a process work product, we focus only on that specific work product. However, to improve the quality of the overall process, one data point isn't enough. We need measurements that provide insights into how to improve the process as a whole, ensuring that all work products improve as a result, not just a single instance.

♻️ 3E Process Lifecycle

Now that we understand the difference between CIP and CPI, let’s focus on the latter - how to improve specifically the processes.

The logic follows the PDSA cycle, but the first (Plan) and last (Act) steps overlap: improving a process for the next iteration means (re)designing it. My BPM colleagues and I often wrote the Plan step as Plan/Replan or Plan/Update, which led me to develop a simplified three-step lifecycle, which I call the 3E Process Lifecycle:

Establish

In this step, we design or update the process, ensuring that:

1. The process covers all possible use cases.

2. All process interfaces are identified and updated as needed.

3. Required measurements are put in place.

We also make provisions for the successful process execution, such as configuring the supporting IT systems, creating/updating documents, forms, templates, dashboards, etc.

Finally, we train those who (will) execute the process and inform any relevant stakeholders.

Certain processes (e.g. firefighting, first aid, security, flying planes) require extensive practical training and repetition. Communication, training, and overall alignment shouldn’t be neglected simply because we’ve hired professionals and they know what to do.

Execute

In this step, we carry out the process as designed/planned.

Evaluate

In this step, we collect and analyze the data based on our established measurements, and we identify Opportunities for Improvement (OFIs). Then, we return to the Establish step to redesign the process, incorporating these OFIs.

Note that the 3E Lifecycle can also be used for services and other areas where we cannot fix the output once it’s executed, and especially if it’s already delivered (e.g. software). We can only fix the next iteration/instance of it.

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And that's how we keep processes working in practice - by continuously updating and improving them as our reality changes. And by doing so, we also ensure end-to-end alignment, transparency, and efficiency.

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Effective communication is the key to success.

Even minor tweaks in how we communicate can make a huge difference - and it’s easier than you might think. Effective communication isn’t just about avoiding mistakes. It’s about using every interaction to build stronger relationships and get closer to our goals.

So how do we do that?

Read on 👇

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📧 Reply-All: The Button Made in Hell

One fine day I received the following work email:

“Hey, everyone, we got a new Head of [Insert Random Department], Patrick [Insert Generic Last Name]. He’ll be running things from [Some City] and leading our [Some Boring Initiative]. Let’s all give him a big warm welcome!”

And I was like, “Cool… Who’s Patrick? Also, why am I getting this? Ah, I see: everyone’s getting it. All 50,000+ people in the company.” No big deal, just a tiny little screw-up.

So, 20 minutes later, as I was still at my desk, bam - 30 welcoming Reply-All emails! Because, clearly, we all needed to individually and very publicly roll out the red carpet for Patrick. I shut my laptop thinking, “Nope, not today,” and headed home. In the half an hour it took me to get there, I received another 40 Reply-All emails. Apparently, Patrick needed that much love.

Being the hero that no one asked for, I hit Reply-All (ironic, I know!) and said, “Hey, folks, I only received around 70 Reply-All emails so far. I’m sure you can do much better than that.” Sent that out, only to get slapped with 5 more Reply-All emails before I even blinked. Patrick must’ve been feeling like a rockstar by that point.

Then people started replying just to me, saying, “Wow, you said what we’re all thinking!” One even went, “Try unsubscribing, if you can 😉” To which I responded, “Nah, I’m just gonna legally change my name to Patrick and embrace my fate.”

But wait - it got better! Even Patrick jumped into the chaos with his own Reply-All just to say “Thanks” to everyone. Sure, let’s fuel this dumpster fire a bit more, Patrick.

Then the original sender chimed in with another Reply-All, “Apologies, the initial email was somehow sent to the entire company. Please DO NOT reply to all!” Oh, what a brilliant idea! But, at that point, it was just a voice crying in the wilderness. All we could do was simply sit there and wait for the email apocalypse to burn itself out.

📰 7 C’s of Effective Communication

Communication, both in business and in personal life, is guided by the 7 C’s that guarantee its effectiveness:

1. Clarity: The message is clear and easily understood.

2. Conciseness: The message is brief and to the point, avoiding unnecessary information.

3. Correctness: The message is accurate and free of errors.

4. Completeness: All necessary information is provided, so the message is fully understood.

5. Concreteness: Specific facts and details support the message, making it more impactful.

6. Consideration: The message addresses the audience's needs, feelings, and perspectives.

7. Courtesy: The message is respectful and polite, maintaining positive relationships.

📢 Communication Methods & Skills

📖 Overview

There are four different methods of communicating which call for eight different communication skills, depending on who is delivering the message:

Here's a breakdown of each skill:

Verbal Communication

• Active Role: Speaking

  • Clarity - speaking clearly and concisely

  • Articulation - pronouncing words properly

  • Tone - adjusting our tone to suit the context and audience

  • Vocabulary - using appropriate words for the situation

  • Persuasion - convincing others through logical arguments or emotional appeal

  • Storytelling - engaging others with relatable anecdotes or examples

• Passive Role: Listening

  • Active Listening - focusing on the speaker without interrupting

  • Empathy - understanding and sharing the feelings of the speaker

  • Note-taking - jotting down key points for future reference

  • Clarification - asking questions to confirm understanding

  • Feedback - providing constructive responses to show we understood

Non-Verbal Communication

• Active Role: Expressing

  • Body Language - using gestures, posture, and facial expressions to convey meaning

  • Eye Contact - maintaining appropriate eye contact to show engagement

  • Proxemics - understanding personal space and physical distance

  • Appearance - dressing appropriately to send the right message

  • Pacing and Pausing - using pauses and movement to emphasize points

• Passive Role: Observing

  • Body Language Interpretation - read others' gestures, posture, and facial cues

  • Facial Expression Recognition - understanding emotions through facial cues

  • Mirroring - subtly mimicking others’ body language to build rapport

  • Contextual Awareness - recognizing how context affects non-verbal cues

  • Emotional Intelligence - perceiving and responding to the emotional tone of the conversation

Visual Communication

• Active Role: Creating

  • Design Skills - creating visually appealing and clear graphics or presentations

  • Data Visualization - presenting complex data in an understandable format (charts, graphs)

  • Creativity - using creative elements to make visual content engaging

  • Consistency - maintaining a consistent visual style or branding

  • Typography - choosing appropriate fonts and text layouts

• Passive Role: Interpreting

  • Visual Literacy - understanding and interpreting visual information correctly

  • Attention to Detail - noticing subtle elements in visual content

  • Critical Thinking - evaluating the effectiveness and accuracy of visual content

  • Aesthetic Appreciation - recognizing and appreciating good design

  • Contextual Interpretation - understanding how visual elements relate to the broader message

Written Communication

• Active Role: Writing

  • Clarity - writing in a clear and concise manner

  • Grammar and Spelling - using correct grammar and spelling

  • Structure - organizing content logically (introduction, body, conclusion)

  • Tone - matching the tone to the audience and purpose

  • Persuasion - crafting compelling arguments or narratives

  • Editing - reviewing and revising for clarity, coherence, and impact

• Passive Role: Reading

  • Comprehension - understanding the main ideas and details in written content

  • Critical Reading - analyzing and evaluating the quality of the writing

  • Note-taking - highlighting or jotting down important points

  • Contextual Understanding - grasping the context and subtext of the content

  • Feedback - providing constructive criticism or asking insightful questions

🎀 Benefits of Improved Communication Skills

Improved communication skills can lead to numerous personal and professional benefits, such as:

1. Stronger Relationships: Clear and effective communication strengthens relationships, reducing misunderstandings and fostering trust in both personal and professional settings.

2. Stronger Networking: Improved communication skills make it easier to build and maintain a professional network, which can lead to more opportunities and collaborations.

3. Career Advancement: Strong communication skills lead to better job performance, leadership abilities, and opportunities for career growth.

4. Increased Confidence: Being able to express ourselves clearly and understand others enhances our self-confidence, making social interactions smoother and less stressful.

5. Emotional Intelligence: Good communicators are better at recognizing and managing emotions, both their own and others’, leading to more empathetic and supportive interactions.

6. Conflict Resolution: Effective communication helps in resolving conflicts more efficiently, as we can articulate our perspective and understand others’ viewpoints.

7. Improved Persuasion: Enhanced communication skills allow us to present ideas more convincingly, whether we're negotiating, selling, or leading a team.

8. Greater Influence: Being good communicators allows us to influence and inspire others more effectively, whether in team settings, public speaking, or one-on-one interactions.

9. Enhanced Learning: Clear communication helps in better understanding and retaining information, making learning more effective.

10. Stress Reduction: Clear communication reduces the chances of misunderstandings, which can lower stress levels in both personal and professional situations.

📌 Do’s and Don’ts of Business Communication

Below I’ve provided specific personal recommendations for implementing the 7 C’s in various business scenarios across the different communication types and methods.

For the organizational recommendations and the list of business communication types, see my previous post:

1️⃣ Internal Communication: Top-Down (For Managers)

✴️ Actions speak louder than words. If top leaders say “Our people are our greatest asset”, but then they only simulate addressing employee needs, and don’t even blink an eye when hundreds of people resign, what is the real message here? And are such “leaders” going to be trusted and followed?

For the same reason, I really hate when people say, “I’m sorry but I didn’t do it on purpose.” Well, I’m sorry, too, but that’s no excuse. We can’t, for example, accidentally kill someone and go, “Oops, I didn’t mean to!” As if that suddenly makes it okay. We all have to live with the consequences, so let's make sure that what we do is actually on purpose.

✴️ No double standards. As a continuation of the previous point, we must also be mindful of what we say and do because we need to be a living example of the principles we want to establish within our team. It really won’t work if we say one thing but do another. The opposite is just as true: If we’re the most adamant about upholding the team and company values, then we’ll be recognized as true leaders, be trusted, and be followed naturally.

My team and I were in a meeting with our Line Manager. It was a team workshop, the aim of which was to develop our long-term strategy.

When we started the meeting, our manager proposed a protocol for reaching an agreement. There were three options:

1. We agree = the suggestion is accepted.
2. We can support it = we don’t necessarily agree, but we won’t stand in the way of the suggestion being accepted.
3. We disagree = if we have even one person actively disagreeing, then the suggestion cannot be accepted, so we should drop it and move on to the next.

We said we could try this out and see how it goes.

Immediately on the first topic, a coworker and I disagreed with our manager’s suggestion. Our manager explained his reasoning, we explained ours, and we still disagreed. It was a deadlock. We went in circles for a while, after which I said, “Well, if we go back to the protocol, we’re in pt.3 - we have two people disagreeing with the suggestion, so let’s drop it and move on to the next topic.”

To which our manager said, “Before we move on, I’d like to remind both of you that you’ll also need my support for topics you two bring up because, after all, I am the manager of this team!”

Wow, just wow…

✴️ Realize our impact. Our job title and/or position in the team, project, company hierarchy, etc. determines how our message is perceived. We have to keep in mind that (most of the time) we don’t represent only ourselves and our own views.

Once I was in a discussion with the organizational managers of the transformation project I was leading. They had come up with a process approach and wanted my opinion, before pitching the idea to the VP. I saw a few problems with their solution, which I expressed. And they weren’t particularly happy, because they were very enthusiastic about what they had come up with.

In the break, one of them came to me, pulled me aside, and asked, “Will you support us if we pitch this idea anyway?”

I was taken aback. “Of course, I will,” I said. “I never thought otherwise. This is your organization, and my role is merely a consulting one. You certainly have to do what you think is best, and I will support you with whatever I can.”

“That’s great,” he said. “We also highly value your opinion and we’ll take your points into consideration. However, for the future, please make sure you clearly relay the message that we can also count on your support.”

That’s one of the lessons I’ll never forget.

✴️ Realize our lack of impact. Same as with the previous point, we carry certain accountability as per the organizational or project structure, but there’s also a limit to it. We cannot expect or mandate things we don’t have any power over.

The Head of Legal asked that he be sent the weekly reports from the project I was leading. He wasn’t a project stakeholder or involved in any way, so there was no reason for that. But I understood why he needed the data, so I agreed.

Imagine my surprise when a couple of weeks later he said that this format didn’t work for him. He wanted our report formatted in a completely different way, which would create significant overhead for my team, not to mention we had already agreed with our stakeholders on the format we were using.

Therefore, I had to remind him that we were doing him a favor by sending him the data in the first place and that, if he wanted it formatted in any other way, he was more than welcome to do that himself. End of story.

Here I want to highlight that even when we have formal power over things, and especially over people (as in, we are their Line Managers), we’ll establish a lot more respectful, trustworthy, and long-lasting relationships if we don’t impose ourselves and our opinions on them.

We were in a so-called “calibration meeting”. That meant that we, as Line Managers, had to agree on common measures for our direct reports. The meeting was scheduled and led by our Line Manager.

One of my fellow managers had come up with a rating for an employee that didn’t reflect the reality and we were all trying to convince him to change it. He didn’t want to, though. At some point, our manager said, “OK, let’s take this offline, only you and me. I want to explain once again why rating your employee in this way is not the best message you can deliver to them, and I hope I’ll be able to convince you to change it.”

Notice the words our manager used - “convince you”. Subtle hints like these reveal what a person is really thinking - they don’t want to impose themselves; they truly believe the decision is yours and all they want to do is try to help.

✴️ Drop the employee mentality (especially valid for first-time managers). Employees and managers don’t only do different things, they must also think differently. As managers (same as with parents), we should establish the right environment and help everyone grow into the best version of themselves, not be more concerned with whether we’re friends with everyone.

One of my managers was forwarding to us, his team, the emails he was receiving from his manager exactly as he had received them, no change, not even an “FYI”. And when we completed the tasks requested or provided the information, he was forwarding our emails back to his manager exactly in the same way, zero value-add.

Additionally, when he attended leadership offsites, he was writing in the team chat all the time, quoting what was being said word for word, minute after minute. No filter, no executive summary after the event, no nothing. I had to switch off the notifications of my team chat so I could do any work.

However, the worst was that he was doing exactly what each of us was doing - delivering the actual tasks, instead of managing the delivery. His justification was that we didn’t have enough resources to cover all the work. Of course, we didn’t - no one ever does. That still doesn’t mean that the manager should stop managing. As a result, we were not a team - we were a bunch of individual contributors reporting to the same person, with no one bringing us together. He also couldn't “sell our work” and “get more work to us” - we had to do this internal promotion and marketing by ourselves.

✴️ No bullsh*tting. One of the fastest ways to lose trust and respect is to be vague. Trying to gloss over things or intentionally confuse others looks like there’s something to hide - which is usually true. No matter how hard the conversation is, we have to say it like it is - we don’t have to be rude, but we don’t have to sugarcoat it either. That’s why we’re managers, after all - if it were an easy job, everyone would be signing up for it.

I used to have this manager who was all talk and no action. He was always able to find someone to deliver the tasks he then claimed credit for. And since I was the only one reporting to him, that someone was usually me.

We were attending a meeting with other managers, discussing some problem. My manager immediately jumped to the occasion, offering support. “Oh, don’t you worry,” he told everyone. “I will take care of this!”

I was rather surprised that he committed to do something, but I kept quiet.

After a while, the conversation circled back to the same problem. My manager went again, “Oh, you shouldn’t worry - we’ll take care of it!”

Ah, so suddenly it was “we”?! That was more like the manager I knew.

When the conversation came back to the same topic for a third time, my manager said, “I already told you - no need to worry! Irina will take care of it.”

Right, of course…

✴️ No surprises. People should always know where they stand, and the year-end performance review should be no surprise. As managers, our job is to provide immediate feedback, no matter if it’s good or bad. When we reach the year-end performance review, the person being reviewed must know what to expect. This should not be a traumatic event - for either side.

One year-end performance review of mine was an utter disaster: I was told so many things that I did wrong during the year that I hadn’t realized or even remembered. Moreover, despite my manager not being interested in hearing my review of him, I dished it out. I felt a lot of what he was accusing me of was actually his bad management. He and I turned a 1-hour meeting into a 3.5-hour shouting match. I made sure it was as terrible for him, as it was for me.

The only problem was that, as per the official process, his review of me was what mattered. There was no official process for my review of him. Subordinates in general, in most companies, don’t review their managers (which I think is a huge mistake). And HR escalations are typically not a great idea.

For the record, this manager and I parted on good terms after all - I'll have to explain how I managed that in another looooooong post.

✴️ “No change” is also news. One of the manager’s tasks is to communicate the strategic objectives and their priorities. However, sometimes the priorities change, and we tend to focus on and communicate only the changes. That leaves everyone with the impression that the changes are now the highest priority. After all, if anything else was the highest priority, we would have at least mentioned it, no? See more here.

I was designing the process for creating, prioritizing, communicating, and tracking the Leadership Strategic Objectives. When the Process Owner and I were discussing the communication part, I showed him a few bullet points I had drafted on what that communication must include. It was such an eye-opener for him that, indeed, people should also know when nothing changes. And that we shouldn’t cancel recurring status meetings if we have nothing new to say - we should repeat what we said the last time because that is still the current status.

2️⃣ Internal Communication: Bottom-Up (For Employees)

✴️ Bring both solutions AND problems. Some managers expect employees to only bring solutions and avoid highlighting problems, aiming for a positive, can-do attitude. While I get why they want this, here’s what I’m thinking:

1. Optimism vs. pessimism is very much part of the character. If we don’t want pessimistic people around, we shouldn’t hire them. But if we already have them, we might as well listen to what they have to say - being pessimistic doesn’t mean they’re always wrong.

2. Sarcasm is very much part of the work environment. If we don’t want people to be sarcastic, we must ensure that we, as managers, have established (and keep maintaining and improving) the right work environment for our people to thrive.

3. If one of my employees spots a problem, and especially if they don’t have a solution, I, as their manager, want to know. Here is why:

   1. First, I might be able to find a solution a lot easier and faster than they can (because I’m looking from a higher place).

   2. Second, (since I’m having a bigger circle of influence) I’ll most probably be able to open a door for them where they thought they couldn’t go and, thus, have discarded the path as a possible solution.

   3. And third, if the problem is time-sensitive, I don’t want them wasting time trying to fight it on their own when I’m there to help (in exactly those types of situations).

Therefore, as employees, whenever we spot a problem, we should make our managers aware of it - they will then decide whether to interfere or not.

Which brings me to my next point:

✴️ Escalate when there’s still time to react. We want to be able to prevent problems, not only run around putting out fires. Therefore, the best time to raise a concern is as soon as we identify a risk, not after it has become a full-blown issue.

And if the below is the corporate culture we have, it needs fixing:

✴️ Don’t escalate people without notice. This notice serves the following purpose:

1. Understanding: It allows both parties to explain their perspectives. Conflicts involve at least two viewpoints - ours and the other person’s. We need to give them a chance to share their side and to understand how we think and feel.

2. Allowing amends: If we’ve shared our concerns and warned about escalating if the situation doesn’t improve, and the other person still doesn’t want to work with us on improving things, then we can go ahead and escalate them - but not before. It’s only fair that a person has the chance to fix things before it’s too late.

3️⃣ Internal Communication: Lateral (For Everyone)

Verbal & Non-Verbal

✴️ Never say bad/sensitive things about others. When we share information, it should only involve us and the people who are present. If it’s not, it’s gossip. The real issue with gossip is that we lose control over our message. How it’s perceived now depends on the listener's relationship with the person we’re talking about, not our relationship with the listener. Moreover, the listener might start thinking we talk the same way about them when they’re not around.

I once had a new team member who was very quiet, and others didn’t know what to make of her at first. But she quickly proved she knew her stuff. More importantly, she gradually became friends with everyone. People were coming to me amazed, telling me how she never spoke a bad word about anyone. Her popularity literally skyrocketed.

✴️ Discuss mistakes one-on-one. This is another spin on the point about escalating people: We should always give the benefit of the doubt at least the first time around. Maybe the person was really trying hard and it was an honest mistake - and we’ll ruin all their long and hard efforts by being inconsiderate.

Back in the day, I was in charge of getting our ads printed in the newsletter. I received the text from the Senior Consultant, turned it into an image, and sent it off. Only then did I realize there was a mistake. Without thinking, I pointed it out in front of the whole team. The Senior Consultant admitted the mistake, stopped the print, and handed the text to the Junior Consultant to fix. I knew the Junior Consultant had written the ad, but somehow I’d forgotten, focusing only on getting the job done.

Later that day, when everyone else had left, the Junior Consultant said to me, “Next time you spot a mistake, I’d appreciate it if you come to me directly instead of announcing it to the whole team.” I felt really bad - I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. But she was right - and that’s why this lesson has stuck with me ever since.

✴️ Consider the consequences. Building on the previous point, being honest is great, especially if we don’t have to bear the consequences, but someone certainly will. So before speaking up, we can take a moment to consider:

• who we’re talking to (their position and circle of influence),

• who will be affected, and

• how they will be affected.

We can’t foresee every possible outcome, but many scenarios are obvious if we just stop and think.

I was sent to represent the IT Department in a meeting with the Vice Presidents (VPs) of all other departments because our VP of IT Operations couldn’t attend. She needed me there to answer only one question: Would the computers be ready to set up the IT training rooms in time for the Sales department’s training? She told me she’d use computers from a Marketing order to meet the deadline for Sales and then reorder for Marketing, since their needs weren’t as urgent.

At the meeting, I relayed this exactly as she had told me. When I got back, everyone knew what I had said, and my VP was furious. Apparently, the VPs of Marketing and Sales started arguing over “their” computers, and my VP was caught in the middle. It turned out I was only supposed to say, “Yes, the training rooms will be ready on time,” and not provide any additional details. 🫣

✴️ If you don’t know something or made a mistake, admit it. (This connects to the earlier point about managers not bullsh*tting.) Since companies are compared to machines, we’ve been taught we should know and be able to do everything because we’d be a bad machine piece if we didn’t. However, I believe the human factor is stronger than the machine factor - and acting with integrity pays off in the long run.

I’m always ready to stand up against injustice, but if someone apologizes for their mistake, I’m immediately disarmed. My goal is achieved: they’ve recognized their mistake, are genuinely sorry, and will make sure not to repeat it. We can use the same disarming tactic when we make a mistake.

✴️ Listen with curiosity. We’ve all heard about “active listening,” but what does it actually mean? It’s listening to truly understand, not just to judge or wait for a chance to speak. It’s about learning and capturing the other person’s point of view. The best part is, once we understand where they’re coming from, it’s much easier to present our own perspective. Besides, sometimes people only want to feel heard.

I was leading a process audit when a colleague we’d invited barged in, saying the audit was pointless and he didn’t see why he should participate, especially since he had real work to do. His attitude was clearly meant to start a conflict, but instead of arguing, I was really curious about why he felt the audit was a waste of time. I asked him some questions and listened to his reasons. Talking about it clearly made him less confrontational.

I told him he could, of course, leave if he wanted to, but since we were discussing his process, it might be worth staying for a while, just to see if it was any relevant. He agreed.

My co-auditor continued with the audit, and this colleague initially worked on his laptop but, little by little, he got interested in the discussion. So much so that, by the end, he was asking the questions and was genuinely curious about some process steps that he didn’t know others performed. He stayed for the whole session and, when leaving, thanked everyone for the insightful discussion.

✴️ Keep it short. These days, attention spans are short. With so much going on around us, staying focused is rare. That’s why we need to grab attention quickly, or we won’t stand a chance.

To do this, we should treat communication like a sales pitch: provide just enough information to spark interest and then leave room for questions. If people don’t ask any, they’re not interested enough, and we’ve saved time and effort by avoiding unnecessary explanations.

I was helping a fellow manager with hiring for his team. After each interview, we compared notes on the candidates. At one point, he asked, “May I give you some feedback too?” I agreed, eager to hear his thoughts. He said, “When you ask a question, don’t start explaining it before the candidate has a chance to respond. If they don’t understand, they’ll ask for clarification. If they do understand, there’s no need to explain. And if they think they understand but answer incorrectly, you’ll know this immediately. But that will also reveal something about their character.”

Notice how many people ask a question and in the same breath continue with, “Because if it’s this, then it means that, and blah-blah-blah... [3 minutes of talking]... and that’s why I’m asking.” And the other person goes, “Uhm, what was the question again?” See example here.

Since then I always remind myself to simply ask my question and then shut up.

