Why Most People Disagree About Process And What To Do About It

Process is a polarizing subject.

Some people love process and other people hate it. You generally don’t find many people in between.

Depending on your audience, “We should put aformalized process to this,” can either be met with cheers or, well honestly, a “urghh” sort of sound. (Non-process people, like myself, sometime can’t even make the effort for full words)

Why Do People View Process so Differently?

Have you ever taken the Myers-Briggs personality type test? At the end of the test, you get your personality type based on four key attributes.

I won’t go too deep into this, but the last aspect of your personality the tests gives you is whether you are perceiving or judging.

This is the aspect that most affects your view on process. At a high level, people who are judging value process and decisions while people who are perceiving value having their options open.

The world isn’t quite that black and white, but at it’s core it helps you understand why some people value process much more than others.

If Some People Hate Process and Some People Love it, What do we do?

I am a perceiving personality, but I love process.

We need process.

Without process, nothing would ever get done.

Process isn’t the problem. The real issue is having too much process or too little process.

People who are perceiving types value having their options open, but we also highly value autonomy. The idea of structure feels like it flies in the face of autonomy and that’s why we have such issues with it. The truth is, we’re likely the people that need process the most.

Judging people on the other hand tend to like having a system and a process since they are task-oriented people. Creating and following processes for these people tend to come natural, but they also have a tendency to add more process than necessary.

Goldilocks Rule For Process

Process can’t be overdone and can’t be under done. It needs to be just the right amount.

Let’s talk about how to get to the right amount of process.

The first thing to understand is the more complex the company (or family situation), the more likely you need a more complex process. A bachelor needs less process than a family of 5 and Google needs more process than a startup.

Understanding where you are is the first step.

When you’re small, you can create process only around the most important things. This isn’t the case when you’re larger.

This really is the critical part of the whole process that you need to understand. For small companies, over processing can kill you quick, but so can under processing. You need to understand what is right for your stage.

What Should Smaller Companies Have a Process Around?

You already have processes, you just might not know it because they aren’t formal.

Does everyone get paid every two weeks?

Does everyone go to lunch around noon?

Does everyone gather around every Friday when Bob from Client Success tries to putt a hole in one from one side of the office to the other?

These are all forms of process but most are informal. Formal processes tend to need to be created as apposed to being organic.

The best types of process are the ones that help everyone communicate something. Examples of this are:

· Making sure someone documents and sends out who is responsible for takeaways at the end of a meeting

· Making sure each team understand what their core KPI is and how they’re being held accountable to that

· Who is the decision maker for a key project

The important thing at this stage is the processes are to help communication and provide clarity, while still allowing the team to have autonomy. Smaller companies need to be creative and flexible. Process should help you maintain these elements.

This stage is more about guidelines than complex processes.

What Should Large Companies Have Process Around?

If you’re in a large company, you probably need help reducing process, not adding to it.

Adding is easier, since it’s usually around a pain point.

Removing is hard because process feels like work, even when it’s a waste of time.

Best gauge here is to think, if we removed this what would change? Would communication be worse?

If you don’t feel like it would be, try cutting the process.

How to Create New Processes

This will sound counterintuitive, but the best people at creating process are the people that hate process the most.

(Don’t know who that person is? Look for the messy desks)

The reason for this is they will default to creating as little process as possible and that’s really the goal.

It’s always better to create less process and need to add to it later than create too much.

Anything too complex will stifle autonomy and will make people struggle with adoption.

Default to simple.

Once you have a simple process, then it’s time to bring in the judging/process oriented people to poke holes in it.

When suggestions are made here, ask why a lot. Understand if the additions are helpful enough where it makes sense to add them.

Boom. Now you have a shiny new process. Congratulations! 🎆🎇🎆

The works not done though, now you have to revaluate whether this helped or not.

I already touched on this but this is an important and undervalued step. Processes should never be seen as permanent.

People are afraid to dismantle a process once it’s in place, which is the worst thing you can possible do.

Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it needs to be. This is a much deeper conversation that deserves it’s own post.

P.S. Are you itching to start a new process now? Here’s a good one, hit the applause button on every post of mine. Easy, not over processed, and you’ll make me feel good 😀

P.P.S. If you have any feedback, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn or leave a comment below.

Image source: “sandwich assembly line” by EvelynGiggles is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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