Oct 15 • General discussion
Building Systems
There’s a lot of talk about systems in the business world. Until recently, I didn’t really know what that word meant. I was running on an assumed definition until one day I asked ChatGPT to explain it. That conversation led me to a book called Work the System by Sam Carpenter.
The main idea of the book is simple but powerful: we live in a world of systems, both natural and manmade, that function correctly 99.9% of the time. As small business owners, we often fail to see our own operations through that lens. Instead, we get stuck in the daily loop of putting out fires, reacting to whatever screams the loudest, day after day, ad nauseam, until we quit or go bankrupt.
But if we step back and identify the major systems in our business, then break those down into subsystems, and document how we actually perform each task, something changes. We start seeing the causes of those fires instead of just the flames. And once we see them, we can fix them permanently through a clear, written process (an SOP) that anyone can follow. And this is how successful businesses operate.
If you’re anything like me, you’re probably doing some of this already. I had documented processes here and there, but they were random at best. This framework is helping me see the entire structure of my business more clearly. It’s helping me organize those scattered systems and finally begin to fix the inefficiencies that have been quietly lighting fires behind the scenes.
I’m curious, how intentional have you been about identifying and documenting the systems in your business? Do you think most of your daily fires come from missing systems, broken ones, or ones that only exist in your head?
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Building Systems
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