✴️ Check your trust level. I once discussed trust with my manager. I felt he gave too much trust too quickly. My approach was to start with trust at 50% - if someone proves they’re trustworthy, I increase it; if they don’t, I decrease it. My manager, on the other hand, started with 100% trust for everyone he didn’t know - if they proved trustworthy, they stayed at 100%; if not, their trust level dropped. These two approaches lead to very different ways of working with people, and it shows.

I hired a new employee, and her first request was to join all my meetings. I explained that, as a manager, I was there to contribute to decision-making, while she wanted to attend just to listen.

She was seriously worried. “But if I don't attend, how will I know what’s going on,” she asked.

I explained that information-sharing happens afterwards - via Minutes of Meetings (MoMs), for example.

“Oh, ok,” she said, visibly calmed down. “If I can read the MoMs, then that’s fine. I only want to be informed anyway.”

Such events clearly show where someone’s trust level is initially set 😉

See more here on meeting attendees.

✴️ It’s just work. I love my job, but I’ve come to realize that most people hate theirs. They do the bare minimum just to get paid and don’t want to think or talk about work outside of office hours. They want to leave the office and forget about it all. Passion for what we do is a luxury these days, and until that changes, we need to be aware that these different ways of thinking lead to different ways of working.

I know many people are happy to do whatever their clients or managers ask for, as long as they get paid. I, however, can’t work just for the sake of money. For me, it’s more important to add value. And if I don’t see how I’m adding value or don’t believe I am, I completely lose my motivation. See more here.

✴️ It’s nothing personal. This is a hard pill to swallow for many. To begin with, we’re always dealing with a kid trapped inside an adult’s body. And even though business is for adults, our emotional intelligence still has a long way to go.

Moreover, for centuries business used to be personal - individuals serving individuals. But since the first Industrial Revolution, we’ve had mass production and most of us don’t own companies, don’t get to interact with our customers, and don’t interact with our company owners either. Everyone has lost their face. Companies are legal entities that cast big enough shadows for everyone to hide in them, making people-related processes more and more dehumanizing.

There are two ways to approach this:

1. Whatever happens, it’s just business - and as the saying goes, “All is fair in love and war.”

2. Separate the person from their opinion or idea - and discuss the opinion/idea only, not the person (even if that person is us).

How often do we see someone comment online, only to be met with replies like, “Are you nuts?! Did you even read the post??” Then another person chimes in with, “This is the stupidest thing ever - just shut up!” And someone else adds, “Go hide under a rock!!” And so on, and so forth. Those are some exceptionally thoughtful and compassionate discussions at the highest intellectual level. We can learn a lot from them - particularly about how NOT to have a conversation.

✴️ Contact Points have responsibilities. Being a Contact Point means three things:

1. We get our team’s perspective before the meeting.

2. We represent our team’s perspective during the meeting (not just our own).

3. We share the meeting results with our team.

We use Contact Points because we can’t invite the entire company to every meeting. However, when a Contact Point attends, it’s assumed that the whole team is represented. So, as Contact Points, we must ensure we accurately reflect our team’s views. If we can't do that, it’s better not to attend, so no one mistakenly thinks the team was represented.

Note that managers are their team’s Contact Points by default.

Visual & Written

✴️ Imitation is NOT a compliment - inspiration is. Everything we do is just remixing old ideas in new ways. Very few things are 100% original. I get constantly inspired by everything and everyone, and I’m truly happy when I can inspire others too - but to create something of their own, not to copy what I did word for word. There’s no progress in imitation.

A colleague and I were tasked with creating processes for two neighboring departments. Since I finished first, she asked if she could use mine as a base, and I agreed. The next day, my inbox was flooded with notifications of all my process pages being copied. I went back to her to explain that I agreed to her using my processes as inspiration, not as a carbon copy. As it turned out, she and I were on the same page - her intern didn’t understand the assignment and copied everything.

✴️ Careful what you write. Written text leaves a trace. And we never know which inbox that trace might end up in. Therefore, before hitting Send, it’s best to consider if we’d be okay if our message goes public - because the spicier it is, the bigger the chance it will.

✴️ When angry, write now but send later. People often say, “Don’t write when you’re angry.” I say, “Write it now, but send it later.” Writing in the moment captures all our feelings and reasons, but it’s wise to wait before sending. We can sleep on it, review it the next day, soften the tone, and then send it.

✴️ No “hello” only (specifically for chats). If we want to ask or discuss something, we shouldn’t just say “hi” and wait. We should follow up our greeting with the actual message. A simple “hi” leaves the other person unsure of what we want, and that’s pretty annoying. Personally, I’ve stopped replying to “hello”-only messages altogether.

✴️ Save “thank you” emails. Any written acknowledgment of a job well done (“thank you” emails, cards, references, testimonials, etc.), even if it’s just a one-liner, can be valuable in the future when asking for promotions, searching for new clients, etc. The easiest way to do this is by creating a folder in our email app and storing everything there.

✴️ End with a question. If we want to keep the conversation going, we should end our messages or emails with a question. It encourages the other person to respond, and if they don’t, we have a reason to follow up.

✴️ Ask one question at a time. To ensure all our questions get answered, we have to ask them one at a time. Otherwise, if we send an email with several questions, the recipient might choose to answer only some (i.e. the ones they like). This means a) we’re creating a not-so-friendly atmosphere because we now have to chase someone for not doing something, and b) we have to follow up with more emails anyway.

✴️ Don’t reply to all. The main rule is:

• The person/people we’re talking to should be in the TO: field, and

• the person/people we’re talking about should be in the CC: field.

Everyone else should be out of the email thread. “FYI” emails can be sent later, otherwise, the FYI people will unnecessarily receive the whole correspondence (unless that’s the intention). It’s very similar to the rules for meeting attendees.

✴️ Respect the hierarchy. Additional rules for the CC: field:

• Adding someone’s manager in the CC: field signals an escalation.

• If both our manager and we are in the CC: field, and a response is needed, it's our manager who should reply, not us (unless specified otherwise). If we were expected to reply, we'd be in the TO: field.

✴️ If an email is longer than 5 sentences, call for a meeting (or record a video). Writing a long email takes time, and so does reading and understanding it. Plus, the other person might follow up with questions to clarify. It's often more efficient to have a meeting instead, even if it's just a quick phone call (or a video).

A colleague reviewed one of my documents and left inline comments. I then replied to his comments but, instead of him replying to mine, he simply sent me a link to a Loom video he’d just recorded for me. It was a 5-minute video that clarified all his points, saving us so much time and effort that would have been spent going back and forth with written comments.

✴️ Meeting invites must have an agenda. Without one, it's impossible to:

• decide if we need to attend the meeting,

• prepare for the meeting accordingly, or

• remember what the meeting is about when the time comes.

This also applies to anyone who’s been forwarded the invite. See more here.

My “favorite” scenario is when someone’s manager sends them a one-on-one meeting invite without an agenda. What the person is thinking at that moment ranges from “OMG, I’m being fired!” to “OMG, I’m getting promoted!”, and everything in between. And then they can’t sleep until the meeting actually happens 🙄

✴️ Delay sending messages. It's so typical to spend hours writing, reviewing, and editing an email, and then the moment we hit send, we realize we forgot something important. It used to always be a missing attachment, but now there’s an automatic alert for that. If it’s something else, though, a simple fix is adding a 5- to 10-second delay to our emails (works with any app, including Gmail). This keeps the email in our Outbox for a few seconds, giving us a chance to hit Undo.

4️⃣ External Communication

✴️ Don’t leak internal issues. Just like we don’t want our software bugs to be detected by our customers, we don’t want to transfer our internal issues to our customers either. Whatever “mess” we have should stay with us - the customer doesn’t need to know about it. They have their own mess to deal with and, besides, it leaves a bad impression and makes them wonder if we’re the right provider.

✴️ When servicing customers, everything is YOUR problem. When customers buy our products and services, what they’re actually buying is solutions to their problems. If those products or services don’t work, their problems not only persist but multiply. So, when they come to us with complaints, the worst thing we can say is, “That’s not my/our problem.”

Variations of this response include:

• “Unfortunately, I/we can’t do anything to help you.”

• “It’s our company policy.”

• “That doesn’t depend on me - it’s what I’ve been told to do.”

• “You should talk to whoever designed this process, not me.”

• “It’s not my fault.”

• “I only work here.”

Any of the above, coupled with trying to dismiss the customer or blame them for the issue, is a fast and sure recipe for disaster.

A while back, I went to a Telecom office to find out why the SIM card I bought wasn’t connecting to their network. Before I could explain, the Customer Care Reps told me I needed to pay for a new card. That instantly put me on edge - I’d already paid for one that didn’t work, and now they wanted me to buy another? No way!

The real kicker came when they said the problem was mine, not theirs, because they just worked there and weren’t “representatives” of the Telecom. I had to point out the obvious: I wasn’t there to have coffee with friends; I was there to resolve an issue with their product. If they didn’t consider themselves representatives, they should leave so I could speak with someone who did.

Needless to say, they didn’t resolve my issue. All they did was display their unprofessional behavior.

Sadly, this isn’t an isolated case (see another example here). However, it also means that to stand out from the competition, all we really need to do is offer great customer service.

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And that’s how we turn small communication improvements into a powerful tool for success. And by doing so, we build stronger relationships, enhance collaboration, and drive progress toward our personal and professional goals.

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Miscommunication can lead to serious issues.

Imagine delivering a product that’s completely useless because you misunderstood the customers’ requirements. Such errors can turn otherwise successful projects into costly mistakes. Communication breakdowns can disrupt even the best of plans.

So, how can you ensure your communication stays clear and effective?

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🛸 NASA Losing a Spacecraft Due to Mismatched Units

In September 1999, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter was destroyed after nearly ten months of travel, all because of a simple yet devastating mistake in unit conversion. The $125-million spacecraft, designed to study Mars' climate and act as a communications relay for the Mars Polar Lander, was built by Lockheed Martin using English units (inches, feet, and pounds). Meanwhile, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), responsible for navigation, worked in metric units (millimeters, meters, and newtons). When the measurements weren’t converted correctly, the orbiter ended up flying too low into Mars’ atmosphere, where it burned up.

This mistake showed just how risky miscommunication can be, especially in big space missions. Nobody caught the error during the orbiter’s long 461-million-mile journey to Mars, even though NASA’s rigorous quality control procedures were in place. As a result, the spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere at a dangerously low altitude, leading to its destruction. This event, which should have been a moment of triumph for NASA, turned into a sobering lesson about the importance of precision and oversight in space exploration.

The Mars Climate Orbiter failure was part of a larger pattern of spaceflight mishaps during the late 1990s, often linked to cost-cutting, mismanagement, and insufficient quality control. While some pointed fingers at Lockheed Martin for providing data in English units, NASA officials acknowledged that the error was systemic and reflected broader issues within the space agency's operations. Investigations into the incident revealed gaps in coordination and communication that allowed such a basic discrepancy to go unnoticed, highlighting the need for better safeguards against human error.

This failure also raised concerns about future missions, like the Mars Polar Lander, which had planned to use the orbiter for communication. Analysts warned that the incident could diminish public confidence in NASA's capabilities, despite the agency's historical successes in navigating complex space missions like the Cassini probe. Ironically, while NASA has demonstrated the ability to collaborate effectively with international partners in space, this incident exposed significant challenges with communication and coordination within its own teams in the U.S. - underscoring the importance of consistency and attention to detail in even the most advanced space programs.

🚧 Barriers to Effective Business Communication

In any complex project, the smallest details can make or break the outcome. Misunderstandings or overlooked information, no matter how trivial they may seem, can lead to catastrophic consequences when not properly communicated.

Here’s a game we played as kids (although - as seen on the video - age is irrelevant):

⚠️ What does research show?

Miscommunication can significantly impact a business. According to a survey by Expert Market:

• 86% of employees cite the lack of effective collaboration and communication as the main cause of workplace failures.

• Improving internal comms can improve organizational productivity by as much as 25%.

• 97% of employees believe communication impacts their task efficacy every day.

• 16% of managers feel uncomfortable speaking face-to-face with employees.

• Poor communication is affecting trust for 45% of workers.

• When employees are offered better communication technology and skills, productivity can increase by up to 30%.

• 28% of employees cite poor communication as the reason for not being able to deliver work on time.

• Poor communication in the workplace reportedly accounts for a loss of 7.47 hours per employee, per week. For the average employee, earning a salary of $66,976, that amounts to $12,506 per employee per year in sunk costs. For the whole market, these losses are estimated to be around $37 billion a year.

In another report by Creative Communications & Training, the cost only of email blunders is estimated to range from $420,000 for a 100-people company to $21,000,000 for a 5k-people company.

⚠️ What prevents effective business communication?

1. Language barriers - differences in language, vocabulary, or level of language proficiency

2. Cultural barriers - variations in national/cultural norms, beliefs, and practices

3. Physical barriers - environmental factors like noise, distance, or poor technology (e.g. losing Internet connection)

4. Emotional barriers - personal feelings such as stress, anger, anxiety, or lack of interest (e.g. one hates their job)

5. Perceptual barriers - individual perceptions, preconceived opinions, or biases (incl. towards people)

6. Psychological barriers - lack of ability to read non-verbal cues; mental health issues (e.g. ADHD, ASD) or cognitive conditions (e.g. lack of sleep)

7. Organizational barriers - hierarchical structures, rigid protocols, work in silos, lack of transparency and fierce competition as overall corporate culture

8. Lack of clarity - vague or ambiguous messages (e.g. lack of context)

9. Information overload - receiving too much information at once

10. Poor/selective listening/reading - inattentive or distracted (e.g. playing with the mobile phone or reading emails during meetings); focusing only on parts of the message while ignoring others

11. Wrong communication channel/medium - using an inappropriate channel for the message (e.g. writing instead of talking)

🍀 Benefits of Effective Business Communication

✅ What is business communication?

Business communication is the exchange of information and ideas between individuals within and outside the organization. It’s the process of creating, sharing, listening, and understanding business messages between different groups of people through written and verbal forms. Its goal is to facilitate smooth operations and foster positive relationships within and outside the company to achieve the business objectives.

✅ What are the different types of Business Communication?

Business communication splits into the following types:

• Internal - within the organization

  • Top-down - managers to their subordinates

  • Bottom-up - subordinates to their managers

  • Lateral - coworkers on the same hierarchical level (or independent of it)

• External - between the organization and its customers or other outside parties

✅ Why is business communication important?

Business communication directly impacts various aspects of an organization’s performance and success. Effective business communication has the following benefits:

1. Improved Decision-Making - Clear and accurate communication provides the necessary information for informed and timely decisions.

2. Enhanced Collaboration - Effective communication fosters teamwork and cooperation by ensuring that team members understand their roles and responsibilities.

3. Increased Productivity - Streamlined communication helps reduce misunderstandings and errors, leading to more efficient work processes.

4. Improved Diversity and Inclusion - Clear and open communication fosters an inclusive environment where diverse perspectives are valued, encouraging collaboration and ensuring that all voices are heard and respected within the organization.

5. Better Problem-Solving - Open communication channels enable quick identification and resolution of issues.

6. Better Planning - Effective communication ensures that all necessary information is shared and understood, enabling the development of well-informed and coordinated plans that align with the business goals.

7. Fewer Conflicts - Clear communication minimizes the risk of misunderstandings and errors, ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

8. Effective Conflict Resolution - Addressing concerns and conflicts through clear communication can lead to more constructive and amicable solutions.

9. Strengthened Relationships - Positive and transparent communication builds trust and rapport with colleagues, clients, and stakeholders.

10. Greater Employee Engagement - Clear communication helps employees understand organizational goals and their contributions, boosting motivation and job satisfaction.

11. Enhanced Reputation - Consistent and professional communication improves the organization’s public image and credibility.

12. Informed Stakeholders - Keeping stakeholders updated ensures alignment and support for business initiatives and strategies.

💞 How Organizations Can Improve Their Business Communication

🎀 Official Strategy & Channels

It all starts with establishing official communication channels. If we don’t, the non-official communication channels (aka gossiping) will flourish. People talk, so we might as well direct the discussion, rather than leave it to chance, or worse - try to swim against the flow.

These are some simple steps of how to establish official company communication:

1. Create an internal and external Communication Strategy (usually, that’s handled by a dedicated team that also deals with e.g. Branding and Public Relations).

2. Use an app (such as e.g. Threads or Twist).

3. Don’t overload people with information. Instead, focus on the essence and the best channel to deliver it (which is what the Communications Strategy should be all about).

Furthermore, consider establishing a transparent company culture in general.

A company I worked at had a Communications Strategy and a software tool for internal discussions. But employees were constantly bombarded by all-hands meetings on all levels (e.g. team, department, project, entire company). All kinds of topics were discussed non-stop. Moreover, people who clearly had a lot of free time on their hands were starting various discussions in the internal tool every day. However, the majority of the organization, i.e. the ones who were busy working, didn’t have the time to read the discussions in the tool or attend all-hands meetings that didn’t add value (i.e. didn’t clarify how their work is being impacted). So let’s just say that the Communications Strategy of this company was not very successful.

🎀 Additional Tips

1. Promoting a Communication Culture - Encouraging a work environment that values openness, feedback, and continuous dialogue.

   • Example: Company “town hall” meetings where employees are encouraged to ask questions, share updates, or offer suggestions, fostering openness and dialogue.

2. Providing Training and Development - Offering communication skills training, including active listening, conflict resolution, and presentation skills.

   • Example: HR providing workshops on active listening, emotional intelligence, and conflict resolution to improve communication skills across all levels of the organization.

3. Encouraging Leadership Communication - Ensuring leaders model effective communication by being clear, transparent, and approachable.

   • Example: Leaders holding regular “open door” hours or sending out weekly video messages to transparently discuss company goals and updates.

4. Conducting Regular Check-ins - Holding regular team meetings and one-on-ones to address ongoing issues, align on objectives, and maintain engagement.

   • Example: Managers scheduling one-on-one meetings with team members to discuss progress, address concerns, and align on goals.

I picked up a best practice for how to establish a constant communication flow from one of my managers - I always set up these two types of meetings:

1. One-on-One Sync (1 hour weekly or bi-weekly) - This is the time the manager gives to each of their employees. The employee is free to use this time however they want. Some employees talk about how they feel, others provide their tasks status or escalate, others discuss their career progression, others give feedback on their managers performance and ask for changes - it could be literally anything.

2. Team Sync (1 hour weekly or bi-weekly) - This is the time for the manager to provide an executive summary of everything important that’s been happening on their level for the past week - meetings with stakeholders, changes in strategic direction, gossips and speculations floating around, etc. Some managers use this meeting for running through the tasks of each employee, but I find this unnecessary - if the discussion circulates around the strategic objectives, everyone will know enough about what everyone else is doing, without having to sit through all the boring details that don’t affect them in any way.

5. Creating Clear Information Flow - Establishing a system where important information flows easily from top to bottom and across departments.

   • Example: Having a protocol where all company-wide updates are communicated via official channels, like internal newsletters or announcements highlighting achievements, upcoming events, employee success stories, etc.

6. Fostering Cross-Departmental Cooperation - Breaking down silos by encouraging interdepartmental collaboration and communication on shared projects.

   • Example: Setting up cross-functional teams, bringing together departments like marketing, sales, and product development to work collaboratively on projects.

7. Promoting Employee Engagement - Encouraging employees to share ideas, participate in decision-making, and be part of shaping the organization’s culture.

   • Example: A suggestion box or online platform could be set up where employees contribute ideas or feedback anonymously, helping shape company policies. See more here.

8. Recognizing and Rewarding Good Communication - Celebrating employees who excel in communication, making it clear that it’s a valued skill.

   • Example: Establishing a "Communicator of the Month" award to recognize employees who demonstrate excellent communication skills, like teamwork and conflict resolution.

9. Surveying Employees - Regularly surveying staff to gather feedback on company-wide practices and incorporating their suggestions into improvements.

   • Example: Sending anonymous surveys to employees to evaluate areas for improvement, with management using the feedback to make continuous improvements.

Company-wide surveys must follow a process:

1. Think hard about the type of information you want to receive and ask open (not leading!) questions.

2. Run the survey and gather the data/insights.

3. Analyze the data/insights and decide on the improvement initiatives that are needed.

4. Get the buy-in, appointed people, and additional resources for the improvement initiatives.

5. Communicate to everyone the results of the survey, the analysis, and the improvement initiatives to be kicked off.

6. Run the improvement initiatives.

7. Create transparency on the improvement initiatives, so everyone can see the real-time progress and who to contact for more details.

8. Upon completion, verify that each improvement initiative indeed solves the issues that were initially raised.

When companies talk about employee surveys, they usually talk about steps 2, 3, and 5. Steps 1, 4, and 6 happen rarely or not thoroughly enough. And steps 7 and 8 never happen. However, if we don’t improve, then knowing what needs improving adds no value. It actually wastes time, effort, and money, which leaves everyone frustrated. Moreover, skipping the last three steps is the fastest way to make employees lose trust in us as leaders because we're saying that we care when our actions prove we don't. Therefore, we either must do the full process, as described above, or not even start.

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And that’s how we prevent miscommunication from occurring. And by doing so, we establish open, honest, trusting, and long-lasting relationships with our employees, customers, and all other stakeholders that can weather us through any business storm.

Next, see how to improve your personal communication skills:

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Life is all about choices.

And your career choices are some of the most important ones. Nowadays, you can be anything you want: an employee, a freelancer, an entrepreneur, or something in between. Each of these has its positive and negative sides.

So how do you choose?

Keep reading 👇

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🔦 The Chilean Mine Rescue: Lessons in Entrepreneurship

On August 5, 2010, a massive collapse at the San José copper and gold mine in Chile’s Atacama Desert trapped 33 miners deep underground. This accident was unlike typical mining incidents due to the extreme depth, unstable rock formations, and the mine's poor safety record. Initial estimates put the chances of finding the miners alive at less than 1%. Yet after 69 days underground, all 33 miners were successfully rescued, an extraordinary feat broadcasted globally.

The effort to save the miners unfolded in two phases: first, a search to locate the trapped men, and second, the design and execution of a rescue plan. Both phases required skills like problem-solving, improvisation, and the willingness to seek solutions beyond established norms. The leaders didn’t simply rely on existing protocols; they empowered their teams to innovate and explore untested methods, much like entrepreneurs navigating uncharted business territory.

Faced with this unprecedented crisis, the rescue team had to develop and implement innovative solutions. They used three different drilling technologies, labeled Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C, to create wide boreholes for lifting the miners in specially designed rescue pods. While the drills worked on reaching the trapped miners, technicians built and refined these capsules to ensure their safety.

Plan B's drill was the first to reach the miners after 40 days, but additional time was needed to prepare for the actual extraction. Once the operation began a few days later, all 33 miners were safely brought to the surface even faster than anticipated.

The entire rescue effort was an international collaboration that involved not only technology, but also the cooperation and resources of companies and individuals from around the world, including Latin America, South Africa, Australia, the United States, and Canada. NASA played a role too by helping with the designs of health plans and the rescue capsule. Even though many countries participated, the operation remained a Chilean-led initiative and thought process. As one NASA expert said, “The Chileans are basically writing the book.”

Ultimately, the success of the San José rescue demonstrates the power of thinking out of the box in crisis situations. By combining control with creative freedom, the team not only managed the chaos but turned it into a triumph. This approach proves that balancing decisive action with the flexibility to innovate in the face of uncertainty is key to overcoming complex challenges.

🎭 A Tale of Two Worlds

There are two parallel worlds we live in. One is of the people who have their own businesses, and the other one is of the people who work in someone else’s business. What we want to achieve in life determines what we do. What we do determines how we think. And how we think determines how we live, incl. in which of these two worlds.

Having our own business is like tackling the last and hardest level of this VR game called life. If we pass it, we receive a huge amount of bonus points in the form of money, and we can exchange them for whatever else in life our hearts desire.

However, establishing our own successful business is like riding a roller coaster. We are constantly up or down, super ecstatic or super depressed, having a great time or struggling to survive, from one extreme to the other. This is not for the faint-hearted.

Working in someone else’s business, on the other hand, removes both extremes and leaves everybody in the muddy middle. We don’t struggle to survive anymore, but we also don’t feel ecstatic about anything. Life is bland and gray. We start questioning our own purpose and mere existence.

These two opposing ideologies are the essence of capitalism vs. communism/socialism. Wars have been fought to determine which one is better than the other. The answer that’s been staring at us the whole time is “neither”. Like everything else, they both come with their positive and negative sides. And we don’t choose based on what we want (the positive sides), but on what we can tolerate (the negative sides).

