Implications of No Process

While each day can be different, the fundamental elements of any business are the same—sales, marketing, operations, finance, people, etc. Establishing processes to deal with the common issues of a business seems like a waste of time to most entrepreneurs. Process is the fuel that energizes progress.

The entrepreneur has to move, and move faster—not slower. As entrepreneurs, we pride ourselves on our independence, creativity, risk taking and willingness to chart the unknown. Scheduling meetings, defining accountability and discussing process may feel like a step backwards or a step in the wrong direction. The entrepreneur’s perspective that process is meant for larger companies, and the wave of activity is just the nature of the entrepreneurial beast, can hamper your organization for years

“Process is an enabler that accelerates not decelerates your activity.” 

There are many consequences that result when entrepreneurs avoid putting process in place:

• Plugging Holes as They Come. When a fledgling business has no structure in place to manage common business issues and conflicts, the entrepreneur is left to plug the holes with whatever is on hand. Your “go to” strategy is to plug your fingers and toes into as many holes as you can, as fast as you can. If the day’s crises are particularly bad, you might need your tongue or an elbow. After all, we entrepreneurs are pretty resourceful. You may slow the tide for a day, but it’s very likely that more holes will show up tomorrow—more than you can manage with your extremities.
• Reinventing the Wheel. Even though an activity (e.g., sales call) has been done many times, when entrepreneurs and their teams lack operating process, each task or action is being executed as though it were the first time. This means starting from scratch—a significant and unnecessary use of time and energy. Think of it this way—you drive to work on the same route every day. When you do this, it is easy for you to manage different nuances such as weather, traffic, being late and a myriad of other issues that effect your drive. Imagine if you took a dfferent route every day.
• Communicating Inefficiently. When entrepreneurs neglect to establish forums for regular company dialogue, or fail to schedule planning and progress meetings, communication ends up in a tangle of email replies, forwards, CCs and BCCs from multiple parties. This swirl of email can take longer to unravel than to reply, and quickly uses up hours, if not days. You’ve just wasted an enormous amount of time that a simple protocol would prevent.