So, why does that happen? Essentially, it’s all down to ownership. If we own something, we decide what happens with it, and then we bear the consequences - good or bad. If we don’t own it, we can’t decide what happens with it, and we don’t bear any consequences - and that removes the good together with the bad.

@krislong3755 @krislong3755 ♬ original sound - Kristopher Long RH-Truthseeker

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In other words, we’ve proven the old adage that we “can’t have our cake and eat it” - we either have it and admire it (which brings us no satisfaction, but no pain either), or we eat it (which brings us both the satisfaction of something tasty and the pain that it’s now gone). The choice is ours to make.

To make that choice, though, we have to know what we’re getting ourselves into. And we don’t know. Our governments have already made that choice for us, and our educational systems only prepare us to be employees. We’re left to our own devices if we want to run a business.

Even though that might seem unfair, it has its explanation too. Apparently, we cannot all pass the last and hardest level of the VR game called life. What game would that be if we could all do it?!

Here’s an excerpt from the book “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley:

“An Alpha-decanted, Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron work - go mad, or start smashing things up. Alphas can be completely socialized - but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren’t sacrifices; they’re the line of least resistance. His conditioning has laid down rails along which he’s got to run. He can’t help himself; he’s foredoomed. Even after decanting, he’s still inside a bottle - an invisible bottle of infantile and embryonic fixations. Each one of us, of course, […] goes through life inside a bottle. But if we happen to be Alphas, our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we were confined in a narrower space. You cannot pour upper-caste champagne-surrogate into lower-caste bottles. It’s obvious theoretically. But it has also been proved in actual practice. The result of the Cyprus experiment was convincing. […] The Controllers had the island of Cyprus cleared of all its existing inhabitants and re-colonized with a specially prepared batch of twenty-two thousand Alphas. All agricultural and industrial equipment was handed over to them and they were left to manage their own affairs. The result exactly fulfilled all the theoretical prediotions. The land wasn’t properly worked; there were strikes in all the factories; the laws were set at naught, orders disobeyed; all the people detailed for a spell of low-grade work were perpetually intriguing for high-grade jobs, and all the people with high-grade jobs were counter-intriguing at all costs to stay where they were. Within six years they were having a first-class civil war. When nineteen out of the twentytwo thousand had been killed, the survivors unanimously petitioned the World Controllers to resume the government of the island. Which they did. And that was the end of the only society of Alphas that the world has ever seen.”

Have we, as a human species, figured out a way of life for ourselves, a system that’s beneficial to everyone? No. Life is a mess. At least, for now. Still, that doesn’t exempt us from trying our best to leave this place better than we’ve found it.

🃏 The Rules of the Game

Around 3 years ago, I decided to end my corporate career and become a freelancer. It didn’t take long for me to realize that freelancing is just a stepping stone, not a final destination. It’s the middle ground between employment and entrepreneurship. It takes the negatives from both, and very few of the positives.

Read my challenges in more detail here:

Here’s what that looks like in reality:

We can always stay employees or entrepreneurs. But we cannot always stay freelancers. We either move further, into entrepreneurship, and reap the full benefits of what our own business has to offer, or we grow tired of trying to establish a successful business and go back to permanent employment.

Freelancing, however, is easy to start if one has always been (meant to be) an employee and suddenly decides they want to step out of The Matrix. Especially if they still have no idea what life outside The Matrix looks like and need some time to figure this out - like I did. That’s because entrepreneurship and employment require two completely different mindsets:

• As entrepreneurs, our main goal is to do things and do them fast. We focus on executing ideas quickly, even if quality is subpar, so we can test them in practice, learn from failures, and adjust our course accordingly. Execution, rather than qualifications, drives success, and a willingness to pivot is essential. We must fall in love with the problem we’re trying to solve for our customers, not with our solution. And we need to keep trying and not give up until we make it work.

• As employees, our main goal is to be the best at what we do and be able to prove it. Our qualifications, experience, skills, etc. show how dispensable we are, which in turn defines how valuable we are (indispensable = invaluable). And that determines our salary, career progression, and how others treat us in general. Moreover, appearances and relationships matter more than execution. Soft skills like being pleasant to work with and navigating office politics play a crucial role. Our success comes from acknowledging the hierarchy, asking for permission, and following directives rather than being proactive or offering personal opinions - after all, we’re part of a larger system operated by others.

Read more here:

Therefore, when we know that there’s a step after freelancing, we naturally want to grow, change, improve, and make that step. But how do we decide if we should go further or go back? Let’s take a look:

⛳️ Five Aspects of Entrepreneurship

Below is a comparison between employment, freelancing, and entrepreneurship. To make it relevant and simple, I take a one-person lifestyle business (i.e. no external investors) as an example when referring to entrepreneurship.

If you’re only interested in the employment vs. freelancing comparison, watch this video.

If you’re only interested in the freelancing vs. entrepreneurship comparison, read this article.

1️⃣ “You are your own boss.” → FALSE

Employees have bosses. It’s hard to think about it in any other way. All participants in the hierarchical structure view it as a power play - some are at the top, some are at the bottom. And the ones on top get to oppress the ones at the bottom. Therefore, employees think a lot about their bosses, and next to never about their clients or customers. For the employee, the clients/customers are the ones who pay for and/or use the end product/service that the whole company delivers - meaning, they’re too far removed.

However, even inside a company, everybody's tasks have a direct client and customer. The sponsor is the client, and the consumer/user is the customer. As employees, we’ve signed a work contract - the other party in that contract is our employer. Which means, that’s our client, i.e. the sponsor. Our client has also assigned a contact point for us - that’s our line manager, i.e. our boss. They represent our client. And our deliverables are used by someone else - could be by another team in the organization, could be by the external end user. They are our customers.

When employees become freelancers, they quickly realize that their boss is their client. This is possible because the power field has now leveled and we speak as equals - some of us offer a service, and others need that service. This may look like a subtle change of mindset, but it makes an enormous difference in how both the clients and the freelancers perceive, engage in, and carry out freelance assignments.

Entrepreneurs don’t have such a dilemma: They know very well that they have many bosses - those are all the clients/customers they serve.

2️⃣ “You have flexibility.” → FALSE

Employees admire entrepreneurs for the flexibility they have but - like everything else - that flexibility comes with a price. By default, entrepreneurs work on something that they are truly passionate about. If they weren’t, then it wouldn’t make sense for them to go through the whole ordeal of establishing a business - they might as well go back to permanent employment and save themselves all the trouble. Moreover, entrepreneurs need that passion to see them through tough times - and there’s plenty of those.

However, passion cannot be contained in a box. When we work on something we’re passionate about, work consumes us. There is no work-life balance anymore because work is life. There are no breaks before we’re done - and we’re never really done! - there are no weekends, we neglect everything else, everyone we love, and even ourselves. This is neither good, nor healthy, nor sustainable in the long run. But it’s necessary, especially in the early days, until the business is established and starts running successfully. That’s why the real problem entrepreneurs face is establishing a balance - knowing when to lean on their passion as fuel, but also when to keep it on a tight leash.

Employees, on the other hand, lack that passion - and entrepreneurs think that’s horrible! However, that gives employees the luxury of simply forgetting about work the moment they step out of the office and not thinking about it until the next time they step back in. Sure, as employees we don’t have the say on when, where, and how we work, but we get compensated for it. On the one hand, we’re compensated by not having to worry if the business fails or succeeds (i.e. having peace of mind), and on the other hand, we’re compensated by the additional incentives we receive, such as:

• division of the financial burden for taxes and mandatory insurances (health insurance, social insurance, etc.),

• legal coverage for certain events (work accidents, customer claims, etc.),

• fully paid sick leave / vacation days,

• reimbursement for work events,

• yearly or other bonuses,

• company shares,

• 13-th or 14-th salary,

• money for clothes / tools / other,

• IT equipment and SW products,

• discounts / preferential rates and coupons,

• trainings / conferences / other types of career development,

• offsite events / networking / teambuilding,

• even access to websites and other resources purchased by the company.

As entrepreneurs and freelancers we still network, of course, attend conferences and trainings, insure ourselves and our businesses, and so on, but none of this is a given - we have to plan for, organize, and sponsor it ourselves. Most importantly, for us, as entrepreneurs and freelancers, time is money - literally! Any time we don’t work we lose money - sick leaves, vacations, events, trainings, special occasions, etc. - we try to minimize these as much as possible. And coupled with the previous point (about the clients/customers being the boss), it becomes clear that we don't have that much flexibility even if we plan our daily schedules by ourselves.

3️⃣ “You don’t deal with politics.” → TRUE

As freelancers or entrepreneurs, we don’t engage in internal management processes, such as yearly goal-setting or performance reviews, we’re not fighting with others for limited promotion opportunities, we won’t take someone else’s job position. When people don’t view us as a competitor or a threat, our relationship has better chances of blossoming.

Serving clients and customers, though, does have a political element to it because we depend on them. As mentioned above, they’re our bosses, and we always want to stay on good terms with them. Still, with time we master tough situations and can more easily find a way to respect both our clients/customers and our boundaries - something which is a lot harder to do as employees.

Dealing with people essentially means there’s always the risk of politics. Having no risk of politics means having no one around us, incl. no team. And when we have no team, we struggle to find a sense of belonging. This is true for all of us because we’re social creatures by nature. Freelancing and entrepreneurship tend to be extremely lonely, so we need to find our support group if we want to remain sane, let alone achieve our goals.

For people to connect in a given setup, the same rules of the game must apply to them all. However, when we have a mixed setup - for example, a team with internal and external employees, or an event with both employees and entrepreneurs present, or a meetup of creative and corporate freelancers, etc. - we don’t have the same rules applicable to all groups. Therefore, as freelancers and entrepreneurs, we must:

1. identify what our (desired) social circle is, and

2. establish and maintain an ongoing relationship with it.

Employees do have to engage in politics but they don’t necessarily suffer from a lack of belonging. They can represent their employer anywhere to anyone, whereas freelancers only represent themselves, and entrepreneurs only represent their businesses. Most employees also strongly identify with their position in the organizational hierarchy and view it as a social status even during non-work events, whereas freelancers identify with their profession, and entrepreneurs identify with the problem they solve for their customers.

To paint the picture fully, let’s imagine a social gathering:

• Employees introduce themselves with e.g. “I’m a Product Management Director at Google and I lead a team of 200 people”, or “I’m a VP of Sales at Apple and I’m heading a department of 5000 people, including the local retail stores”.

• Freelancers introduce themselves with e.g. “I’m a painter”, or “I’m a Developer”, or “I’m a Project Manager of Transformation projects inside the Fin-Tech industry”.

• Entrepreneurs introduce themselves with e.g. “I’m on a mission to raise the financial literacy of women”, or “I coach others on buying boring businesses”, or “I help organizations become more humane”.

To me, who introduces themselves how doesn’t matter because it’s none of my business. On the contrary, I find it both funny and sad that we - as in, humanity - tend to measure the value of people based on their career achievements. Which means if someone is outside of The Matrix (i.e. permanent employment and the typical hierarchical structure), others don’t know what to make of them. This might sound silly, and yet, the culture I come from (and I know this is true of other cultures as well) is still very much doing so. Therefore, maneuvering between what family and friends think about our life choices can sometimes become overwhelming.

As employees, identifying with our (position at the) company can have its negative effects too. For example, if our contract ends for whatever reason, we might be inclined to think this signifies the end of our worth as individuals. As freelancers, however, this is the essence of the job - one contract ends and another one starts all the time. And as entrepreneurs, this is even less applicable. As freelancers and entrepreneurs, the most important thing is to keep a good name / brand / image of ourselves. The name of our current client/customer doesn’t matter that much - definitely not to the extent that it matters to a permanent employee, who has spent years of their life with one company, who identifies strongly with it, and whose circle of friends and relatives sees them as the embodiment of that specific company.

Speaking of professional and personal image, now’s the time to mention that anything we say or do affects our brand. As freelancers and entrepreneurs, this directly translates into gaining or losing money - and the effect can be immediate. The world is a small place, the Internet has made it even smaller, and the market in which we operate (i.e. our niche) narrows it down to the size of a pinhead. To visualize this, here is an explanation by George Clooney on why he’s chosen to avoid social media altogether:

4️⃣ “You have to do everything yourself.” → TRUE

While both employment and entrepreneurship can be started by people with no prior experience, freelancing is not for juniors. As freelancers, we sell our skills. Therefore, we must already have skills worth selling, and a market that has a demand for these skills. If we’re not there yet, we can use permanent employment to get the skills we need and only then start freelancing.

Assuming we already have the skills and the market for them, by becoming freelancers we essentially become a one-(wo)man show. And it’s exactly the same when we start our entrepreneurship journey. Everything needed to run our small business, in addition to servicing our clients/customers, now falls onto our shoulders. Here’s what that looks like:

As seen from this picture, on the one hand, we have to do the actual job (e.g. be a creator, in this case). And on the other hand, we have to define our strategy, implement a plan to follow it and course-correct, as needed, create our brand and constantly work on expanding our visibility and reach, constantly work on getting more clients/customers, manage our finances, manage our resources, further develop our skills, and so on. Needless to say, this calls for us to:

1. know ourselves and our strengths and weaknesses much better than the average person (incl. being able to analyze - and communicate! - any given situation as impartially as possible),

2. ruthlessly prioritize and get outsourced help where needed, and

3. be extremely disciplined with executing all of the remaining tasks that we cannot outsource/delegate.

In comparison, as employees, we’ve already outsourced the majority of these tasks to our employer completely. Even when we’re the ones initiating a task or a decision to be made (e.g. on our career development), we still need our employer’s buy-in to proceed because they’re our sponsor. Only in very few cases, our employer and we are both responsible for certain tasks within a given area - for example, our employer provides our contract and salary, but we choose our non-work-related insurances, track our personal finances (or not), and pay our taxes, and no matter how much our line manager coaches us and vouches for us, our work relationships and professional/personal image are still very much dependent on ourselves.

5️⃣ “You earn more money.” → TRUE

As employees, if things go far south, we can eventually leave the company. But because leaving one company and finding another is a very cumbersome process on both sides (employee and employer), everyone is doing their best to avoid it. This creates an environment of perceived job security - I say “perceived” because, as we see from recent events, even permanent employees can be let go by the thousands. When this happens, we realize that, without other sources of income, permanent employment is in fact extremely risky from a purely financial perspective, since it doesn’t provide us with a diversified portfolio (i.e. multiple income streams).

Freelancing and entrepreneurship don’t have this perceived job security, but the process of starting and finishing a freelance job/project, or selling products/services to multiple customers/clients is a lot less hassle, as it’s part of the job description. While going through the whole recruitment process for a permanent position can take months filled with interviews, tests, references, document reviews, and what-not, getting a freelance project usually requires only a 20-minute interview with the Hiring Manager and we receive the contract. Ending that contract also requires a notice of just a couple of weeks instead of months, as it is with permanent employment. After all, the whole freelance project/contract takes only a few months altogether. And this whole topic doesn’t even apply to entrepreneurs.

It’s fair to assume that, as freelancers, once we end a project, there are no guarantees that we’ll be able to immediately find the next one. That’s where the lack of job security hits the hardest - we must always have a financial cushion to weather such events. In order to endure, the rule of thumb is the following:

• We must have money to fall back on for at least 6 months.

• We must spend less than 30% of our income on all of our ongoing expenses (mortgage, rent, utilities, leasing, children, etc.).

• We can mentally cope with insecurity.

That said, once we become an established name in our professional domain, we’ll actually have more project requests than we can handle. Moreover, our clients will be willing to wait specifically for us to finish our current project(s) and move on to theirs, therefore, we’ll have work lined up for months, sometimes even years in advance. To achieve this, according to statistics, it takes a minimum of 2-3 years to establish our freelance brand, so all we can do during this initial time is a) work hard on our visibility, reach, and brand, but b) be patient and don’t expect overnight success.

It’s the same for entrepreneurs. Setting up a business requires a large amount of time, effort, and investment. There is a point after which things begin improving and we start getting returns on our investment, but we have to endure till then. And by “enduring” I don’t mean just sitting and waiting, but actively working to produce our product/service, establish our business and brand, and find customers/clients - all of this while not getting paid at all, but somehow finding the strength to believe in the process and its successful outcome.

That’s why both freelancers and entrepreneurs earn more money than employees. Firstly, this is to cover all of the expenses freelancers and entrepreneurs have, which are typically covered (some in half, some in full) by the employer when one works as an employee: taxes, insurances, sick/vacation days, etc. Secondly, this is to cover the risk of unemployment, i.e. staying without clients/customers for a few months. And thirdly, this is to cover the domain-knowledge expertise, experience, skills (for freelancers), and specific solution to a problem (for entrepreneurs). This last point is especially interesting because, as it turns out, the more someone pays for our service or product, the higher they value it. Therefore, to make our jobs easier, we must not undersell ourselves, not even at the beginning. We might be newbies as freelancers or entrepreneurs, but we’re Senior Subject-Matter Experts (SMEs) or we own unique solutions, and that’s what we’re putting a price on.

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And that’s how entrepreneurship compares to employment, with freelancing as a stepping stone between the two. And by knowing that, we can make a more educated choice about which way we want to go.

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Freelance Revolution

Business Process Managers are frequently hired because of a top-down decision for the company to obtain a specific ISO or other certification, which actually comes as a requirement from outside (e.g. customers, industry, regulators).

This means the organization itself hasn’t matured to the idea that its processes, systems, and structures need to improve and doesn’t understand WHY.

How can then a Business Process Manager persuade the organization to embrace the long-term transformation journey necessary to unlock the full benefits of BPM?

Read on 👇

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🤔 The Need to Justify BPM

One day I had to deliver a presentation to the IT Vice President (VP). We’d just had a process audit and he wanted to know the results, compared to the previous audit. I collected both audit results on a few slides, did the analysis, and highlighted the major areas for improvement with proposals for the next steps. And then, being me, I asked myself, “Why will any of this matter to him?” Which led me to the next question, “Why does what I do (i.e. Business Process Management [BPM]) matter at all?”

What is Business Process Management to begin with? Read here:

If you’ve read my other posts, and especially if you’ve stumbled upon my favorite five-monkeys-and-a-ladder experiment, you already know I always try to answer the question WHY. Even if I’m not being asked because sometimes people simply forget to ask. Therefore, I added three more slides at the beginning of my presentation to explain the benefits of BPM.

This post is an extended version of what I put on those slides and said to the VP. He listened to me carefully and then, when I finished with my introduction, said, “You’re preaching to the choir, you know. I’m already sold on the idea.” And that was music to my ears 🙂

🔥 Toyota and the Aisin Fire

On 1 February 1997, a massive fire at Aisin Seiki’s plant threatened to shut down Toyota’s operations. Aisin was the sole supplier of a critical brake component, called the P-valve, used in all Toyota vehicles. With Toyota’s Just-In-Time (JIT) production system, which kept only two to three days’ worth of inventory, the disruption posed a significant risk. A halt in the P-valve supply would have forced Toyota to stop production across 20 plants, costing the company an estimated $15 million per day. The situation was further exacerbated by the timing, as it occurred during a high-demand period ahead of a sales tax increase, making the potential losses even more severe.

However, the disaster was averted when over 200 firms, both within and outside Toyota’s network, rapidly mobilized to establish alternative production for the P-valves. Despite many of these firms having no prior experience in P-valve production, they collaborated by sharing detailed blueprints, technical specifications, and production methodologies to ensure consistent quality across the newly established production lines. Coordination was maintained through frequent communication within Toyota’s supplier networks, allowing the rapid scaling of production. Each firm took responsibility for different aspects of the process, including machining, assembly, and inspection, all while effectively self-organizing with minimal direct oversight from Toyota.

The Toyota Production System (TPS) was instrumental in enabling this swift and coordinated response. TPS’s emphasis on standardized work allowed these firms to quickly adapt Aisin’s production methods, while its focus on continuous improvement and problem-solving empowered suppliers to manage the crisis efficiently. Moreover, the system fostered a strong culture of trust and collaboration within Toyota’s supplier network, ensuring that all parties were motivated to work together seamlessly. Concerns over compensation or intellectual property rights were set aside during the crisis, with such matters addressed only after operations were restored.

The incident underscored the importance of Toyota's robust processes and highlighted the crucial role of TPS in managing unforeseen challenges. The disaster was mitigated not only through technical expertise but also because of the deep relationships and problem-solving capabilities that TPS cultivated across Toyota's supply chain. This event demonstrated how well-prepared the company was to handle major disruptions, reinforcing the significance of building capabilities that equip firms to manage both routine challenges and extraordinary crises effectively.

🔖 Management Principles

In his book Out of the Crisis, Dr. W. Edwards Deming outlined 14 key management principles to improve business effectiveness significantly. These principles are part of his broader System of Profound Knowledge, aimed at transforming traditional management into a more optimized approach.

Here’s a summary of the 14 points, as listed by The Deming Institute:

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, stay in business, and provide jobs.

2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.

3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

6. Institute training on the job.

7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.

8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.

9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the workforce.

11a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.

11b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.

12a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.

12b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, among other things, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective.

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

🌻 BPM Benefits

Business Process Management (BPM) is a tool for transforming operations and organizations. As such, it can be deployed to achieve whatever goal we set for ourselves and our business. We *only* have to ensure that:

1. We have a goal, a target, a purpose: Without it, it will be hard to aim our tool at the right thing.

2. We implement a complete system: Any partially implemented model, even if it’s the best one for our use case, won’t work.

And a special request from me: Do the right thing the right way! I’m happily providing the tool and explaining how to use it, but it’s up to you to create an environment where both your business AND your people thrive. Be mindful and intentional about this!

Breaking down Deming’s 14 principles into more detail, here’s what BPM can achieve for us (specifically in the Information Technologies & Software Development industry) by implementing robust processes, systems, and structures in our organization:

💰 Reduced Costs & Higher Revenue

• Finding problems earlier in the process lifecycle (e.g. bugs found in development, as opposed to in production; risks identified and mitigated before turning to issues; process noncompliances found and remedied before a certification/customer audit is at risk; etc.): The earlier the problems are identified, the cheaper they are - and vice versa.

• Handling risks and identifying opportunities: Identifying and mitigating risks brings costs down, whereas identifying and acting on new business opportunities brings revenue up.

• Properly identifying Change Requests: With no/poor processes in place, it’ll be hard to distinguish between requirements analysis and bugs on the one hand (part of the contract), and new requirements or changes to existing requirements on the other (outside of the contract - subject to negotiation, approval, and additional charges).

• Increasing automation: A defined/described process can be analyzed for optimization and automation. We must always automate wherever manual work can be eliminated to make the process faster, cheaper, and more reliable.

🌊 Improved Business Agility

• Increasing the ability to handle large throughput (e.g. 5-10K customer requirements): Just like in manufacturing, standardization increases the ability to manage big(ger) scope with the same amount of resources (time, capacity, budget).

• Scaling the business (e.g. working in multiple programs, Scrum of Scrums, etc.): A scaled company Business Process Management System (BPMS) or Quality Management System (QMS) better supports the business and the organization in times of change. The BPMS/QMS and the organizational structure must be fully aligned because they depend greatly on each other (read more here).

• Enabling overall continuous improvement: Since the world is not static, we must always change and adapt, but not all change is an improvement. To ensure changes are for the better, and that by improving something we’re not breaking something else, we need clarity on the bigger process picture and its intended outcomes.

• Improving process interfaces (inputs and outputs): With process inputs and outputs properly identified, it’s easier to introduce changes without breaking the links and risking the whole BPMS/QMS becoming dysfunctional (read more here).

• Incorporating Lessons Learned and Re-use into the next process cycle: A well-structured and maintained BPMS/QMS can improve itself too - just like a healthy organism can heal itself when needed. Having the reuse concept embedded into the BPMS/QMS has even greater importance for eliminating redundancy and waste of resources.

• Seamlessly redefining tasks/responsibilities when changing the strategic direction and/or organization: It is a lot easier to change one or two pieces of the puzzle rather than all of them, especially if we’re not even sure what the overall picture looks like (read more here).

🏆 Enhanced Quality of Products

• Setting internal business and product goals (e.g. Acceptance Criteria, KPIs, customer satisfaction levels): Especially helpful when those are not provided by the customers themselves (read more here).

• Minimizing the number of bugs by e.g. performing Trend Analysis (i.e. pro-active Error Management): For that, we would need a well-working reactive Error Management process to collect the data.

• Minimizing or completely eliminating customer escalations on production issues and/or breach of contract: One of the main goals of process optimization in the e.g. Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC) is to move bug identification and bug fixing as early as possible in the production cycle. The ultimate goal is to prevent bugs from leaking out to the customer.

🔎 Better Transparency

• Having clear documentation and communication structures and procedures in place (incl. backup, archive, and restore procedures): Having clear definitions and communicated expectations of who has to do what how and (by) when minimizes the redundancy, frustration, resource wastage, employee turnover, etc.

• Real-time monitoring and reporting: Defined and implemented processes are measured and monitored, controlled and reported on, and improved accordingly.

• Increasing the confidence in reaching the set targets (internally and externally): When we see the set targets are at risk of not being met, we adjust our course or actions sooner, rather than later.

• Knowledge-sharing: Processes and structures can break silos and enable a seamless resource (e.g. information) flow. HR support is crucial for this.

(Read more here.)

📈 Higher Efficiency & Accurate Planning

• Minimizing or eliminating delays (and consequent penalties): Clear processes enable earlier and more accurate prediction, as well as a change of course in due time.

• Handling resource, capacity, or prioritization issues, which prevent adequate execution: Transparent process interfaces make it easier to identify prioritization issues, as well as who, when, and based on what data has to make the prioritization call. Typically, prioritization issues are hidden behind problems like lack of capacity.

• Avoiding customer interference or micromanaging: If, for example, the customer becomes uncertain that their targets will be met, we can expect them to request a customer audit/assessment or to directly come onsite and sit next to the Subject-Matter Experts (SMEs) during the whole time they perform their tasks. Needless to say, this is not a good working environment and totally not the relationship we want to have with our customers.

• Minimizing or eliminating the “fire-fighting” mode (e.g. spikes in the trends for resolution of bugs, customer reports, root-cause analyses, delays, etc.): Fire-fighting occurs when risks or issues were not detected early enough, when we still had the chance to either prevent them or minimize the damage. With strong processes in place, such events are the exception to the rule, rather than the normal way of working.

• Avoiding bottlenecks, single points of failure, working in silos, etc.: Such issues are identified and respective solutions are successfully implemented when there are defined processes in place, as they are constantly analyzed for improvement opportunities.

❤️ Increased Employee Morale

• Creating a sense of purpose: Knowing why something exists is just as important as what that something is. The opposite behavior and its consequences are described in the five-monkeys-and-a-ladder experiment and the zen fable about the ritual cat (read more here and here).

• Driving out fear: When people are guided to improve the system, and not to follow a broken one for fear of being punished, this embeds quality into their daily work life and decreases the dependency on inspection to achieve quality.

• Enabling autonomy and providing leadership (as opposed to supervision) in the direction of continuous improvement: With full transparency in place, we immediately know if a process is underperforming. However, the emphasis is always on the process (as part of the bigger system), not on the person. Therefore, the main goal of leadership is enabling the system and all of its parts to perform in their most optimal way - and stop there (read here on the value of autonomy).

• Instilling a sense of belonging and restoring pride in workmanship: Having common goals, clear roles and responsibilities, and transparency in terms of execution are some of the crucial elements for maintaining employee motivation. It is also a mandatory prerequisite for enabling autonomy (read more here).

• Establishing a clear professional path/growth: Clarity in the rules around providing acknowledgment for a job well done removes double standards, unhealthy competition, and obstacles towards achieving the goal.

• Increasing loyalty: Naturally reap the benefits of having everyone working to establish and maintain the best image of the company.

🛡️ Compliance, Safety & Security

• Fulfilling demands from the business and the customers: Embedding an external standard, a customer, or an internal quality requirement inside the BPMS/QMS makes the company compliant with it, without disrupting the business.

• Enabling process compliance and commitment to quality as part of everyday life (e.g. no panic mode and no impact on product delivery when external audits/assessments are due): The BPMS/QMS we all want is the one that is alive, not put on a shelf and only dusted off when an external audit is due. This is also the reason why auditors are not as strict with what’s written down as they are with what’s understood and performed by all.

🎯 Improved Customer Relationship & Satisfaction

• Establishing a standard Product/Service Catalog (with Demos, as applicable): Having a well-defined list of what we offer and what the customers can benefit from is where the relationship with our customers starts.

• Providing an overall Solution Design (based on the Architectural & Detailed Designs): Having a product structure in place means having a well-structured architecture too. Therefore, it becomes a relatively easy task to put all products/features together and present the customer with an overall Architectural Design for their specific solution.

• Ensuring full traceability is in place (e.g. tracing back to an issue introduced in a given release, test coverage for all customer requirements, rolling back to a previous release, etc.): On the one hand, full traceability enables us to identify and implement improvements, from which the customers are benefiting directly. And on the other hand, full traceability (sometimes in combination with baselining) protects us from abusive customers.

• Not being impacted by a faulty or missing BPMS/QMS on the customer’s, partner’s, or supplier’s side (e.g. when the external party is missing processes, product concepts, Definition of Done [DoD], etc.): When process interfaces are defined, criteria for input and output work products are also defined.

• Incorporating customer feedback into the next process cycle: Same as with lessons learned, customer feedback provides material for identifying Opportunities for Improvement (OFIs).

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And that’s how Business Process Management puts our organization on the right path. And, by doing so, it ensures that our products and services continuously improve, our business flourishes, and our people thrive.

Next, see here how to start implementing BPM:

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Have you ever felt disconnected from the world around you?

Like, everyone seems to be able to read between the lines, except you. Everyone somehow aligns to the same beat of the drums, except you. Everyone has things going on in their lives, except you. Everyone is happy with what they’ve achieved - and keep achieving - except you.

If the answer is “yes”, you’re not alone. There’s a reason for this, and there’s also a fix.

Keep reading 👇

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😑 Life Without Purpose

Imagine this:

You wake up in the morning and you feel dead. You’re more tired than when you went to bed last night. Nothing excites you anymore. If it weren't for work (responsibilities, chores, etc. - feel free to substitute with your regular poison), there wouldn't be any point in getting out of bed at all. You feel absolutely lost in this world: you don’t know what you want to do, whether you have the strength to do it, or why this is even happening to you. And what this is, to begin with.

Then there is work - the necessary evil. The place where someone else tells you what to do, how to do it, who to interact with, how to think and behave, what your career choices are, what your areas of development should be, where and when you need to be physically, and what time you need to spend working (which is quite significant), away from everything and everyone else in this world. Everything and everyone that might potentially excite you.

You take a look around and you only see zombies. Everyone is in an endless cycle of work and watching movies, playing computer games, eating junk food, you name it - literally any activity that has the potential to give a minimum amount of short-term satisfaction. You're afraid to look inward because you can already feel your soul silently screaming and squirming. It's better to just keep running in circles in an attempt to avoid the inevitable.

Does this sound familiar?

Some would say we traded our time for money - and time is the most valuable asset we have in this world. Others would say we sold our freedom for security. Or our health. Or our souls.

I’d say we outsourced our purpose. Why bother searching for our own purpose in life, when we can get paid to contribute to someone else’s? Does it even matter if that someone else shares our moral principles, our values, or let alone is aligned with our purpose?

As it turns out, yes, it does matter. Here's why:

🛟 Taking the Easy Way Out

The theory:

The hierarchy of human needs was proposed in 1943 by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow. It presents each need as a level that has to be met before moving to the next. Although updated and expanded through the years, this theory is still used today to understand human motivation:

Maslow's hierarchy of needs helps us recognize what we need in each chapter of our lives to be happy and healthy. By fulfilling our basic needs first, like food and safety, we create a strong foundation that allows us to focus on higher-level needs, such as building relationships and achieving personal goals. Striving for self-fulfillment leads to a more meaningful and satisfying life. It gives a purpose to our lives, a direction towards a goal we aim to achieve. When we reach the level of self-actualization, we can realize our full potential, contribute positively to society, and find true happiness in what we do. This not only improves our own lives but also helps create a better world for everyone around us.

The reality:

When we're trying to cover our basic needs (which can be challenging due to poverty, disease, war, etc.), we're in survival mode and have neither time nor desire to ponder over our purpose, happiness, and the salvation of our souls. This is simply too abstract and we're too focused on surviving. Besides, our bodies house our souls, so it’s just logical that the survival of the body should take precedence over the survival of the soul.

However, the majority of the “developed world” these days doesn't fight for survival anymore. Our basic needs are met and we’ve moved to fulfilling our psychological needs. But there seem to be two ways of approaching that:

1. We determine which social groups we (want to) belong to, what our contribution to these social groups looks like, how to think and act, what achievement means for us, and what we take pride in.

2. Someone else determines which social groups we should belong to, what our contribution to these social groups will look like, how we should think and act, what achievement will mean for us, and what we should take pride in.

These two approaches, of course, lead to two different results: The first one leads to achieving our self-fulfillment, i.e. purpose, and the second one leads to achieving someone else’s self-fulfillment / purpose.

What are the chances that someone else will be aligned with our life purpose and, thus, help us achieve it? If we already know our purpose and we collaborate with people who support us in our path, then the chances are pretty high. However, if we don't know our purpose, chances are extremely low that we will, by sheer luck, join a community that’ll take us to where we want to be.

Therefore, the most important thing after fulfilling our basic needs is discovering our life purpose, i.e. our reason for living. This is, of course, easier said than done, which is exactly why we’ve been applying that second approach for so long: We’ve been outsourcing our purpose to someone else, and calling it “permanent employment”. Unfortunately, this diverts us from our true path and costs us more than money can pay for - it robs us of our happiness.

⛅️ Finding Our Purpose

What is a life purpose (or self-fulfillment)?

Purpose can be explained by the Japanese concept of Ikigai, which means “a reason for being”:

Ikigai is the idea of finding purpose and joy in life by balancing four key elements: what we love, what we’re good at, what the world needs, and what we can be paid for. When these elements overlap, we feel a sense of fulfillment and motivation, leading to a happy and meaningful life.

How do we find our purpose?

This is a bit tricky because it’s not a straightforward process. We have to figure out what works best for each of us. Still, here are some ideas:

1. Check out this explanation of Ikigai.

2. Ask yourself these 7 questions.

3. Try out some of the techniques from this amazing collection.

4. For a fast and easy start, consider supporting one of the 17 global goals of the United Nations.

And remember:

💫 Aligning Our Business With Our Purpose

As a founder and business owner:

We talk a lot about the vision, mission, and purpose of our business, hence when we start building it we might think our personal purpose doesn’t matter. However, that cannot be further from the truth. Our business purpose matters for our strategy, and likewise, our personal purpose matters for the organization, values, and governance principles we’ll put in place (see more in this table).

As a freelancer:

As freelancers, we still need to know our personal vs. business purpose. The latter will help us choose our niche, but the former will help us choose our projects. And our ideal client is the cross-section between our niche (based on the business purpose) and our ideal project (based on the personal purpose).

As an employee:

As employees, our concern isn’t building the right type of organization, but finding it. There are two ways of approaching this:

1. When applying for a new job in a typical hierarchical organization, and especially if we get to the last interview rounds or to a job offer, we can ask for the Employee Handbook. Some companies already have it published on their websites (e.g. 37signals / Basecamp, Remote, Futurice, HubSpot, Valve), but the majority of the companies treat this as internal and, thus, confidential information. That’s why their career pages look more like a sales advertisement, rather than a true representation of the company culture, organization, and ways of working. And this prevents us from knowing if we’ve found the right place for us.

   See this video for more information:

@humanworkplaceBefore you accept a job offer, always do this! #foryoupageofficiall #career #jobsearch #advice #jobinterview

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2. We can apply for a new job only at self-managed organizations because those cultures are developed mainly by their employees.

   Read this article for more details:

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And that’s how we discover our purpose and reconnect with ourselves and the world around us. And in doing so, we set out to build a better world, not just for ourselves but for all.

Next, see here how to install purpose inside the processes:

And here how to install purpose in the organization:

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Have you ever felt that, as a CEO, you’re completely disconnected from the people at your company?

That you don’t know what’s really happening?

That they don’t trust you and you don’t trust them?

That they don’t want to step up and take ownership and accountability?

That you don’t know how to motivate them anymore?

Read on 👇

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😳 My Boss Is an Idiot

I have a friend (let’s call her Sandra) who is somewhat unfortunate with her corporate employment. She always seems to end up reporting to the craziest managers ever.

One of the companies she worked at was undergoing regular restructuring at the beginning of each year. During one of them, Sandra was moved to report to a manager called Mark (not their real name).

Mark was very much into Agile and wanted to be a “servant leader”. However, Sandra’s company was not Agile, but a typical hierarchical bureaucracy. Only the Software Development teams were trying to be Agile - with little to no success. And hers was the Marketing team.

Moreover, Mark was not the servant leader type either. He seemed to be the typical micromanager with a big ego. He wasn’t able to set an overall strategic direction, or promote his team and bring more work to them, but he was chasing Sandra and her colleagues forever if they forgot to set the correct JIRA(!) status or return an HDMI cable. In short, he was everywhere where they didn’t need him, and nowhere they did actually need him. They tried talking to him about it, but he wouldn’t listen either.

At some point, it was clear that Sandra and her teammates were like floating electrons within the organization. They neither had a leader nor a servant. They were all - including Mark - a bunch of individual contributors, assigned to different topics and scopes. And no one was bringing them or the work they did together.

And that was on the outside. On the inside, it was even worse. Sandra was getting emotionally burnt out from endless fights with her manager over trivial stuff that didn’t make much business difference. She started getting properly ill and was nearly always on sick leave.

The next company restructuring resolved the situation with Mark, as Sandra was again moved to yet another manager. Try to guess if the new manager was any better 😉

💫 The Epiphany of FAVI’s New CEO

In the 1980’s, Jean-François Zobrist became FAVI’s new CEO, hired externally. He had a four-month overlap with the departing CEO. Knowing two bosses is a recipe for disaster, Zobrist proposed that his predecessor remained fully in charge till the end, while Zobrist only walked around, observed, talked to people to get to know them and the organization, and made no decisions whatsoever.

One day Zobrist noticed a worker standing in front of the locked supply room with a piece of paper in his hand. Zobrist asked what was happening. The worker explained that he needed a new pair of gloves. However, there was a procedure for that:

1. The worker goes to their supervisor to request a new pair of gloves.

2. The supervisor examines the existing pair and signs a document that a new pair is indeed needed.

3. The worker then contacts the supply manager.

4. The supply manager comes, unlocks the supply room, and gives the worker a new pair of gloves in exchange for the approval document.

All of that while the machine the worker operated stood still, which cost the company ten times the price of a new pair of gloves.

Zobrist was confused as to why the workers couldn’t be trusted to simply go to the supply room and get what they needed when they needed it. But then he realized the problem was not just with the supply room: the lack of trust was everywhere.

• It was in demanding that the workers clock in and out at the beginning and the end of each day.

• It was in having quality controllers who checked whether the workers had done their jobs properly.

• It was in the variable pay system that punished people for late arrivals and poor productivity.

• It was in the five levels of management that separated the CEO from the workers.

• It was in the architecture of the building and the window from the CEO's office that allowed him to overlook the entire factory.

When Zobrist took over the CEO role, he gathered the entire workforce in a corner of the factory, put a few boxes, and stood on top of them. Then he announced that the way people were controlled in this company felt disgraceful to him, which was why he would be introducing some changes:

• There would be no more time clocking at the factory entrance and exit.

• The variable pay system would be replaced with a fixed salary - no more pay deductions.

• The supply room would be unlocked and everyone would be trusted to take out the supplies they needed and to log what they took out for reordering purposes.

• The separate managers’ canteen would be closed and they would all have lunch together in the main canteen.

That day FAVI began its journey to become one of the pioneering self-managed organizations globally. Zobrist didn’t have all the answers, but he was convinced that, together, they could “learn by doing, with good intentions, common sense, and in good faith” (quote from his book).

💊 Traditional Management vs. Self-Management

Traditional Management

The management system, as we know it today, was created more than a century ago. Given how many analogies there are between business and war, it’s probably not surprising that corporate management is based on the military model: Top Management defines the strategy, Middle Management defines the tactics, and Front-Line(!) Management defines the operations that field(!) workers execute.

See here for the explanation of Why → How → What and here for the explanation of Problem → Solution → Implementation.

Put simply, there is a split between thinking (done by the managers) and executing (done by the workers) - and neither of these groups should do what the other group does, or else things will start falling apart (read more about Taylorism here).

To visualize this, traditional management uses the metaphor of the company being a machine. Machines do what they‘re programmed to do. That means someone is the programmer, i.e. the machine operator, and everyone else is some part of the machine, i.e. a component.

There are two main issues with this setup:

1. Programmer missing component information: Decisions and changes can only be made by the machine programmer, not by the components. For that to work, though, the programmer must be everywhere and know everything that happens with the machine, all of its components, and all of its surroundings at any given time. Which is an impossible task.

2. Components missing programming information: All components must behave as engineered. Given that we’re talking about people, this means everyone must switch their thinking off and do exactly as they’re told (more on this here). Which is very similar to another concept that we’ve been trying to get rid of for a long time.

Notice how our educational system prepares us to be components in someone else’s machine. It doesn’t teach us how to build the machine ourselves. Meaning, if we want to improve anything in our educational system, we have to start by improving our corporate (and then government) system first.

Self-Management

Usually, when I mention self-management, everyone reacts like I’m talking about total chaos. This cannot be further from the truth: self-management does not equal chaos. I would even argue that, in over 20 years of working as a Business Process Manager, the biggest chaos I’ve seen has always been in companies that have plenty of managers in place.

Self-management is a governance framework, with its accompanying principles and processes (read here about the difference between governance and management). This framework provides the big picture: why we do what we do, what problem we’re solving for our customers, what value we’re adding, what difference we’re making to this world, why we exist as a company, and most importantly how to behave as one (hence, the governance principles and processes). The majority of these high-level signposts are missing in traditional management, especially the last one.

What traditional management provides, though, is step-by-step management processes in each business area. And that’s on purpose excluded from self-management - hence, the name itself. Self-management does NOT want individuals to switch their thinking off and do as they’re told. Exactly the opposite: self-management requires them to think and decide for themselves what the best way forward is (based on the governance framework and their analysis of the situation, knowledge, experience, advice groups, etc.).

In other words, self-management completely transforms the underlying metaphor: a company or a community of people is a living organism, not a lifeless machine. This living organism has a (legal) body, a name, its own entity and identity. It senses the environment and immediately reacts to prevent risks and issues. It organically evolves.

Moreover, we want this living organism to have values, ethics, purpose, and so on, like any other human being. We want it to be a good citizen and contribute to society. And we want it to care about nature and the planet, too. Machines do not have an ethical side to them - people who use them do (or so we hope!).

When a company realizes that it’s a living organism and not a machine, it shifts its focus from profit to purpose in everything it does and every decision it makes. That is not to say that the company stops being profitable - quite the opposite, in fact. Research shows that, in the long run, basing our business decisions on purpose, rather than on revenue, proves to be more profitable (read more here).

To summarize (using traditional management terminology): By providing the programming information to the machine components and empowering the components to reprogram the machine, we eliminate the need to have one programmer who must be everywhere and know everything. We turn the machine into a sensing organism that evolves each of its parts on its own, as and when needed.

🧬 Implementing Self-Management

Like everything else, self-management is a system, which means it breaks down into two aspects: structure and function.

1️⃣ Structural Change

To implement self-management, we have to change the role of the programmer - that is, of the manager. Since we won’t have the split between thinking and doing anymore, we won’t need two separate roles either - manager vs. worker. It’s all going to be done by the worker. So what are all the managers at our company going to do then?

The simple answer is they will work, they will coach, or they will leave. Let’s look at each scenario:

💥 Managers become workers.

Managers who stayed technical might want to go back to producing or delivering the core product/service. In traditional management, promotions happen only vertically, so it’s not uncommon to have first-time managers still doing the work they got promoted for, instead of fully shifting to managing people.

💥 Managers become coaches.

Most self-managed organizations have a pool of coaches who act as experts in decision-making or third-party mediators during conflict resolution. Their expertise is still very valuable, but it’s important to note that no one formally reports to them anymore and they have no authority to impose their opinions or decisions on someone else.

💥 Managers (and others) leave the organization.

Self-management is not for everybody. It requires a certain level of self-awareness, pro-activity, and a natural sense of ownership which not everyone possesses. That’s totally ok. Whoever feels they cannot get away from decades of component programming will leave and find another job in a traditional organization.

In short, not everyone will be ecstatic about the changes we’re making or be able to adjust to them. Certainly, we don’t want to force them to, but we also can’t let them stop us from evolving into a better version of ourselves. So, if we cannot adapt to each other, we’ll naturally part ways - that’s absolutely understandable; no hard feelings.

2️⃣ Functional Change

Creating a self-management framework for our organization is a discovery process. We cannot take any existing framework and implement it by the book. This, by the way, is true for any framework in general - we always have to customize it to our specific situation. But it is especially true for self-management because it involves the people in our organization. Our coworkers will create the self-managed organization they want to have. If we had other people in our organization, we’d still have self-management at the end, but it would look and feel different.

That said, we can still list the areas where we need to put governance processes in place. The teams will decide what the processes will look like, but we can point out where we need to have them to begin with (at the start, at least - later on, people will spot such deficiencies by themselves).

• Purpose: Ensure the organization's purpose is clear and inspiring before transitioning to self-management. More on this here.

• Sense of Ownership: Challenge individuals or teams to create plans, set targets, and commit to each other formally. A tip is to publish team results openly, thus motivating teams to improve through gamification, internal accountability, or peer recognition (don’t publish individual results, though, because then people will start competing within their teams).

• Market Pressure: Maintain direct links to customer needs and market demands to naturally incentivize teams to take responsibility for self-management and performance.

• Financial Literacy and Information: Teach everyone basic financial concepts to understand the business and enhance their decision-making. Regularly provide a clear view of the company’s financial state, as also explained here.

• Peer-Based Evaluation and Salary Processes: Implement peer-based methods for setting compensation and evaluating performance to avoid hierarchical structures. A prior step to this is establishing radical transparency.

• Advice Process: Empower all organization members to make decisions after consulting the experts on the matter and those affected. Nobody (not even the business owner, founder, CEO, etc.) should be approving a decision in a self-managed organization.

• Conflict Resolution: Establish a conflict-resolution mechanism to help colleagues resolve disagreements independently. Typically, this process involves a mediator/coach acting as a third party.

• Ground Rules for Safe Space: Develop a collectively written document outlining acceptable behaviors and values to ensure a safe and inclusive work environment for everyone. This is usually written chapter by chapter, not all at once, whenever a new incident occurs.

• Meeting Practices: Use inclusive meeting practices to ensure all voices are heard and meetings align with the organization’s purpose (e.g. asynchronous working). Another tip is to use an “empty chair” that represents the organization's purpose - someone sits in it to ensure the meeting serves the organization well.

• Recruitment: Use the recruitment process to deeply explore the alignment between the organization's purpose and the candidate's personal calling.

• Onboarding Process: Create an engaging onboarding experience that introduces new hires to the organization's culture, values, and essential skills.

• Office or Factory Building: Design a welcoming, unique workspace that reflects the organization's culture and allows people to express their individuality.

In short, the rule of thumb is: Every time we're requested or feel the urge to get involved in a process, we have to ask ourselves, “Does this step imply an unequal distribution of power? Does it conceal an informal hierarchy?” If the answer is yes, then we should find another way of doing things - a way that is fair, transparent, and involves everyone. That way, we’ll not only move further away from traditional management, but we’ll also build trust between individuals - and trust is the invisible glue that enables a self-managed organization to grow stronger.

📚 Self-Management Resources

Many people have recognized the problems with traditional management, have researched self-management for a long time, and have created models, tools, and consultancies to help the rest of the business world understand and implement self-management. Below are the resources I’ve found so far:

* I’m trying to keep this list updated, so leave a comment or message me if you think something is missing.

⭐️ Use Cases

• Reinventing Organizations Wiki

• Corporate Rebels Bucketlist

⭐️ Books

• Reinventing Organizations

• Humanocracy

• Corporate Rebels

• Brave New Work

• Impossible Organizations

• Emergence

• Anti-fragile

• The Human Equation

• HOW

• The Connected Company

• Beyond Empowerment

• The OpenSpace Agility Handbook

• Freedom at Work

• The Happy Manifesto

• Holacracy

• Turn Your Company Outside-In!

• Sociocracy 3.0

• Better Work Together

• Maverick!

• Delivering Happiness

• Reinventing Giants

• Start-up Factory

⭐️ Communities

• Enlivening Edge

• Corporate Rebels

• Holacracy

• Enspiral

• Greaterthan

• The Hum

• Red42

• Cocoon Pro

• Boundaryless

• The Ready

• Peoplerise

• Thrive-In Collaboration

• ODF: Organization Design Forum

• EODF: European Organization Design Forum

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And that’s how we implement self-management. And by doing so, we switch thinking back on in each corner of our organization and convert our business machine into a sensing and evolving living organism that excites our teams, our customers, and all of our stakeholders.

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Imagine you attend a classical music concert and notice the orchestra is playing without a conductor. You might wonder: How do they manage to perform as one cohesive unit? Isn’t it the conductor who keeps everyone in sync? Or is it because each musician understands how their part fits into the overall performance?

Read on 👇

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🪄 Conductorless Orchestra

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra from New York is unique in the world of classical music because they’ve been performing without a conductor since 1972. While some other groups also do this, Orpheus has developed a distinct identity and a special way of working together.

In Orpheus, musicians take turns being the leader, and everyone gets to help decide what music they’ll play and how they’ll perform it. This democratic approach is similar to how a team of researchers might operate, with shared responsibilities and collaborative decision-making. The method allows them to be very flexible and responsive, especially when playing with solo artists. Many guest musicians find the experience liberating because it allows for more creativity and interaction.

Violist Dov Scheindlin explains Orpheus’ concept and mission like this: “We screen our members carefully because they have to be more than just good players; they have to contribute ideas as well. The ability to receive ideas is also a big part of being in Orpheus, as we’re constantly developing our repertoire along three distinct lines. We try to freshen the standards, we do substantial archival work in order to bring interesting and neglected pieces and arrangements to the world’s attention, and then we commission completely new pieces. [1]”

For Graham Parker, who was the General Director and then Executive Director of Orpheus from 2002 to 2010, Orpheus is “a group that’s determined to make music in a radically different way from its contemporaries, doing it the hard way to produce a better result. [2]”

Note that in the 1700s, when composers like Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven were creating music, there wasn't a separate conductor. Instead, the person leading the music usually did so while playing an instrument, like the keyboard or first violin. The modern idea of a conductor standing in front of the orchestra with a baton started with Louis Spohr around 1820. Therefore, playing baroque and classical music without a conductor isn't a new or radical idea; it's simply a return to how these pieces were originally performed.

Orpheus has been very successful, winning a Grammy and two ASCAP awards, and they’ve produced over 70 recordings. Their unique model has made them one of the most well-known and respected chamber orchestras in the world.

🎯 The Golden Circle

The Golden Circle is a concept developed by Simon Sinek to explain why some organizations and leaders are more successful and influential than others. The idea is centered around three layers, visualized as a bullseye target with concentric circles:

1. WHY: At the core is the question “Why?” This represents the purpose, cause, or belief that drives an organization or individual. It’s the reason we exist and do what we do.

2. HOW: The middle circle answers the question “How?” This refers to the process or unique approach an organization or individual takes to realize their “Why.” It's the methods and values that set us apart from others.

3. WHAT: The outermost circle addresses the “What?” This is the most straightforward layer, encompassing the products or services a company offers. It's what we do or sell.

Most organizations work from the outside in, starting with “What” and moving to “How”, and then “Why.” This is easier to do and it sounds more logical and tangible. However, the most inspiring and successful organizations and leaders operate from the inside out, beginning with “Why,” then “How,” and finally “What.” This fosters a stronger connection with the audience on a deeper emotional level and creates a more trusting and loyal follower and customer base.

See Simon Sinek’s TEDx talk below or check out his book Start With Why, which is based on this talk:

Additional statistics on the importance of purpose:

• Forbes

• Kin&Co

• Karry Schwettmann

💡 Underlying Principles

🎢 Governance vs. Management

There is a difference between governance and management. COBIT 5 Framework uses the following definition:

What this tells us is:

• Governance encompasses management.

• Governance sets the overall objectives, communicates and agrees on them (with management), and then hands them to management to execute.

• Management plans, runs, and monitors the execution of the objectives, and then reports back to governance.

• Both management and governance ensure alignment with the objectives on their respective level.

In other words, governance gives us the overall framework or generic direction, and management provides the step-by-step instructions.

Think of children playing in the sandbox. You tell them they can do whatever they want, as long as they a) don’t go out of the sandbox, and b) don’t hit each other or misbehave in any other way. That’s governance.

But if you also tell them, “Now, you take this red plastic bucket, and you take this green plastic shovel, and together you build a sand castle. You want to build a sand castle, right? Yeah, that’s going to be so much fun! And I will get you some water, and you can even make a moat around and we’ll fill it with water. And you can also decorate the castle with these confetti I have here. It’ll be so colorful and beautiful! Aren’t you excited?!” that’s management (with sprinkles of leadership 🎊).

And if you also stay next to them during the whole time to correct every move they make, that’s micromanagement.

Here’s what this looks like in an organization:

Governance provides the overall framework containing the “Why” (Vision, Mission) and on a high level the “How” (Values, Strategy). Management then takes this information and converts it into individual business processes (the task of Business Process Management 😉), which explain in detail the “What”: who does what, when, how, etc.

For more information, see my other post:

This brings us to our main point: If we only have business processes at hand (i.e. management, but no governance), then we have no clue why we do what we do, i.e. what the value-add of our activities is. And that means, if we have to deal with a use case that our process doesn’t cover, we don’t know what to do, i.e. which decision is best (because we’re missing the overall framework for decision-making). That leaves us with the only possible course of action: Switch thinking off and do exactly as the process tells us (and hope for the best! 🙄 or, at least, hope that the process has been kept up-to-date!). And if anything happens that requires thinking, we know we don’t have enough information, therefore, we always have to go and ask our manager.

I intentionally stressed on “if we have to deal with a use case that our process doesn’t cover” because it requires more explanation: Any process that we execute will have use cases that are NOT covered by the process definition. Why? Because, if a process is able to cover 100% of its use cases, it will be automated. The only reason why we put a person to execute it, and not a machine, is that we know our process does NOT cover 100% of its use cases (FYI, if the process covers 80% of its use cases, that’s already a pretty solid process!). And that means, we’ll always end up having to improvise at some point. Which is why we desperately need the information that governance provides.

Lastly, going back to COBIT’s definition: If we look at the company as a whole, governance is the responsibility of the BoD (under the leadership of the chairperson), whereas management is the responsibility of Top Leadership / CxO level (under the leadership of the CEO). However, we can have governance and management for any given scope and the logic remains the same. Let’s take a cross-departmental project, for example:

• Governance is defined in and tracked via the Project Charter, Business Case, etc. (all the Project Sponsor’s documentation).

• Management is defined in and tracked via the Project Plan, Schedule, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), etc. (all the tasks that the Project Manager and the Project Team perform on a daily basis).

The same split of governance vs. management applies to any team, product, process, program, etc.

🪙 Business vs. Organization

In every company, there’s a split between externally facing and internally facing activities. The externally facing ones relate to the business (Marketing, Sales, Public Relations, Brand, etc.), whereas the internally facing ones relate to the organization (Human Resources, Communications, Business Process Management, Information Technologies, etc.). And each of these two sides of the same coin - business and organization - must have its individual purpose, supporting the other side.

In The Golden Circle above, Sinek talks about business purpose. This is what gets communicated to the customers. However, everyone inside the organization needs to know not only what the business aims to achieve, but also why we have the organization we have. And it’s especially important for everyone to see how our business and our organization support each other.

For example, Zappos’ business purpose is to WOW the customer (they just happen to sell shoes). And their organizational purpose is to have a happy organization. (Because how can you WOW the customer if you yourself are not happy?) The founder, Tony Hsieh, even wrote a book, called Delivering Happiness, where he shared the definition of happiness he used for this purpose. He also experimented a lot with different management systems to find the one that fits Zappos.

Similarly, Patagonia’s business purpose is to fight the environmental crisis (they just happen to produce hiking gear). As the founder, Yvon Chouinard, famously said, “Earth is now our only shareholder.” Therefore, Patagonia’s organizational purpose is to give back to the world as much as they take. (Because how can you fight the environmental crisis if you yourself are adding to it?) To achieve that, they too dropped standard management practices and embraced Self-Management for their organization.

In summary, for our company to be successful, our business and our organization must support each other. If they don’t, we’ll struggle to achieve what we want. For instance, implementing Agile methodologies will be quite difficult in an organization that is in no way self-organizing but, on the contrary, demands that the hierarchy be respected. And creating innovative products and services will be practically impossible in an organization that is not geared towards risk-taking, experimentation, and psychological safety but, on the contrary, rewards risk avoidance.

🔓 Unlocking Governance Within the Organization

Implementing any process always follows the logic of the Continuous Improvement cycle. In the case of governance, we need the following steps:

1. Define all the aspects of governance.

2. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

3. Execute as defined and communicated.

4. Analyze the current situation and look for instances of misalignment. Then go back to Step 1 to fix them.

1️⃣ Define

These are the aspects of governance that need to be defined to feed into the above cycle (the questions help us with the definition):

👉 WHY do we do what we do? & WHAT is it we do?

I’ve already written about Mission, Vision, Values, and Strategy and how to define them in this post. You’ll also read there how to break Strategy down into business processes. Still, I want to point out two things about defining our purpose:

✅ Where do we place purpose?

Since business purpose is the reason why the business exists, many companies make it part of their Mission statement, as explained here. However, others argue that it should be part of the Vision statement, as pointed out here.

In practice, it doesn’t really matter where it is. What matters is that a) we know we need to define purpose as well (because the definitions of Mission, Vision, Values, etc. don’t specifically mention purpose), and b) we ensure that purpose is part of our high-level company statements (regardless if it’s under Mission, Vision, Values, or separately as Purpose).

✅ Money is never the purpose.

Money is definitely important for staying alive. So is breathing. But if I ask you “What’s the purpose of life?” will you tell me “It’s to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide”? Most probably not.

Likewise, money is not our company purpose either, no matter what our shareholders and investors would like us to believe. Money is what enables us to achieve our purpose. Money is what we get when we do the right things the right way.

Imagine we could start ten different types of businesses that would be equally profitable. Why did we choose the one we have right now? And imagine we could achieve the exact same result with five different types of organizations. Why did we choose the one we have right now? There’s a reason for all these choices we make, and that reason is not money. Money is not a good basis for making such decisions. Our true purpose is.

Here’s how Sinek explains it:

👉 HOW is it we do it?

Organizational structure and operations make up the organizational system. I’ve already talked about systems in this other post:

The important thing to note here is the split between leadership and management (the latter being business processes). I will cover this in another post, but for now, it’s enough to say that operating a system (whether organizational, business, or any other type) happens via processes.

To dive deeper into creating the organizational system, check out Team Topologies to learn what to do, and Organization Design: The Practitioner’s Guide to understand how to do it.

If you want to experiment with non-traditional management systems (e.g. Self-Management), then Reinventing Organizations is a great place to start.

👉 How to measure the WHAT?

There are many ways to set goals and measure their execution, and I’m sure even more ways are developed as we speak. Here are some of the most popular ones:

• OKRs (Objectives and Key Results): OKRs are a goal-setting methodology that involves setting ambitious, qualitative objectives and linking them to specific, quantitative key results. This approach helps ensure that everyone is aligned, focused, and working towards common goals with clear metrics to measure progress.

• V2MOM (Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures): V2MOM is a goal-setting and planning process that helps ensure clarity and alignment within the organization. It starts with a clear vision and values, outlines the methods to achieve the vision, identifies obstacles, and establishes measures to track progress.

• Balanced Scorecard: This strategic planning and management system is used to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization. It improves internal and external communications and monitors organizational performance against strategic goals.

• MBO (Management by Objectives): MBO is a process where managers and employees agree on objectives and understand what they need to do in the organization to achieve them. It emphasizes setting clear, achievable goals and using those goals to guide performance.

• Hoshin Kanri: Also known as Policy Deployment, Hoshin Kanri is a method for ensuring that the strategic goals drive progress and action at every level within the company. It involves setting goals, aligning the organization towards those goals, and ensuring that progress is reviewed regularly.

• SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound): This methodology is used to set clear, attainable, and meaningful goals with a defined timeframe.

• KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): KPIs are measurable values that demonstrate how effectively an organization is achieving its key business objectives. KPIs are typically used for processes that can be placed at any organizational level.

👉 How to measure the HOW?

This is where things become interesting, perhaps because they’re more intangible. As a result, I’ve never seen this aspect done properly. I’ve seen sporadic Pulse Surveys, 360° Feedback, or Exit Interviews, after which nothing changes. I’ve also seen zero responsible people for Corporate Culture and its measurement and improvement. And I’ve seen top-level leaders being confused about the split of business vs. organization and their role in each (incl. spending their time and focus on tackling low-level business process problems, while completely disregarding Corporate Culture).

That said, here’s what I think should happen:

1. Find the answers to these questions:

   1. Are we delivering on our purpose?

   2. What data and evidence are critical to understanding our organization and if we’re aligned with our purpose?

   3. How much insight is our current reporting generating?

   4. What is not currently being measured or reported?

   5. When was the last time we took action in response to a metric about our organizational purpose?

   6. What will our employees (and society as a whole) hold us accountable for in the future?

   7. Etc.

   The answers will tell us what metrics we need to put in place and how and how often to review them. Examples include surveys, questionnaires, 180° or 360° feedback, collecting improvement suggestions (anonymously), discussions and interviews, and others.

2. Change the incentives: Every system is built to operate in a certain way to achieve a given result. If we’re not achieving the results we want, that means there are forces within our system that drive it in an undesirable direction. These hidden drivers are called incentives, and we have to:

   1. understand what they are,

   2. understand what they connect to, and

   3. change them in such a way that we achieve what we want without breaking everything else they connect to.

3. Assign the responsibility: Typically, the Human Resources department is accountable for setting and driving the corporate culture. However, there’s usually no responsibility or a responsible person for that. What we need to do is:

   1. write down what the responsibilities are, i.e. the tasks that have to be done in relation to setting and steering the correct corporate culture,

   2. distribute them among all managers/leaders inside the organization, and

   3. allocate the task of measuring and checking the results of management/leadership to a Culture Committee, Head of Culture, or similar.

   This pt.3 also answers the questions I started the post with: Do we need an orchestra conductor for everything we do? No. What we need is clarity of what should be done and the way to ensure it is indeed done. But whether we assign it to a specific person or we take turns in this role is not that important. Having always the same assignee is easier, but it also has its negatives (i.e. the other people in the group stop feeling responsible and stop contributing).

2️⃣ Communicate

We absolutely cannot overcommunicate our purpose. We also cannot overcommunicate our mission, vision, values, strategy, strategic goals, priorities, changes, no changes, and so on. We must constantly relay the essence of our company - we’re literally and figuratively its walking poster. Here’s why:

✅ The average human can only hold a few items in their short-term memory.

George Miller's paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information”, published in 1956, examines the limits of human cognitive processing and identifies that the average number of objects an individual can hold in their working memory is about 7±2.

However, Nelson Cowan’s paper “The Magical Number 4 in Short-Term Memory: A Reconsideration of Mental Storage Capacity”, published in 2001, eliminates the “chunking” of information from Miller’s research and establishes the new cognitive limit at 4±1.

Put shortly, we forget. A lot. Or, to be even more precise, we don’t even remember in order to forget. If our buffer is already overloaded, the message just passes us by.

✅ A prospective client has to be exposed to our product/service at least 7 times to buy.

This is called the Marketing Rule of 7 and it was developed by the movie industry in the 1930s. Studio bosses discovered that a certain amount of advertising and promotion was required to compel someone to see one of their movies - 7 times, to be precise. And each of these 7 times the message had to be in 3 different formats. So in reality, potential viewers/buyers have to be exposed a minimum of 21 times (3 x 7 = 21) to convert.

✅ To create a new habit, we have to commit to doing it every day for 3 weeks, i.e. 21 days.

This was probably a misinterpretation of Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s work on self-image, namely Psycho-Cybernetics, published in 1960. More recent research shows that the 21-day rule is a myth. The study “How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world”, published in 2009, found that it takes an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become a habit, ranging from 18 to 254 days.

✅ Advertising professionals use a minimum of 20 ads to convert a potential buyer.

Thomas Smith, a London businessman, wrote a book called Successful Advertising in 1885. His guide, still relevant today, forms the foundation for the theory of frequency in advertising and marketing:

"The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
 The second time, they don’t notice it.
 The third time, they are aware that it is there.
 The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
 The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
 The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
 The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
 The eighth time, they start to think, 'Here’s that confounded ad again.'
 The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.
 The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
 The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
 The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
 The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
 The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
 The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
 The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
 The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
 The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
 The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
 The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering."

In her book Rise, Patty Azzarello gives the following example: “We chose quality over features as our Ruthless Priority over a six-month period. This was a very simple message: ‘Improve quality. For six months we will only fix bugs. No new features will be added.’ Every Friday afternoon we had an all-hands meeting. And in each and every one we would reiterate this message. And for 17 weeks in a row, someone always asked the question, ‘But shouldn’t we be putting new features in?’”

3️⃣ Execute

There’s nothing special about this step: we simply do the things we defined and communicated before.

4️⃣ Analyze

The main point is to act with integrity, authenticity, and transparency. Anything else will be gaslighting (i.e. saying one thing but doing another, and demanding that everyone believes what we say, not what we do).

When we analyze our measures and metrics at regular intervals, what we’re looking for is instances of misalignment between what we say we want to have and do and reality. For example, we say Quality is one of our main commitments to the customers, however, when faced with tight project deadlines we skip reviews and tests in order to deliver the products faster. Or we say we believe in free speech and want honest feedback, however, we fire anyone who disagrees with us and the way we run things in our organization.

Therefore, when performing our audits, we have to check not only if the right thing happened, but if it happened in the right way. For instance, we must check not only if product reviews and tests happened, but what they actually showed, and especially what happened if a review/test failed. This deep dive ensures that the purpose is indeed achieved.

That’s the way to also distinguish a good audit from a bad audit: If the auditor only check the WHAT, and not the HOW, or even more importantly the WHY, then they only scratch the surface. Yes, we’ll get a perfect audit result (i.e. zero non-conformances), however, that adds no value. A perfect audit result must not exist because a perfect process doesn’t exist. There’s always room for improvement, and we audit in order to learn what those Opportunities for Improvement (OFIs) are. If we don’t end up with a list of OFIs, then the audit was a waste of time.

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And that’s how we create a purpose-driven organization. And by staying true to our purpose, we ensure that our employees, customers, shareholders, and all others continuously trust what we say, are excited about what we do, and actively contribute to our success.

Next, see here how to install purpose inside processes:

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Imagine a rowing team in which no one knows what they’re doing.

How far do you think they’ll go when they’re not aligned? Will they be able to even move in the right direction? And how happy will they be with their overall performance?

And that’s, of course, if nothing terrible happens to them.

But there’s an easy way to prevent this disaster.

Read on 👇

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🚪 Find Your Way

When I was still in corporate, at some point I decided to move to a four-day workweek, instead of the five-day I was on. It was already a company policy that one could do that, with the caveat that their salary, vacation days, and everything else would also drop to 80%.

I went to my manager with my request and he said, “I can allow it, but I don’t know if the company will allow it. You have to talk to HR.”

So I went to HR and they said, “The company can allow it, but we don’t know if your manager will allow it. You have to talk to him.”

Turned out, this was going to be one of those topics that would be thrown around like a hot potato. Why? Because no one knew who was supposed to give the final approval. And if they didn’t know - the people who designed this process - there was no way I could. All I wanted to do was follow the process, so I could get my request approved (which I did manage, eventually…).

🛫 The Fiasco of the Heathrow Terminal 5 Opening

On 27 March 2008, Heathrow opened its new Terminal 5, a project that took five years and cost over 5 billion euros. Despite the extensive preparation, the opening day turned into a complete disaster and a major embarrassment for both Heathrow owner BAA and British Airways (BA).

Problems began as soon as BA staff arrived for their morning shifts. They faced delays getting to the building due to a shortage of designated parking spaces, forcing some to circle the area looking for a place to park.

Once inside, issues continued to mount. Staff were delayed at security checkpoints and were unfamiliar with the building layout, having not been provided with maps or guidance. Many employees didn't know where to go and had no one to call for help, taking over an hour to reach their workstations.

Additionally, IT system failures compounded the chaos. Baggage handlers' IDs were not recognized by the computers, preventing them from logging into the handling system, which led to three flights departing without any luggage. Others struggled with the Resource Management System (RMS), which allocates handlers to load or unload flights. Despite these problems, check-in staff continued to add luggage to the system. Soon bags clogged the underground conveyor system because the workers couldn't remove them quickly enough at the other end.

By lunchtime, the cumulative effect of these issues forced BA to cancel 20 flights. By 17:00 o’clock, the airline suspended all hold luggage check-in to clear the backlog of bags. This left passengers with the choice of flying with only hand luggage, finding an alternative flight, or claiming a refund. By the end of Terminal 5's first chaotic day, 34 flights had been canceled, and hundreds of passengers were stranded (out of the 40,000 that passed that day). By Saturday, BA faced a backlog of at least 15,000 bags, with some estimates closer to 20,000.

Over the following ten days, some 42,000 bags failed to travel with their owners, and over 500 flights were canceled. BA was not able to operate its full schedule from Terminal 5 until 8 April 2008, and had to postpone the transfer of its long-haul flights from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5.

According to the BA staff, the reasons for this fiasco were based on inadequate training and low company morale. Many employees didn't know about or didn’t attend the training sessions, and no volunteers wanted to come in and help on their day off. Additionally, many departments had repeatedly informed their managers that they were not ready or confident to move in, but there was a pervasive sense of overconfidence that everything would be okay on the opening day.

This disastrous launch resulted in the dismissal of BA's Director of Operations, Gareth Kirkwood, and Director of Customer Services, David Noyes. Four months after the opening, BA ran an advertising campaign to assure the public that things were finally working normally at Terminal 5.

⚡️ The Impact of Unclear Expectations

Having even minimal confusion as to who does what within our team or organization, and what we are supposed to do in particular, can cause huge compounded problems. If confusion is what we operate in, here’s the working environment we’ll end up with:

• Decision-Making: Not knowing how to communicate with whom about what means that the decision-makers will not have all the information they need to make important decisions.

• Communication: Important decisions will not be communicated accordingly to the impacted or interested parties.

• Organizational Performance: Tasks will be either duplicated or not done at all, thus lowering the overall performance of the organization.

• Personal Development: A person will not be able to deliver or exceed expectations, when those expectations are unclear.

• Career Development: We won’t be able to measure how well a person performs when we don’t know what exactly they’re supposed to do and how. We also won’t know what training and development will be best for them.

• Motivation: A person will not know if and when they’re truly done with their tasks, thus increasing their frustration and lowering their motivation.

• Tension & Conflict: Teammates will start blaming each other when things go wrong and they don’t know who is responsible.

• Trust, Autonomy, Collaboration: Trust will disappear when people start blaming each other, and with no trust, there can be neither autonomy nor collaboration.

• Stress & Burnout: The lack of trust, support, openness, collaboration, and communication among team members will turn a complex and dynamic working environment into a hostile and toxic one.

• Psychological Safety & Innovation: Experimentation, risk-taking, and innovation will not be possible, as they only happen in psychologically safe environments, where people are motivated, enjoy working with each other, and trust and support each other.

• Quality of Product/Service: As a result of all of the above.

• Customer Service: Customers will start receiving inconsistent and confusing service or support.

• Brand Image: Customers will not be happy with the service they’re receiving and will voice their opinions to anyone who asks.

• Profit & Loss: All of the above will raise the costs and lower the revenue of the whole company.

📇 One View to Rule Them All

To avoid the above problems, we have to clarify upfront who does what in our processes. That means a) define it, b) agree on it, c) execute it, and d) maintain it.

The most common way of defining it is by creating a RACI Matrix.

What’s a RACI Matrix? I’m glad you asked 😉

🔍 Definitions

✅ What is RACI?

RACI comes from the first letters of the below adjectives. When it comes to processes, these adjectives carry a certain meaning:

• Responsible: the one doing the task

• Accountable: the one who ensures the task gets done

• Consulted: the one who receives the information and provides feedback (bi-directional information flow)

• Informed: the one who only receives the information (one-directional information flow)

RACI is a way to describe process roles. A role inside a process is the set of things to do, know, and be, as defined by the process.

Process roles are not job descriptions and not people. Process roles get assigned to people. This means one person can be assigned multiple process roles, just like one process role can be performed by many people.

NOTE: I will be focusing only on the RACI model. However, there are many other similar models, some of which include even more (or different) process roles (see more on Wikipedia). Nevertheless, the logic in what all these models represent, how to fill them out, and how to use them is the same.

✅ What is a RACI Matrix?

The RACI Matrix looks like this:

The rows represent the process steps and the columns represent the process roles allocated to those steps. Their cross-section shows what the process role’s exact involvement is regarding a given process step: whether that role is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, or Informed.

The above is just a template. When creating our actual RACI Matrix, we replace Step 1, 2, 3, etc. with the specific names of our process steps, adding as many rows as needed (one for each step). Similarly, we replace Role A, B, C, etc. with the names of our process roles, adding as many columns as necessary (one for each role).

TIP: In the table above, I have used a dash to indicate where no one is Consulted or Informed. Normally, these fields would be left blank. However, I prefer not to leave them blank, as it can give the impression that the RACI Matrix is incomplete, particularly when the process is still in draft form and I send it out for review.

When we start filling out the RACI Matrix, we might be tempted to list job titles instead of process roles, especially if we haven't identified specific roles needed for our process. This can be a double-edged sword:

1. On one hand, linking process roles to job descriptions can be very beneficial (as I will explain in Part 2).

2. On the other hand, using process roles instead of job titles provides flexibility, allowing us to remain independent of the organizational structure. This is crucial because when the organization undergoes restructuring (which is very likely, especially in the IT business), our defined RACI Matrix can still remain relevant. Additionally, some process roles don’t exist as job titles within the organization, such as Author, Reviewer, or Approver of documentation; Project Manager for internal projects (e.g., improvement, revamp, or innovation initiatives); Stakeholder or Subject-Matter Expert; etc. These process roles can encompass various job titles or even other process roles.

🔐 Rules for Creating a RACI Matrix

Filling out the RACI Matrix is not complicated. However, we have to consider what the implications will be in reality. Here are the rules that can serve as our guide:

Rule 1️⃣: There should be no duplication of roles per process step.

This, in other words, means the following:

1.1. Accountable and Responsible cannot be the same role.

Someone else should supervise the Responsible, guide them, and help them remove obstacles when needed. For example, if I am the Responsible, I shouldn’t be the one supervising my own work, just as I shouldn’t be the one reviewing or approving the documents, software code, etc., that I’ve created. I need another point of view (usually higher up the hierarchy) and another pair of eyes to minimize risks.

Here’s another example: Let’s imagine we are running a complex project with tight deadlines (i.e. we are the Responsible). There are too many tasks and not enough time. Even with the best intentions, we cannot do (or remember to do) everything. Who should remind us of the company’s priorities? Who should ensure we prioritize certain tasks over others? Who should keep us honest and grounded as we approach deadlines or risk missing our deliverables? Who should lobby and vouch for us and our project in front of others in the company, especially Top Management? If the answer to these questions is again us, then a) we are adding even more tasks to our already overloaded plate, and b) strictly speaking, we’ll act more responsibly if we have committed to someone else on those project deliverables, rather than if we have committed only to ourselves.

Therefore, if things go wrong and we are both the Responsible and the Accountable, the risk of failing to deliver increases. Hence, it’s always best to keep the Responsible and Accountable roles separate.

NOTE: If you’re experiencing troubles identifying the Accountable when filling out the RACI Matrix, see Rule 2 below.

1.2. Whoever is listed as Consulted doesn’t have to be listed as Informed too.

According to the definition, the Consulted role requires a bi-directional flow of information (from the Responsible to a third party and back), while the Informed role requires only a one-directional flow (from the Responsible to the third party). Therefore, if someone is being Consulted, they have already been Informed.

1.3. If someone is already Accountable or Responsible, the bi-directional information flow is assumed.

For the Responsible, this is self-evident - they don’t need to consult or inform themselves about their own tasks.

For the Accountable, though, why wouldn't we list them as Consulted or Informed? Because the Accountable must be informed - otherwise, they cannot be held accountable for things they are unaware of. And to be truly accountable, they also must have the authority to approve or adjust plans made by the Responsible. Therefore, the Accountable is inherently in an active and constant Consulted role, making it unnecessary to specify this separately.

Rule 2️⃣: There should be exactly one Accountable per process step.

This aims to ensure the process step indeed gets done. If there is no Accountable person, or more than one Accountable, the risk of things falling through the cracks increases significantly.

How should we address this issue?

2.1. No Accountable

If we cannot identify the Accountable person for a given process step, we should list as Accountable the direct manager of the person listed as Responsible (as per the organizational structure).

2.2. More than one Accountable

In this case, we probably haven’t cut out the process correctly - see Setting Boundaries in my other post for the solution.

NOTE: Some BPM colleagues argue that there should be exactly one Responsible person per process step for that same reason - to ensure the task gets done. However, I don’t think this is realistic. Often, multiple people perform the same activity within their specific domains, with one person overseeing the entire effort (e.g. Project Managers under a Program Manager, or Product Owners under a Product Manager). Therefore, I prefer having exactly one Accountable person and listing as many Responsible individuals as needed for each process step.

Rule 3️⃣: Accountable and Responsible are mandatory for each process step; Consulted and Informed are not.

In other words, there may be steps in the process where we don’t consult with or inform anyone. However, we cannot have a process step without at least one Responsible person and exactly one Accountable person.

🧐 How to Read a RACI Matrix

A RACI Matrix is, first and foremost, a matrix. We need this table view to read the information from top to bottom, as well as from left to right. Here’s why:

⬇️ Vertical View

If e.g. I’m assigned Process Role A, I can immediately see which process steps are attributed to my role and in what capacity: which steps I need to perform, ensure, provide feedback on, or simply receive information about.

NOTE: It’s always a good idea that we list all the process steps assigned to us across various processes. Ideally, this list will form our job description and/or personal objectives (see more on Personal Objectives in my other post). But even if that’s not the case, knowing all our assignments and expectations helps us better plan, prioritize, commit, negotiate deadlines, request additional resources, and more.

➡️ Horizontal View

If e.g. I’m executing Step 1 (i.e. I’m the Responsible), I can see who else needs to be involved and in what capacity.

If e.g. I’m the Process Auditor and I’m auditing Step 1, I can immediately see who is supposed to perform it, who ensures it happens, who provides feedback, and who receives information about its completion. This allows me to verify that all these activities have indeed occurred.

Lastly, if e.g. I’m a stakeholder of this process (i.e. I execute another process that depends on input from this one), I can ensure my role is listed as e.g. Informed in the RACI Matrix. This way, the Responsible person knows they need to inform me when the step is completed, allowing me to perform my dependent process optimally.

🪴 How to Implement a RACI Matrix

☝️ Defining Process Roles

As mentioned above, it might be beneficial to maintain process roles separate from organizational job descriptions. Similar to job descriptions, process roles also require a clear definition. A complete definition of a process role should encompass the following four attributes:

• Responsibility: the task that needs to get done

• Accountability: the ownership of (someone else’s) Responsibility

• Authority: the rights (access to tools, information, people, etc.) needed to fulfill the assigned Responsibilities and Accountabilities

• Competency: the skills (knowledge, experience, etc.) needed to fulfill the assigned Responsibilities, Accountabilities, and Authorities

👉 Assigning Process Roles

Competency

Once process roles are defined, they need to be assigned to individuals who will execute them. To do that, we have to match the actual skills of the people to the required Competencies for each process role. Ideally, we already have a good understanding of the skills within our team. We use this information to assign each process role to the most suitable person.

However, both the required role competencies (i.e. what’s planned) and the individual competencies (i.e. what’s actual) are not static - they evolve over time. Every process edit can trigger changes to the process roles (see more under Process Purpose in my other post). Similarly, people gain new skills or may lose existing ones. Hence, it’s crucial to continually track and update all competencies to bridge the gaps between what’s needed and what’s currently available.

Authority

Another critical aspect to monitor is the Authorities associated with process roles. There's often an assumption that assigning someone a Responsibility or Accountability automatically grants them the necessary Authority to fulfill that role. In practice, this can lead to contradictions, such as:

• A Sales colleague tasked with negotiating prices lacks the authority to offer discounts.

• An IT colleague has to fix the HR system but lacks the authority to view financial or other personal data.

• A Quality Management colleague is responsible for meeting customer requirements but lacks the authority to review the customer contract.

• Etc.

Therefore, when defining process roles, we have to carefully consider the required Authorities needed to fulfill the Responsibilities and Accountabilities. And when assigning process roles, we have to again carefully consider if we have granted all necessary Authorities to the designated individuals (or job descriptions).

🫴 Delegating Process Roles

Delegation is a common practice to increase efficiency, but it should adhere to certain principles to be effective.

Responsibility

The process role’s Responsibilities are the main thing that gets delegated. However, for effective delegation:

1. the accompanying Authorities must also be delegated, and

2. the delegate must possess the necessary Competencies for both the Responsibilities and the Authorities delegated (if they don’t, we/they have to plan to acquire these Competencies promptly) → see Competency above

Accountability

Accountability is very often tied to the organizational structure, as individuals are assigned Accountabilities based on their job descriptions and positions in the hierarchy. This gives a person the formal mandate to establish an environment that fosters the fulfillment of their team’s Responsibilities. Without such a mandate, the Accountable person cannot truly be accountable for anything because their hands are tied. However, this also means that Accountability cannot be delegated. We can delegate a task (Responsibility), but we cannot delegate the ownership of a task (Accountability).

Let’s take for example a sports team - the coach is always Accountable. No matter how each team member performs on a given day, what obstacles there are, and who is or isn’t doing their Responsibilities properly, the coach is Accountable for the overall team performance. The coach cannot delegate this Accountability to someone else, because that someone else is not the coach (as per the formal organizational structure) and, therefore, will not be recognized as the Accountable by anyone else.

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And that’s how we clarify the roles of everybody within our team and organization. And by doing so, we eliminate the possible confusion and establish an open, trusting, collaborative, supportive, and psychologically safe environment for everyone.

Thank you for reading 💝

See you in the next post,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Today, I have a whole lot of little helpers that will make it easier for me to explain to you what I mean - cats! 😺😺😺

What do cats have to do with Business Process Management, you ask?

I hear you.

Read on 👇

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🪂 Operation Cat Drop

Back in the early 1950s, some of the villages on the island of Borneo (then a British colony of Sarawak, now part of Malaysia) faced a serious malaria outbreak. To save human lives, the World Health Organization decided to intervene. They sprayed the insecticide DDT across the area, killing the mosquito population - the insect that carries malaria - and significantly reducing the incidence of the disease.

However, the World Health Organization failed to foresee the full impact of their actions. One of the first side effects was that house roofs started collapsing. The DDT had not only killed the mosquitoes but also a parasitic wasp that preyed on thatch-eating caterpillars. Without the wasps, the caterpillar population flourished, causing the roofs to deteriorate. Britain provided sheet metal for new roofs, but in an area with heavy tropical rain, the tin roofs proved problematic, as they were noisy and kept the villagers awake at night.

Worse still, the DDT poisoned other insects that were eaten by gecko lizards, which in turn were eaten by cats. As a result, the cats started dying, allowing the rat population to explode. The rats not only started destroying the crops but carried infections too. The people ended up facing outbreaks of two new serious diseases - sylvatic plague and typhus.

To address these self-created problems, the World Health Organization decided on a unique solution: parachuting live cats into Borneo. Between 20 and 30 cats were supplied and flown in from Singapore (also a British colony at the time). This event took place in the early 1960s and is known as Operation Cat Drop. The parachuted cats effectively solved the rat problem, helping to finally restore balance to the local ecosystem.

🐈 The Ritual Cat

An Ancient Zen Fable

When the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery made such noise that it distracted them.

So the teacher ordered that the cat be tied up during the evening practice. Years later, when the teacher died, the cat continued to be tied up during the meditation session.

And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and tied up.

Centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly treatises about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice.

🏢 Setting up the Organization

These cat stories show us two things:

1. Random action brings random results. We must plan our activities, look at different scenarios, and choose the best one (based on pros and cons) so that we can minimize the risks.

2. When the circumstances around (and the reasons for) our chosen scenario change, we must ensure we’re aware of it so that we can adjust our activities accordingly.

How do we apply this to organizations?

We do that right from the beginning, when setting up our company.

Before we start setting up our company, though, it’s good to know the basics of how to manage it. Read more about that here:

1️⃣ Company Overview

Each company starts out by establishing clear business goals - meaning, we have to define our company’s mission, vision, strategy, and values. These four things are the basis for everything else our company will do. Defining them is Top Management’s responsibility. We have to create them in written form and ensure they are widely communicated, adopted, and regularly monitored. They are long-term parameters, therefore, we don’t have to update them so often, but we do have to constantly keep an eye on them to ensure that a) they are still valid for us, and b) our actions still support them.

This rectangle represents our company. Everything inside of it is our operation and organization, and everything outside of it is our business / market environment. The green star with Sam inside (yes, he has a name 😉) is where we are right now. This can be best determined by a SWOT analysis.

Let’s look at each of the four elements in this picture in more detail.

🔵 Mission

The mission (the cloud and the blue surrounding line in the picture) is our company’s overall purpose. The mission statement aims to answer the questions of who we are and why we exist as an organization. It has to be a concise and inspiring answer and, once properly defined, it shouldn’t change. The main goal of the mission statement is to create a sense of identity for everyone inside the organization. It also provides the needed clarity on how the company serves its other stakeholders: customers, partners, suppliers, shareholders, investors, etc.

See this explanation by Dan Heath on how to define the company’s mission:

🔴 Vision

The vision (the red star in the picture) indicates where we want our company to be in the future, i.e. what our aspirations are. The vision statement describes a better world that does not yet exist, but which will be achieved as we realize our purpose (i.e. deliver on our mission). The vision statement can only be a short tagline, e.g. the company’s slogan. Like the mission statement, once properly defined, the vision statement shouldn’t change. It serves as the North Star: it provides the direction of our company and it aligns our people behind one common goal.

See this explanation by Simon Sinek on how to define the company’s vision:

🟢 Strategy

The strategy (the arrow in the picture) is the long-term plan, which will take our company from where it currently is to where we want it to be in the future (i.e. to the company’s vision). The strategy encompasses the goals and objectives of the company - the products or services we want to deliver and the customers or markets we want to deliver them to. We use our strategy to make decisions about prioritization and allocation/optimization of company resources. The strategy can change due to market conditions, stakeholder expectations, etc, even though that’s rare because it’s long-term by default. Apart from ensuring the company’s vision is achieved, the strategy also has to be aligned with what the company stands for: its mission and values.

See this explanation by Erica Olsen on how to define the company’s strategy:

🟡 Values

The values (the sun in the picture) are the beliefs in which our company is emotionally invested. The values define what we stand for - they shape the company’s culture and help with decision-making. The values determine the approach our company will take in reaching its vision, i.e. how we will conduct our business and essentially all of our everyday activities.

See this explanation by Jeff Lawson on how to define the company’s values:

Examples of Mission, Vision, Strategy, and Values Statements

• Toyota: Vision, Values

• Coca-Cola

• Patagonia

• Hallmark

• Amazon

• Futurice

• Netflix

• Paypal

• Twilio

• Nike

2️⃣ Process Overview

Once we have clarified our business statements and goals, we have to feed them into our daily operations. This means that, for each process we create, we must explain how it supports our higher-level objectives and principles.

🟣 Process Purpose

There is always a reason why certain processes exist in a company (in their current shape and form) and others don’t. When that reason changes, the processes must change as well. To be able to make this change, we must first ensure the reason WHY is explained. We do that inside the first section of each process document, called Process Purpose. The purpose tells us why a process exists.

Moreover, there’s a tight correlation between our company strategy and the processes we have. For example, if our company operates in the Automotive industry, the majority of our processes will be connected to manufacturing cars and car parts or producing software for those cars. Likewise, if we have a chain of coffee shops, the majority of our processes will be around producing and/or handling coffee. It’ll be rather surprising to see an automobile manufacturer having company processes for making the best cup of coffee in town 😉

That’s why we have to align the process purpose with the company’s strategy - and when the strategy gets updated, all our processes must be revised too.

More on this topic here:

Let’s take an example process from e.g. A-SPICE v.3.1: The Process Purpose of the Risk Management process is to successfully manage risks within a given scope.

The following sections will tell us what happens next.

🟠 Process Outcomes

The Process Purpose breaks down into Process Outcomes. The outcomes are the main things that a process aims to achieve, i.e. the WHAT part. They tells us how the process purpose will be realized.

The process outcomes shouldn’t be confused with process outputs. The outputs are what the process produces as a result of its activities - e.g. documents, records, software code, reports. Those outputs are then used by the subsequent process(es) in the overall system of processes. The outcomes, however, are the benefit that the outputs bring to the organization, its customers, and other stakeholders. Those could be things like establishing a controlled environment, maintaining employee and customer satisfaction, increasing revenue, etc.

More on output vs. outcome here (see Leverage):

Continuing with the Risk Management example, we break the Process Purpose into the following Process Outcomes (I’ve shortened it for clarity):

1. The Risk Management scope is established.

2. The Risk Management strategy within that scope is established.

3. The risks are identified.

4. The risks are analyzed.

5. The risk treatment actions are identified.

6. The risk treatment actions are implemented.

Note that the Process Outputs of the same process are defined as:

1. Risk Management Plan

2. Risk Action Request

3. Risk Mitigation Plan

4. Risk Analysis Report

5. Risk Status Report

6. etc.

🟤 Process Activities

The Process Outcomes are then broken down into Process Activities. Those are the actual steps of the process, the day-to-day execution. They show us HOW the process will achieve its outcomes and, thus, realize its purpose. Which, on a higher level, tells us how our company’s strategy will be executed.

The process activities are typically presented in a process diagram or flow and are also associated with many other elements from the process definition, like scope, inputs, outputs, process interfaces, RACI Matrix, monitoring and measurement, etc.

Continuing with the Risk Management example, we break the Process Outcomes into the following Process Activities (aka Base Practices, since A-SPICE is an external standard):

1. Establish the Risk Management scope → Process Outcome 1

2. Define the Risk Management strategies → Process Outcome 2

3. Identify the risks → Process Outcomes 2 and 3

4. Analyze the risks → Process Outcome 4

5. Define the risk treatment actions → Process Outcomes 5 and 6

6. Monitor the risks → Process Outcomes 5 and 6

7. Take corrective action (when risk mitigation is not achieved) → Process Outcome 6

⚫️ Personal Objectives

Now that we’ve defined our processes, we have to ensure they’re executed as intended. Companies use Employee Performance Management (or Evaluation) systems for that (with various degrees of success).

If executed right, the personal objectives should be based on the company processes that the individual executes, which in turn are based on the company’s strategy. All strategic objectives are cascaded down from the highest organizational level to the lowest and, therefore, should also be traceable in the other direction - from the lowest-level tasks to the highest-level strategic goals. As a result, the sum of all personal objectives in our company should give us the sum of all company process activities, which in turn should give us the company’s strategy. That way, everyone in our organization knows how what they do daily contributes to this better future world that the company envisions.

The same logic applies to the company’s values. We not only have to define the personal objectives as WHAT has to be done but also explain HOW. The individual methods should support the overall company values. Thus, the total sum of everybody’s HOW shapes our company’s culture.

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And that’s how we connect the two sides of our business - external (product and market related) and internal (organization and operation). And, by doing so, we also create the basis for our future success.

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Imagine you’re throwing a party. There are so many things to take care of: arranging the space, cooking the food, buying drinks, organizing people, etc. By the time the party comes, you’re so tired of it all that you just want it over with. You can’t wait for everyone to come and, even more importantly, to go so you can sleep for two days straight.

Why does this happen, and what can you do about it?

Keep reading 👇

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💲 What a Business Process Manager Does for a Living

When I see my mom, sooner or later we touch on the topic of what I do for a living. Our conversation usually goes along those lines:

Mom: “The other day I met with a friend from high school. I haven’t seen her for so long! Among other things, she asked what you did for a living. I couldn’t say.”

Me: “Why couldn’t you say?”

Mom: “Because I don’t know.”

Me: “How come you don’t know? It’s not a secret. Plus, I’ve explained it to you so many times.”

Mom: “Yeah, I know, but I still don’t understand it.”

Me: “It’s really not that complicated. I do management.”

Mom: “Yeah, right… Well, I’m a Civil Engineer. I build houses and install water pipes. What do you do with that management of yours? Is there a tangible result?”

Me: “Yes, in a way. The tangible result is a well-organized company.”

Mom: 😐

Me: “OK, let’s start from the beginning. You know how in school, and later university, we learn the theory, and then we find ourselves a job and we implement that theory in practice?”

Mom: “Yes…?”

Me: “So, my theory is management - as a science. I constantly study it and implement it into practice - in organizations.”

Mom: “Why do you keep studying it? Why can’t you finally learn it?”

Me: “Mom, it’s science - it keeps changing!”

Mom: “OK, but then, how do you implement it in practice? Do you become a manager?”

Me: “I am a manager.”

Mom: 😐

Me: “Right… I’ll explain in another way: So, you build houses, right? But, before you even start, you need to make designs for everything. Then you have to approve these designs with the authorities. Then you have to get the materials, the people, decide on the time frame, etc. Only then you can start building. Correct?”

Mom: “Yes…?”

Me: “Well, someone has to organize all of this work. It’s not only about building the house; there’s a lot of organization happening before, during, and even after building it. Correct?”

Mom: “Yes.”

Me: “OK, so now imagine a company: It’s not only about producing a product or delivering a service. There are a lot of things happening at a company before, during, and after producing that product or delivering that service. And someone has to organize all of that work. That’s what management does - it’s the organization of all company activities. That’s what I do.”

Mom: “But you don’t work at a company - you’re an external consultant.”

Me: “Yes…?”

Mom: “So, if you organize the management of the company, what do the actual managers at that company do?”

Me: “Yeah, my thoughts exactly…”

Mom: 😐

Me: “I mean, yes, you’re right! It’s the managers’ job to manage the company. But they are too busy fighting their everyday fires. They don’t have the time to stop and design a long-term strategy, and then use their scarce resources to implement it. But without that long-term strategy, their daily fires keep popping up - and even increase in number. So the managers have even less time and energy. It’s a vicious circle! So I come in to help them by designing and implementing that long-term strategy that will ease everybody’s work.”

Mom: “Ah, now I get it! Thanks, I’ll explain it to my friend when I see her next.”

On the following day, I’d ask my mom randomly: “Do you still remember what I do for a living?”

Mom: “No, it was too complicated - I already forgot.”

🙈

⏲ What Business Process Management Means in Practice

I’m sure all the F1 fans out there have already noticed how the time for pit stops kept improving through the years (and if you’re not an F1 fan, watch Formula 1: Drive to Survive and you’ll become one 😉).

Take a look:

What we’re seeing here is process improvement in action. The overall process is the same - changing tires - but there are many little steps inside this process. When each of them gets tweaked ever so slightly to produce a better result, we end up with a huge overall process improvement. The business domain responsible for such improvements is called Business Process Management (BPM).

In order to add value, BPM has to do the following (in that sequence):

1. Order the chaos by implementing processes and systems.

2. Increase efficiency and performance by streamlining the processes, removing waste, and automating.

3. Continuously improve the processes by monitoring, measuring, and analyzing.

To break this down, let’s start with an example.

🍲 From Home Cooking to Running a Restaurant Business

Let’s say we want to cook dinner. We have to decide what we (incl. our family) want to eat and when, find the respective recipes we’ll use, go shopping for the ingredients, get all the needed utensils and/or kitchen devices, plan backward when to start cooking (not too early before the desired dinner time and not too late either), and, only after all of this, proceed with the actual cooking.

Now, let’s say we want to eat a home-cooked dinner every evening. In this case, we have to decide in advance (and agree with our family on):

1. what all the steps in the dinner-cooking process will be,

2. who will do which step (we’ll probably rotate), and

3. how (including when).

Also, we might consider:

4. what will happen when there are variations to our process (e.g. someone wants something more sophisticated for dinner, which will require specific ingredients, or tools to make, or more time; someone wants to dine out on a particular evening; and so on).

The above example shows how every activity has two sides of the same coin: On the one side, it’s the actual activity - cooking dinner, in this case. On the other side, it’s all the organization we have to do prior to beginning (and during, and after) the actual activity. Regardless of what activity we take as an example, we can always split it into these two parts: thinking vs. doing, planning vs. executing, managing vs. working, organizing vs. producing, etc.

This split is not random, nor is it new. It’s called Scientific Management and it was created during the Second Industrial Revolution by Frederick Winslow Taylor - hence, sometimes referred to as Taylorism. What’s striking is that we still use his very same principles today, in the 21st century, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, after they were proven inadequate a very long time ago.

If we decide we want to scale our dinner cooking further and make a business out of it, we’ll find out that:

• the dinner is the product we deliver,

• whoever eats it is our consumer,

• whoever pays for it is our customer (in this example, customers and consumers are typically the same),

• whoever cooks it is our employee,

• we are the employees’ manager,

• and whoever invests in our first dinner(s) is our sponsor.

Our business model is quite simple:

1. We take the money from our sponsors,

2. pay with it for food ingredients, kitchen utensils/tools, and employees,

3. our employees use the utensils/tools to convert the food ingredients into dinner,

4. our consumers eat it,

5. our customers pay for it,

6. we take the money from the customers and reinvest some of it into tomorrow’s dinner and the rest we split between our sponsors and us.

Then we repeat a few times, until we don’t have to take money from our sponsors anymore (we’d still need to give them a cut at the end, though).

Notice how cooking the actual dinner (pt.3 from above) is a very small part of everything else happening inside our business.

Notice also how many people are suddenly involved.

What happens when we decide to scale up our business and have a chain of restaurants?

We end up with a gazillion managers in a complicated hierarchical structure who help us carry out all business activities by managing within their respective domains (e.g. Finance, Accounting, Marketing, Sales, Cooking Operations, Restaurant Management, and so on).

Who oversees all of these domains simultaneously and ensures they integrate and work seamlessly?

We do. Well, at least we should, given that we are literally and figuratively on top of everything and everyone. Or, if we’re too busy envisioning new products and services, meeting with potential new investors, partners, and big clients, and marketing our business, we can choose to delegate the organizational responsibility and hire a Business Process Manager.

According to Michael E. Gerber in his book The E-Myth Revisited, there are three personas needed to run a business successfully:

1. Technician - the person who does the job,

2. Manager - the person who organizes the job to be done, and

3. Entrepreneur - the person who envisions where the business can go and takes it there.

Naturally, each of us is the strongest in only one of these domains, maybe two at best, but never all three of them. Therefore, we need to know our weak sides and surround ourselves with people who can help us.

NOTE: The Manager in Gerber’s book is the Business Process Manager in my book 😉

More on the main takeaways from The E-Myth Revisited here:

🧮 Business Process Management in Organizations

BPM Scope

As discussed in a previous post, everything is part of a bigger system. Companies are no exception. They produce a product or deliver a service to customers/clients in an open market, outside of the company boundaries. That’s why we can informally split the company activities into two types:

• externally-facing, such as Marketing, Sales, Business Development, Brand, Public Relations, etc., and

• internally-facing, such as Human Resources, Operations, Communications, Information Technologies, etc.

Business Process Management is internally-facing. It does need input on the business model and the product/service the company produces/delivers, however, this is not the main focus. The main focus is the internal processes and operation, and, consequently, structure and organization. More specifically, Business Process Management ensures that the internal processes, operation, structure, and organization support the company business model in the best way, i.e. deliver the chosen product(s)/service(s) in an optimal manner.

Depending on the internal scope of Business Process Management activities, companies call the responsible person:

• Operations Director, Vice President of Organizational Development, Head of Processes & Culture, or similar (if the scope is the whole company);

• Quality Manager, Quality Assurance (QA) Manager, Maturity Champion, Process Analyst/Designer, Process Improvement Specialist, or similar (if the scope is a department);

• Agile Coach, Scrum Master, or similar (if the scope is a team);

• Project Quality Manager, Project Scrum Master, or similar (if the scope is a project);

• Product Operations Manager, Product Agile Coach, or similar (if the scope is a product);

• and many other names (e.g. Chief of Staff).

Whatever we call this person, they are responsible for ensuring that:

1. there are living and breathing processes for everything within the assigned scope, and

2. these processes integrate and work well together, as one (process) system.

Irrespective of the scope, I call this person a Business Process Manager.

BPM Deliverables

Processes

There’s a lot of talk about processes, but what is a process?

A process is a set of several interrelated steps/activities, which take something (input) and convert it into something else (output).

Moreover, the process is always repeatable - if it’s not repeatable, we can call it a one-off activity, an initiative, a project, a whim, or whatever else, but not a process. We need the process to be repeatable so that we can improve it. We have multiple iterations of a process, and with each iteration, we learn something new and make improvements in the next iteration. Without iterations, we can still learn but we cannot improve. Moreover, without iterations, we cannot guarantee that we’ll produce the same output (product/service) for our customers/clients every time.

As already explained, the Business Process Manager ensures that all required processes are in place, but it’s important to note that:

1. they don’t create the processes by themself, and

2. they’re not the one executing them either.

The Business Process Manager knows Business Process Management and its tools and related processes - that’s what they execute, not the processes from other “technical” domains (to use Gerber’s terminology). The “Technicians” - also called Subject-Matter Experts (SMEs) - and the Business Process Manager work together to create the company processes. The Business Process Manager cannot create alone the technical processes, because they won’t know the technical specifics. In the same way, the SMEs cannot create their processes alone either, because they won’t know a) all elements and tools needed to define a process, and b) all relations to and from other processes.

System

Business Process Management not only takes care of the individual processes but also ensures there’s a system of processes. According to MIT, who created the discipline of System Thinking, a system is a set of interrelated entities and their relationships, all of which enable a function that is bigger/better/more powerful than simply the sum of the parts.

More on System Thinking here:

In a process system, the processes are the entities, but how do they relate to each other?

As already explained, a process takes inputs and converts them into outputs. However, these inputs come from somewhere - usually, they’re produced by another process. And the outputs go somewhere too - typically, to another process as inputs. This is how we end up with interrelated processes, but for them to become a system, they all must have a common function that is bigger than the sum of the parts. Therefore, the Business Process Manager has to ensure that:

1. the processes are in place (i.e. system entities),

2. the interrelations between the processes are in place (i.e. entity relationships), and

3. all processes together work seamlessly and better than each of them individually (i.e. emergent function of the system).

Part of the process mapping/discovery/design activity is creating a SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer) diagram for each process step:

• Supplier: process/person that provides the input

• Input: deliverable used

• Process: activity that converts the input into the desired output

• Output: deliverable produced

• Customer: process/person that consumes the output

Having this information at hand is invaluable for the visibility and transparency of process relations.

More on how to create a SIPOC diagram here:

BPM Methodology

Finally, how does a Business Process Manager do what they do?

When put into practice, Business Process Management is in fact a process on its own. This process is the Continuous Improvement Process (CIP), also defined by Dr. William Edwards Deming as the PDSA/PDCA Cycle (Plan - Do - Study/Check - Act):

1. Plan: Define/design the process.

2. Do: Execute the process.

3. Study/Check: Monitor the process, analyze the findings, and identify the Opportunities for Improvement (OFIs).

4. Act: Correct the output(s) of the process iteration, if possible; then go back to Plan to implement the OFIs into the next process iteration, thus, closing the cycle.

On a closer look, we’ll notice that every process, not only CIP, follows the PDSA/PDCA cycle:

1. We plan and organize our activities before we do them.

2. Then we do them.

3. Because we want to improve, we need to learn how and what to improve, therefore, we study the execution of the process.

4. Because we have a process, it is repeatable, therefore, we have a next iteration in which to implement our lessons learned from the previous one.

Summary

Based on all of the above, the SIPOC diagram of the BPM process looks like this:

In other words:

Business Process Management is the process of organizing and continually improving the operations of a company (or department, project, product, team, if the scope is smaller) in order to achieve and support its business model, vision, mission, strategy, purpose, goals, values, beliefs, culture.

The person who executes this process is the Business Process Manager.

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And that’s how we use Business Process Management in practice - in our organizations or in everyday life. And, by doing so, we ensure that we stay on top of all activities and people needed to achieve our goals.

Next, see here the benefits of BPM in more detail:

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Imagine you grew tired of corporate employment, you became a freelancer and you totally love it! You’re finally your own boss, you work on what you want, with whom you want, from wherever you want. It’s an absolute bliss!

But something is off. You look at all those successful business people in your professional area and you’re nowhere near them. Even worse, you have no idea how to get to where they are. They seem to be attracting money and spending their time with anything but work.

How are they doing it? There must be a way, but what is it?

Keep reading 👇

* I presented this material at the Freelance Unlocked conference in 2024 (video available).

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😕 Starting to Freelance

Before I became a freelance consultant, I had spent 18 years in the corporate world. It seemed like the natural thing to do: First we study (how to be employees), then we find ourselves a job (in corporate). If we weren’t supposed to become employees, we would be taught in school how to be leaders and run our own businesses. But instead, we’re taught how to follow.

The good thing about being in corporate is that we get to keep learning - the practical skills needed to do the job, this time. And we’re surrounded by a) lots of free mentors, and b) plenty of networking opportunities. If we realize this in time, we might be able to truly capitalize on both of these (I definitely underperformed on that pt. b, so don’t be like me!).

Moreover, in corporate, we also learn what we don’t like - not only about our jobs but about work in general. Being told what to do, how to do it, when to do it, faking interest and motivation, playing politics, etc. - all of this eventually kills the fun of a job we might have enjoyed otherwise.

Freelancing sounds like Heaven in comparison: We get to be our own boss! Presumably, that means we finally get to do things the way we want them - and, of course, we know best! 🤓

Therefore, you can imagine my astonishment when, a few months down the freelance road, I realized I still had a manager, they were still telling me how to do things, I still disagreed, and so on… until all the fun was killed. This was definitely not what I had signed up for! So what was going on?

I dived deeper into the problem and saw that I was hired because of my knowledge, skills, and experience, but I was not given matching tasks. I was given entry-level tasks and I was overqualified for them. Usually, the corporate HR department ensures that employees are not overqualified for their positions. But I was not an employee. I was outside of the scope of the corporate Talent Management process. Which meant, I had to do my own Talent Management.

Hence, I set out to solve this problem - and this article is my solution.

📜 The Hiring Process

Corporate organizations have only one hiring process and it looks like this:

1. The organization identifies a problem.

2. The organization comes up with a solution to that problem.

3. The organization searches for internal talent to implement the solution. When they cannot find it, they decide to hire from outside.

4. A job description is created, which also serves as the job ad. It contains two main sections:

   1. What the person needs to do, and

   2. what the person needs to know to do it.

   Note that section A only lists the low-level detailed tasks of the implementation. It doesn’t talk about the overall solution, nor about the problem to be solved. For example, I have seen plenty of job ads for Project and Product Managers where all the typical Project or Product Management tasks are listed, however, there’s no mention of what the project or the product actually is 🙄

   Note also that section B is essentially the candidate selection criteria.

5. Job interviews are held with pre-selected candidates.

   Note that it doesn’t matter if the organization is searching for internal or external talent - those are still job interviews, not a partner’s or a sales call.

6. The selected candidate gets hired.

7. The new hire receives the exact same job description they’ve already seen in the job ad, i.e. listing the low-level detailed tasks of the implementation, and no mention of the overall solution or problem.

The main logic of this process looks like this: The organization identifies a problem, for which they create a solution, from which they derive detailed implementation tasks.

When an organization hires Junior employees, they place them at the lowest, implementation level. As the person learns and grows in their career, they start creating solutions on their own. And, as they grow even further, they begin identifying problems that others haven’t yet seen.

When a Senior employee (read: Director, VP, CxO) decides to change their organization, they look for other Senior positions, as those will be the problem-identification ones (aka strategic, decision-making, direction-setting). Moreover, these positions are intentionally designed to collaborate with the other top decision-makers in the organization. Anything less than that will be a step back in the person’s career not only in terms of money and status, but also in terms of knowledge and skills.

When the same Senior employee decides to step out of corporate and become a freelancer, they are literally stepping out of The Matrix: The corporate career path doesn’t apply to them anymore. So, when a company is searching for a freelancer to hire, they don’t know where to place them. A Senior freelancer can operate on any of the three levels - problem, solution, or implementation - quite successfully. That’s why it’s up to the freelancer to choose.

In my case, I decided that I didn’t want to be hired for implementation tasks anymore. I wanted to be hired at the top - to identify the problems. But, if not that, then I had to be hired for the middle level at a minimum - to create the solutions.

Which brought me to the next couple of questions I had to figure out:

1. What is the career path of a non-employee? If I want top-level positions, I need to present myself as a top-level freelancer. What does that even look like? And how do I embody it?

2. Where do I find open projects for top-level freelancers? I only see implementation-level freelance positions on all job-hunting platforms. There must be another way to get to the strategic projects. What is it?

As it turned out, the answer to these questions is the same 😉

📊 ESBI Model / Cashflow Quadrant

We can say that the career path of a non-employee already exists. It’s the ESBI Model created by Robert T. Kiyosaki in 1998. Its name stands for Employee, Self-Employed, Business Owner, and Investor. It’s also referred to as the Cashflow Quadrant because it explains the different ways we earn money.

These four boxes are essentially in a straight line. However, Kiyosaki presents them in a quadrant, because he wants to make a differentiation between the first and the last two steps: On the left (first two steps), we do the job ourselves; we sell our time for money. Whereas on the right (last two steps), we don’t do the job by ourselves; we use systems or money to make money for us (and we’re free to use our time as we please). This essentially follows the logic:

For a more detailed explanation of the ESBI Model / Cashflow Quadrant, you can buy the book or check out this video:

For me, the ESBI Model was a great starting point, but it was too high-level. I needed more detailed steps to understand how to progress within one of those boxes: the Self-Employed. To do that, I had to figure out what makes us progress from one step to another in general. The answer to this question was leverage.

Let’s look at the below diagram: When we take an input, do something with it, and then create an output, this is quite straightforward. It is also the definition of a process. However, leverage changes the equation. Leverage is the impact our activity or process has. Therefore, the same input times leverage gives us the outcome of the activity/process, not only the output. The outcome is the output plus the benefit of that output - together this constitutes the total result of an activity/process.

Here’s an example:

Imagine two people reading a book for five hours. The books are different, but everything else is the same: two people, two books, five hours. And let’s also imagine that in five hours each person will have read their respective book. From this activity, we can extract the following:

• Process: A person reads a book for five hours.

• Process Input: A person, a book, five hours.

• Process Output: The book is read.

• Leverage: Book content.

• Process Outcome: Depends on the book content. Let’s say that one of the books was really boring. After five hours, the person who’s read it will feel like they have wasted five hours. There’s no positive outcome, in that case. But let’s say, the other book was really interesting. And the person who’s read it now has a mind full of ideas. Based on those ideas, they may paint an amazing painting, or write a book themselves, or start a new business, or whatever else. That will be the real outcome of reading the book.

Which brought me to the next question: What are the types of leverage a freelancer has that will enable them to grow in their career / scale their business?

To answer this question, I created my own, more detailed framework (based on Kiyosaki’s), about how a freelancer evolves. I called it The Freedom’s Path.

👣 The Freedom’s Path

My model looks like this:

It maps Kiyosaki’s model 2:1 (two steps from mine map to one step of his - follow the color-coding 😉). Moreover, the focus is on expanding the concept of self-employment, so it becomes tangible and easy to go through in practice.

Note that Kiyosaki’s model can in fact expand in all four boxes. If you’re not that interested in freelancing / self-employment, you can zoom into owning a business or investing. Each of Kiyosaki’s boxes has several steps inside of it, which tell us how we evolve in that particular box/stage. However, while frameworks for growing a business or investing already exist, I didn’t find a framework for how freelancers evolve - which is why I created it.

Below are the eight steps of The Freedom’s Path explained in more detail. Leverage highlights how we grow professionally in each step. When we reach the maximum leverage for a given step, we have to move to the next step to continue growing our business (if we want to).

Step 1️⃣: (Permanent / Internal) Employee

📊 Leverage: Specific Knowledge

We start out as employees. We make money by working for other people, and we do that by selling our time for money.

What we gain, though, is specific knowledge about how to do the job. In absolute terms, knowledge is the same for everyone, but it becomes specific to us when it blends with our unique perspectives, skills, talents, experiences, approaches, etc.

When we feel we’ve learned enough to make a business out of it, we step out of the corporate world.

Step 2️⃣: External Employee / Contractor

📊 Leverage: Price

We take our specific knowledge and start offering it as a freelance service. We still make money by working for other people and selling our time, but we’re outside of the corporate system.

And, since we’re in the open market now, we get to put our own price tag on the specific knowledge we sell. However, there’s a limit to how high we can go with our pricing: If we go too high, we won’t be hired anymore. Therefore, we cannot scale infinitely based on price only. Once we reach the pricing limit, we have to find another way to grow our business.

Step 3️⃣: Independent Professional

📊 Leverage: Processes & Systems

That other way is by maximizing our productivity.

We’re still freelancing. We’re making money by owning a job and working for ourselves. And we’re still selling our time. However, since our time is money, the more we do within our working hours, the more we earn. We have to become highly efficient.

Moreover, we realize that if we don’t have our own processes, we end up following other people’s processes. Starting with how we find and apply to freelance projects, if we don’t have our own Marketing & Sales processes, we have to follow our clients’ recruiting process, as described above. Which means, we don’t have the power to choose where we land on the Problem - Solution - Implementation scale. Likewise, if we don’t have our own Project Management process, we cannot establish a mutually beneficial way of working with our clients. And so on.

Therefore, to increase our productivity and our independence, we implement processes and systems. Those could be any number of things, like having templates for emails and contracts, following defined process steps for getting new clients or delivering our projects, using IT systems for our finances and tax reports or for running our businesses as a whole, automating process steps (e.g. clients who sign our proposal automatically receive our contract for review and signature), etc.

Once we reach the limit to how much we can do within the allotted time, we realize we cannot scale time further. There are only 24 hours within the day - and we all have the same 24 hours. Hence, to grow our business further, we have to decouple ourselves from time.

Step 4️⃣: Self-Employed

📊 Leverage: Productized Services

We still make money by owning a job and working for ourselves, but we stop selling our time. We’ve now realized that real business growth happens when we can scale infinitely - and time doesn’t scale.

Therefore, we come up with a way to productize our freelance services. This means that we package our services as a product and put a price on the total deliverable, not on the time spent to produce it. That way, there’s no limit to how many of our deliverables clients can buy.

Anything that we produce once but can sell multiple times is a productized service. For example, we can create courses, guides, templates, etc., and put them out for sale.

Here’s another interesting example I saw by a freelance UX Designer: For e.g. €100, she reviews a given website and in 3 days sends a report with a) what works well, b) what doesn’t work so well, and c) how to improve it.

Let’s do some simple math: Let’s say it takes her 1 hour to produce this report. And let’s assume she works 8 hours per day. That means that if hundreds of clients come rushing through the door at the same time to buy this service, she can only serve 24 of them: (3 days multiplied by 8 hours per day) divided by 1 hour per report. So, 24 clients is her throughput. And in one year, if she’s fully booked and she works for 365 days, she can serve no more than 2,920 clients - which also caps her earnings at €292,000.

Therefore, even though this is a productized service (i.e. clients pay for the deliverable, not for the time to produce it), it cannot scale infinitely. To scale infinitely, we have to truly decouple ourselves from time. And to do that, we have to figure out the following two things:

1. How do we get so popular / in demand, that we’re fully booked (and we even have clients on a waiting list)?

2. What happens when we reach that stage of being fully booked? How do we scale ourselves?

The next two steps in my framework answer these questions.

Step 5️⃣: Solopreneur / One-Person Business (1PB) Owner

📊 Leverage: Marketing / Content Creation

To get in demand, we have to let the world know:

1. that we exist,

2. what it is we do, and

3. that we’re the best at what we do.

Meaning, we now run a business, and the product of this business is us. We start working as much on our business as in it. And we start marketing ourselves, instead of our services. We aim to stay constantly Top-of-Mind (ToM) so that, when our target clients realize they have the type of problems that we solve, they immediately think of us. Our names become analogous to what we do.

What do you think of when you hear the name of Robert T. Kiyosaki? Finances. How about Ryan Holiday? Stoicism. How about Madonna? Music. And J. K. Rowling? Harry Potter. And Dalai Lama? Buddhism. You get my point 😉

To achieve this level of popularity and trust, we must establish ourselves as an authority in our field. We do that by building a personal brand. And we build a personal brand with a lot of content creation, marketing, and networking. We start writing newsletters, blogs, posts, books, making videos, podcasts, interviews, presentations, webinars, conference talks, attending events, being part of communities, etc.

If you’re already at this stage, check out Daniel Priestley’s resources on becoming a Key Person of Influence (KPI):

• Take a scorecard

• Sign up for a webinar

And when we get so popular and in demand that we even have clients on a waiting list, we’ll only have one question left to address - scaling ourselves.

Step 6️⃣: Entrepreneur / Founder

📊 Leverage: Employees

To scale ourselves, we start hiring people on a permanent basis, i.e. getting employees. And that’s the end of freelancing for us - we’re not a company of one anymore, but a company of many.

Note that previously we also hired other people for different specific tasks: e.g. tax advisors, lawyers, insurance brokers, designers, marketing and sales or business development professionals, etc. But all those people were acting as freelancers, and so were we. When we hire freelancers, we can scale up or down easily, depending on the current demand or problems to solve.

Hiring employees, however, means we’re now building a company and we need permanent help. And the more employees we have, the higher the level of complexity for us and for our business. Moreover, we have to start managing people (in addition to everything else we do).

However, the benefit is that we can get people to help us with different parts of our business which we a) don’t know how to do, b) don’t like doing, or c) don’t have the time for. Thus, we focus on the things that a) we’re good at, b) we enjoy doing, and c) add the most value to our business.

Examples:

• Ali Abdaal

• Simon Sinek

Step 7️⃣: Shareholder

📊 Leverage: Brand / Influence

If we build our company properly, we’ll end up with a well-oiled machine that can operate without us. In other words, we’ll have a system that makes money for us.

Therefore, we no longer have to do the work ourselves. We can step out of our business (but still own it) and only work to maintain our brand and influence, because those are the main things that still attract our clients.

Examples: Any famous person (e.g. who we see constantly on TV) that has other businesses too.

• Oprah Winfrey (see the footer)

• Ryan Reynolds (see Experience)

• Reese Witherspoon

• Matthew McConaughey

Step 8️⃣: Investor

📊 Leverage: Capital / Wealth

We’ve already accumulated enough capital to invest in other businesses, financial instruments, assets, etc., and build even bigger wealth. We no longer need to work for money because our money (and other people’s money) works for us now.

Examples:

• Codie Sanchez

• Warren Buffett

Summary

In conclusion, I’d like to clarify a few things about my framework as a whole:

1. What we call a “freelancer” has four distinct steps in The Freedom’s Path.

In other words, this is an evolution, where each step requires us to do something different. Hence, even though we’re all freelancers, we’re at different stages of this journey.

Additionally, about the names of the steps: I know there are many names for a “freelancer” and everyone has their preference. For me, though, it’s more important to identify what we need to do to succeed, rather than what it’s called.

2. Can we skip steps from The Freedom’s Path?

Yes and no. We can be an employee and decide to move straight to founder, which means skipping freelancing altogether. Or we can skip permanent employment and move straight to freelancing (or entrepreneurship). However, as already mentioned, the four steps of being a freelancer are evolutionary. Therefore, we cannot skip steps there, just like we cannot be 5 years old today and 25 years old a year later.

3. Can one be simultaneously in more than one step of The Freedom’s Path?

Yes. For example, we can be a freelancer and an investor at the same time, depending on how much capital we’ve already accumulated.

4. How can we use The Freedom’s Path?

In two ways:

• For someone else: If e.g. someone is already building a personal brand, but they haven’t yet set their processes and systems, we know they might get a demand that they cannot handle. Or if e.g. they’re building their processes and systems, but they still don’t know what kind of clients they want to attract, then they’re wasting effort focusing on the wrong thing for the stage they’re at.

• For ourselves: If we want to progress and we don’t know how, the framework provides the steps. It tells us what to focus on and what to ignore (at least for now). And we can also decide we don’t want to keep developing (i.e. we’re good where we are) because we now know what we need to do to grow our business further.

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And that’s how we evolve professionally as non-employees. And by doing so, we not only ensure that our career and business thrive, but that we live a happier and more fulfilling life.

Next, explore the different mindsets of employees, freelancers, and entrepreneurs here:

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Freelance Revolution

You look at your calendar and it’s a mess! On top of having too many things to do, you also have too many meetings to attend, they take up all of your days, you’re even double- and triple-booked at times. And while you’re trying to at least resolve the scheduling conflicts, more meeting invites appear for those same times. Of course, everything is urgent and of the highest priority, and everyone wants you and no one else.

How do you remain sane and deal with all this?

Keep reading 👇

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📆 The Typical Work Calendar

The screenshots below are a real-life example extracted from the calendar of a Software Development employee:

Unfortunately, this example is not specific to the particular person, company, or even industry. Nowadays, pretty much everyone in any industry has back-to-back meetings every day.

Notice that the person is not only double-, but also triple-, and even quadruple-booked at times (when we include the all-day meeting). So here’s what I’m wondering:

1. If a person is booked for two or more meetings at the same time, how do they know which one to attend? Maybe one meeting has a higher priority, or maybe the person is more needed in another, etc. There are no decision-making criteria - it’s all left to the individual to figure out.

2. Even more importantly, if a person is fully booked for the whole workday, at which point do they get to do the tasks they were hired to do (which should also be the tasks that are presumably inputs to or outputs from those meetings)?

3. What is the value these meetings bring to the business? We can calculate how much they cost, apart from the psychological impact of disruption, context-switching, etc., which is very hard to put into numbers. However, can we estimate the value-add?

4. Is there a way to improve the meeting format, minimize their number, or eliminate them altogether? And (keeping pt.3 in mind) what would that look like?

🥴 Meeting Fatigue

What’s happening to our brains when we have back-to-back meetings all day?

Microsoft has done a lot of ongoing research on the trends shaping our “future of work”. One study involved 14 volunteers who wore EEG caps during their workday at the office. The caps measured the brain’s beta wave activity (i.e. associated with stress) as the research participants attended their meetings.

The research showed three main takeaways:

1. Breaks between meetings allow the brain to “reset,” reducing a cumulative buildup of stress across meetings.

2. Back-to-back meetings can decrease our ability to focus and engage.

3. Transitioning between meetings can be a source of high stress (mainly because there’s no break in between).

Things are not much different with video calls / online meetings: Another study by Microsoft found that signs of overwork and stress in the brain are much higher during video meetings than when doing non-meeting tasks like writing emails. Additionally, because of the intense focus needed, we start feeling tired after 30-40 minutes in a meeting. On days filled with video calls, stress starts building up after about two hours into the day.

The research suggests that several things cause meeting fatigue:

• having to focus on the screen for a long time to get important information and stay involved;

• not being able to see body language that helps you understand what others are thinking or when it’s your turn to talk; and

• screen sharing that limits how much you can see the people you're talking to.

⚖️ Value vs. Cost of Meetings

The value and cost of meetings are typically estimated in return on investment (ROI) vs. participants’ salaries or rates per hour, respectively. However, there are other, less tangible, but more significant value and cost of meetings:

Why are meetings really needed?

• We are all social beings, and our colleagues are a big part of our social circle. Meetings help us keep the human connection.

• Collaboration that we establish with our colleagues in real life transfers to our virtual ways of working. The opposite, however, is not true.

• In complicated and/or urgent issues with lots of dependencies, we can get everyone’s perspective and reach a decision faster (but the quality of that decision will be pretty low if we’re already experiencing meeting fatigue).

What is the real price we pay for (back-to-back) meetings?

• Meetings cause all types of disruption on a personal and psychological level:

  • cognitive overload because of constant context-switching;

  • loss of focus due to meeting fatigue;

  • no time to think the topics through and provide adequate responses, which lowers the quality of decisions made;

  • workday fully occupied and no time for other tasks, which lowers productivity;

  • stress and anxiety built up, due to all of the above.

• Meetings are, in fact, not as productive as we’d like to think. Not everyone can attend them (due to different timezones or other engagements), not everyone can contribute (because some people are naturally more dominant than others), and no one has much time to think about the issues discussed at the meeting.

• There is a certain social punishment involved if we’re not constantly connected and available at all times - online and offline/in-person. If we disconnect, discussions will move on before we have a chance to respond or even see them. Eventually, we’ll get excluded from the social circle. Therefore, we try to be everywhere all the time, which hurts our productivity and mental health. This type of culture prioritizes networking over results and personal well-being - meaning, it becomes highly political in nature.

🧹 Uncluttering the Calendar

There are certain steps we can take as individuals, or as an organization, to ease the business and personal pressure of constant meetings. Here are some suggestions:

Which meetings to attend?

All meetings ultimately fall into two categories:

1. Decision-making: They address a problem and come up with a solution. Therefore, these types of meetings always have next steps.

2. Knowledge-sharing: They can be introductions, syncs, status updates, reporting, brainstorming, collaborating, etc. These types of meetings usually don’t have next steps (unless they turn into decision-making at some point).

✴️ The basic rule is that we don’t necessarily need a meeting for knowledge-sharing. That can be done in multiple other ways. However, we do need a meeting for decision-making. It’s simply easier and faster if we get everyone’s perspective and buy-in in one go.

Who should attend a meeting?

Imagine a football team (i.e. soccer, for those in the U.S.):

1. We have football players from both teams, which are highly interested in playing the game. They are also the ones with the highest influence on how the specific match is played and what the end result will be.

2. We have referees, who can also influence the match a lot because they are the ones enforcing the rules. However, their interest in the specific match is not as high as that of the players - they are more interested in and set the stage for the game itself.

3. We also have the audience. They are very interested in the game and the specific match - as much as the players. However, unlike the players and the referees, they have little to no influence over the game/match.

4. We also have the general public. They are neither interested in the game/match, nor do they have any influence over it. However, individuals from the public might move to any other box at any time.

✴️ From this Stakeholder Matrix, we can extract the following rules:

1. As already mentioned before, we need meetings only when we want to collaborate with, consult, and get the buy-in for a decision we’re making. Therefore, the people we have to invite are either players or referees (i.e. those with big influence over the decision).

2. The reverse is just as true: If we’re not making or influencing a decision - i.e. if we’re not a player or a referee in someone else’s game - we shouldn’t attend the meeting. (To know that, though, the meeting invite must contain a clear agenda and goal.)

3. We can certainly keep the audience involved and the public informed, but, again, meetings are not needed for knowledge-sharing.

✴️ Additionally, there’s a limit of participants we want to observe to avoid groupthink - a phenomenon that occurs when a group’s desire for consensus hinders open debate, disagreement, or critique. We can use Amazon’s 2-pizza rule: If the people at our meeting can’t be fed with two pizzas, we’re too many.

How to prioritize when there’s a scheduling conflict?

Meetings are essentially tasks we have to do, therefore we can use Eisenhower’s Decision Matrix for prioritizing tasks:

✴️ The rule here is that we only attend the important meetings:

1. If the matter is important and urgent, we schedule/attend the meeting right away.

2. If the matter is important but not urgent, we schedule the meeting for later. Note that if we schedule too far ahead, we run the risk of perceiving the matter as unimportant when the time comes (that might even be true, but it needs a re-evaluation).

The unimportant meetings don’t require our involvement:

3. If the matter is unimportant but urgent, we delegate it. Note that, to delegate an urgent task, we must have already established a radically transparent way of working, so that the delegate can pick up and execute the task without issues.

4. If the matter is neither important nor urgent, we delete it from our (and everybody else’s) to-do list.

How to politely decline a meeting?

The majority of us find it difficult to say “no”, but uncluttering our calendars will require us to say “no” to quite a few meeting requests. It’s critical to realize that we cannot attend to everything. To be able to join the meetings that matter the most, we must decline the rest. There are certain expectations for us and for what we need to deliver. Therefore, we’re not declining because we’re bad people; we’re declining because we’re responsible people.

✴️ That said, declining with grace takes practice. However, the best approach is to be honest about our needs, feelings, and thoughts. The majority of people will respect and understand that. And the ones who don’t - well, then we have bigger problems working with them than skipping/canceling a meeting.

Other things to consider:

✴️ If we’re saying “yes” just to be polite or because of fear of repercussions, then that’s really a “no”.

✴️ Any meeting scheduled a few weeks from now (just because our calendars are free then) should be an automatic “no”. We will have different priorities then that we’ll want to address and we need our calendars to be free for those. When booking or agreeing to a meeting, imagine it will take place tomorrow morning - will it still be a “yes”?

✴️ Meetings without an agenda and a clear goal/purpose should be an automatic “no”. We need this information to decide if we even have to be in the meeting and, if yes, to prepare for it accordingly.

✴️ Meetings that are scheduled for the same day (or at the end of the day for the beginning of the next business day) should be an automatic “no”. We need at least a 24-hour notice to not only adjust our schedules, but prepare for the meeting accordingly.

✴️ We can ask for some materials to review before the meeting (or instead). That way, we can provide our feedback asynchronously and skip the meeting altogether.

What are some additional rules around scheduling?

✴️ Our daily maximum for meetings booked should not be 100% of our total availability, but 80% at most. We must leave ourselves some time to maneuver in case anything unexpected (whether personal or professional) pops up at the last moment.

✴️ No back-to-back meetings. We must leave ourselves some breathing space between meetings to relax, switch focus, and avoid meeting fatigue. To achieve that, we can book ourselves for 15-20 minutes (or even 30 minutes, depending on our company meeting culture) right before or after each meeting.

✴️ We can book ourselves for breaks (e.g. lunch) or longer tasks that require uninterrupted focus time. The goal is to put everything we have to do in the course of the day in one calendar. We can use a tool like Nautilus for a simplified view.

What are some meeting alternatives or different formats?

✴️ If our feedback is not sensitive, we don’t need a meeting to deliver it. We can leave comments in a document/webpage, or even better: record an audio or a video message (e.g. via Loom) and send it over. The audio captures our tone of voice, which is lost in written text, and the video shows our body language too - thus, minimizing any possible misunderstanding.

✴️ We can use a trick from Amazon - they have banned all presentations. Meetings start with memos, which are text documents, with full sentences, telling the background story. Everyone has 30 minutes to read the memo and think about the problem, after which discussion begins.

✴️ Agile has its famous Daily Standups - and people indeed stand up during those meetings. Here’s a funny take on how we can experiment with body postures to make meetings even more productive:

✴️ If we’ll be standing up, we might as well go outside and walk - especially if it’s a 1:1 meeting and the weather is nice. Walking boosts brain activity and, thus, we come up with more innovative ideas. (We can use this trick if we’re stuck with a problem we cannot resolve - we leave it for a little while and go outside to take a walk without any mobile phone distractions. We just let our thoughts wander, and the solution will appear as if out of nowhere.)

✴️ Another interesting way to hold meetings is presented by Holacracy. It’s a rather heavy process, with roles and responsibilities, on who does what during the meeting, and what type of meetings are required in general. As you can tell, I’m skeptical about it, but if we follow it to the letter, it apparently works.

How to make a company-wide cultural shift to fewer meetings?

As an organization, we can set specific hours in the day or days in the week that are meeting-free. However, companies like Atlassian, GitLab, Remote, Doist, etc. have gone a step further and implemented asynchronous working (also known as asynchronous collaboration, asynchronous communication, or async for short).

Synchronous work means it’s done at the same time. Asynchronous, therefore, means it’s not done at the same time. Async describes an organizational culture where communication is slower, well thought out, and intentional. Async collaboration has various forms, each with its specific reasons, and the goal is to cause as little disruption to work (and life!) as possible. The focus is on performance, rather than on meetings - i.e. on working together, rather than on being together.

Asynchronous working is a natural byproduct of remote working. And while we can have an async culture without remote working, it’s pretty hard to have a well-functioning remote working without an async culture (and without radical transparency).

What are the benefits of asynchronous working?

• We establish flexibility and control over our workday. This makes us happier and more productive.

• Not being able to ping people at any time and expect an immediate response leads to better planning. This in turn causes less stress and anxiety.

• Communication becomes slower but of higher quality.

• Ongoing discussions are reviewed as possible (e.g. around twice per day), not as needed. Thus, interruptions are eliminated and deep focus is enabled.

• Increased documentation means greater transparency. Minutes of meetings become automatic.

• Remotely working employees are not treated as second-hand citizens anymore. All company employees are placed on equal footing.

• Collaboration across time zones becomes effortless. This leads to better diversity and inclusion. It also opens up a bigger talent pool for our organizations.

✴️ How to establish asynchronous working in the organization?

1. We need a software tool, such as Threads or Twist.

2. We have to ensure everyone has access to all tools, documents, and materials (otherwise, waiting for access to be granted for 1-2 days kind of kills the idea).

3. We shift to evaluating people based on their output and results, not on how responsive they are or the number of hours they work.

4. We abolish required work hours or the mandate to come to an office.

5. We set reasonable, organization-wide expectations for acceptable response times.

6. We create a communication channel for emergencies (which should only be used for emergencies - that is to say, a few times per year).

Additionally, we may consider removing from our mobile phones:

• all work apps, and

• all notifications.

Note that a well-working async culture is a constant balance between two clashing ideas:

→ Synchronous communication should be the exception, not the rule.

AND

→ Async-first doesn't mean async-only.

Which meetings to keep?

As already mentioned before, humans are social beings. Therefore, we don’t want to eliminate all meetings because that will also eliminate any chance for a human connection.

✴️ The rule of thumb is:

• 5% offline/in-person meetings

• 25% online meetings

• 70% async work

✴️ Additionally, we can define in a company policy what type of communication should be in what form. The guideline can be that online or in-person meetings are allowed when one of the following is true:

• We want to build rapport.

• We need to provide critical feedback or discuss other sensitive topics.

• We have a lot of unknowns and we want to brainstorm different ideas and solutions.

• There are a lot of dependencies and we want to bring everyone on the same page quickly.

• There is a crisis that requires immediate attention. (As already mentioned, we can have a dedicated emergency channel for such situations, given that it’s not used more than 3-5 times a year.)

Examples:

• In-person meeting: going to a co-working space and meeting people from other companies (the organization can reimburse the costs); other social initiatives, like colleagues meeting for coffee, dinner, or entertainment anywhere in the world (also sponsored by the company); company retreats once or twice a year to get everyone offside for team-building, but also to rethink the organizational ways of working; etc.

• Online meeting: urgent topics (because async is slow by default); complicated issues (with multiple dependencies); sensitive, emotionally charged conversations, such as personal feedback; regular 1:1s with the manager; casual hangouts for 1:1 coffee breaks; longer hangouts for people from the same or different teams to chat about anything non-work related; etc.

• Async: collaboration with colleagues; brainstorming; regular information-sharing from manager to team; regular team/project sync; etc.

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And that’s how we escape the corporate hell of back-to-back meetings all day. And in doing so, we create a more productive, flexible, stress-free, and socially inclusive environment for everyone.

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

Assess Your Business Operations

Imagine you’re attending the company all-hands meeting and your CEO starts with the following speech:

“I gathered you today to reinforce the message that we're here to fight back. We aim to defend our position in the market and capture an even larger slice. Therefore, we have to attack the opposition. To win this battle, and ultimately the war, we need a strategy for disruption. Being on the defensive is not an option. Sometimes, aggressive moves are required…”

Have you realized that you participate in war? Because, sadly, business is approached the same way as war.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Read on 👇

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🥤 Cola Wars

In 1886, John Stith Pemberton, a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia, developed the original recipe for Coca-Cola. By 1888, the recipe was acquired by Asa Griggs Candler, an American businessman and politician, who founded The Coca-Cola Company in 1896.

Meanwhile, in 1893, another pharmacist, Caleb Bradham, from New Bern, North Carolina, created the Pepsi drink. Originally, he called it “Brad's Drink” and renamed it to Pepsi-Cola in 1898. In 1902 he founded The Pepsi-Cola Company, thus prompting the beginning of the “cola wars”.

Coca-Cola has seen remarkable growth since its inception, now distributing close to 4.5 billion cases annually across its nearly 400 brands in over 200 countries. Holding a dominant 44% market share globally, Coca-Cola's flagship product, Coca-Cola Classic, remains the world's most popular beverage. With a robust R&D program and strategic acquisitions, Coca-Cola has diversified its product line to include many different drinks. In 2003, the company allocated approximately $1.9 billion to marketing and advertising, with plans for further investment.

Pepsi-Cola has historically positioned itself as the strongest competitor of Coca-Cola, establishing an extensive franchise bottling network and broadening its product range through acquisitions. With a market share of 31.8% and annual sales of 3.2 billion cases in 2003, Pepsi-Cola holds the second-largest share in the soft drink industry. Embracing a “Beat Coke!” mentality since the 1950s, Pepsi continues to invest significantly in marketing and advertising, allocating $1.6 billion in 2003 to reinforce its competitive stance against Coca-Cola.

The rivalry between the two soft drink producers has been fierce. With the industry's annual retail value in the U.S. reaching $65 billion, and “cola” flavors representing nearly 70% of market share, the stakes are high. Both companies continuously innovate and introduce new products, engage in strategic marketing, and even compete in product packaging to gain an edge over each other in this ongoing battle for industry dominance.

Their mutually-targeted marketing campaigns have been especially entertaining for the general public. Some memorable battles that deserve mention include:

⚖️ In 1975, Pepsi started running the so-called “Pepsi Challenge.” It involved participants doing blind taste tests between Pepsi and Coca-Cola, with Pepsi being chosen as the winner. Coca-Cola thus ran its own taste tests, only to confirm that many participants, including possibly some Coca-Cola executives, indeed preferred Pepsi.

🧪 In response to the “Pepsi Challenge,” Coca-Cola started playing with the formula and in 1985 introduced its “New Coke.” However, due to consumer backlash, it had to return to its original formula under the name of “Coca-Cola Classic.” Pepsi didn’t miss the chance to capitalize on the situation with ads poking fun at Coca-Cola's misstep.

🛩 In 1995, the “Pepsi Stuff” promotion featured a humorous ad where one could supposedly redeem 7 million Pepsi Points for a Harrier Jet. That led to an unexpected legal dispute when a young man tried to claim the jet, arguing the commercial was a binding contract. In 2022, Netflix premiered its original docuseries, “Pepsi, Where's My Jet,” describing the event.

🍕 During the Academy Awards in 2014, despite Pepsi being the exclusive soft drink sponsor, Coca-Cola unexpectedly gained exposure when its logos appeared on pizza boxes featured in a comedic bit by host Ellen DeGeneres. Coca-Cola's unplanned placement during the high-profile event sparked attention, speculation, and concerns, with television network ABC having to investigate the incident.

🏉 In 2019, during Super Bowl LIII held in Atlanta, Coca-Cola's hometown, Pepsi, being a major sponsor of the NFL for years, capitalized on the situation with advertising slogans like “Pepsi in Atlanta. How Refreshing,” “Hey Atlanta, Thanks For Hosting. We'll Bring The Drinks,” and “Look Who's in Town for Super Bowl LIII.” Both companies aired TV ads during the game, with the tagline “A Coke is a Coke” by Coca-Cola and “Is Pepsi OK?” by Pepsi.

For more details on Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi, check out the Business Wars podcast.

⚔️ “Business Is War”

The concept of management originated in ancient China with centralized bureaucratic states and merit-based administration. Ancient military texts provided the lessons needed for civilian managers. For example, Chinese general Sun Tzu in his 6th-century BC work “The Art of War” recommends being aware of and acting on the strengths and weaknesses of both a manager's organization and a foe's.

Throughout history, structured management systems were evident in the Roman military hierarchy, the Roman Catholic Church's organization, and medieval guilds, all of which had defined chains of command and authority.

Military and management have always been closely intertwined. Even today, the army is the first to implement new managerial concepts and frameworks. Once these ideas are tested and proven in practice, they are adopted by the corporate world as well.

As a result, our modern-day executives still take business advice from the military. Books such as Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, Clausewitz’s “On War”, Machiavelli’s “The Prince”, Musashi’s “A Book of Five Rings”, Greene’s “48 Laws of Power”, Matthews’ “Hardball”, and many more are extremely popular business literature.

The concept that “business is war” permeates all of our culture. In addition to books, we hear it amplified by famous business people, we see it in movies, we listen to it in podcasts, there are even computer games about it.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that we use the language of war when we refer to business:

• Our competitors are our opponents; we attack them and defend ourselves.

• We fight battles and try to kill our competition to save our business.

• We steal market territory and win, conquer, or expand to new markets.

• We save or lose resources: money, people, time, effort, etc.

• We execute plans, strategies, campaigns.

• We use marketing tactics such as guerilla marketing, ambush marketing, stealth marketing, or hijacking social events.

• We engage in industrial espionage and sabotage organizations.

• Our management style is command-and-control.

• Chief XYZ Officers or Heads of XYZ, who are in charge, give orders; people in the field execute them.

• We stand our ground, stick to our guns, or march to the beat of our own drums.

• We cut down task force.

• Etc.

💣 Why the War Metaphor Is Bad

In the book “Metaphors We Live By” (which I highly recommend!), the authors, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, state the following:

“The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities.”

When we’re at war, our main personal objective is survival. And when we are put in survival mode, everything we do is warranted. “The end justifies the means”, as the saying goes.

In business, survival means profit. Therefore, when we’re in a perpetual-crisis and survival-at-all-costs mode, all we can think about is making money. To that end, our moral compass completely disappears and we can justify even the most awful behavior:

• breaking rules and laws, corrupting officials,

• causing environmental disasters,

• harming the local communities,

• abusing our employees or colleagues,

• treating everyone as the enemy (including ourselves),

• disregarding our promises, principles, and values,

• and much, much more.

But here’s the catch: When we focus only on the similarities between business and war, we completely overlook the differences.

• While war is about destruction, business is about creation.

• While our goal in war is survival, our goal in business is to make a positive change in the world with our product or service.

• While in war we look for ways to defeat our enemies, in business we look for ways to make our product or service better.

• While in war risks and experiments must be avoided so we don’t die, in business risks and experiments must be taken so we can learn and improve.

• While war is a zero-sum game (i.e. others have to lose so we can win), in business the market is open to everyone.

• While in war soldiers are discouraged from objecting to orders, in business employees are encouraged to voice their opinions.

• While war is inherently male, business embraces diversity.

• While in war we can’t trust anybody, we do business with people whom we trust.

• And so on…

💞 Time for a Change

Business is long overdue for a makeover. There are plenty of better-suiting metaphors out there than war: Business can be art or science, gardening or hiking, playing games or nurturing relationships, love or creation, passion or devotion.

When our driving force becomes love, light, and creation, instead of war, darkness, and destruction, we shift our focus from:

• money to purpose,

• survival to improvement,

• threats to opportunities,

• fear to trust,

• fighting to collaborating,

• our competitors to our organization,

• our own needs to the value we bring to others,

• control and command to distributed leadership,

• discrimination to diversity, equity, and inclusion,

• etc.

And while we might think that we need a mindset shift in order to change our language, the opposite is just as true - we can shift our mindset by first changing our language. We know that we’re affected by the words we use - even plants are.

Therefore, we can start by excluding “war” references from our business vocabulary and substituting them with more positive associations. Here’s a suggestion:

❌ Words to Avoid

aggressive, alliance, ally, ambush, attack, armament, arms, army, artillery, battle, battlefield, bloodshed, campaign, capture, combat, command, command-and-control, competition, conflict, conquer, conquest, defeat, defend, defensive, demolition, destruction, disarm, disruption, enemy, espionage, fight, fighter, fighting, forces, frontline, guerilla, guns, hijack, hostile, invade, in charge, in the action, invasion, kill, leadership, mission, munition, on the field, opposition, ranks, reconnaissance, reinforce, resources, sabotage, siege, soldier, spy, steal, stealth, strategy, struggle, tactic, target, trenches, troops, victory, war, warfare, warrior

✅ Words to Use Instead

adapt, align, appreciate, attract, balance, bond, build, care, cherish, collaborate, commit, communicate, compassion, compose, concept, conceptualize, connect, construct, conversation, cooperate, craft, craftsmanship, creative, desire, design, develop, devotion, embrace, emotion, empathy, engage, fond of, formulate, fulfillment, generate, harmony, ideate, imagination, improvement, include, influence, initiate, inspire, integrity, invent, loyalty, mastery, model, motivate, nurture, originate, partner, partnership, passion, produce, promise, recognition, refinement, relationship, reliability, respect, satisfaction, support, synergy, synthesize, team, teamwork, transformation, trust, trustworthiness, unity, value, vision, warmth

It’s a completely different feeling only reading through these two lists, isn’t it? 😉

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And that’s how we use the power of language to begin thinking and acting in a better way. And by doing so, we also create a more positive environment for ourselves and everyone around us.

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

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