I was talking with a friend who is, now, the only programmer supporting a key system for the DMV for the entire state of Idaho. He had someone else working with him on the mainframe system up until about a month ago. This other gentlemen had been working on the system for better than 20 years but suddenly lost his life and left the office with all his knowledge.

Fortunately his was very good at documentation. He documented everything that he did. He worked hard to make sure there was a record.

The problem is that he has a very unique filing system. 120 folders each with sub-folders documenting a different part of the system. Each file labeled based on his way of doing things with no standardization. Not to mention that his filing system evolved over the years… as all of our systems do.

Now, other departments ask my friend to support the things that the other gentleman supported and the only thing he can say is… "I’ll see if I can find the documentation."

You may have a lifer in your organization that understands the ins and outs of your system. You may be convinced that this person won’t be going anywhere.

If you think you are immune to the example above, you are woefully wrong.

What is your insurance against losing someone with all the knowledge on how your business runs? What is your insurance if the key sales person, accountant, IT manager or office manager leaves? Do you have documentation for their jobs? More importantly, is that documentation in a format that you can get to and understand readily.

If you don’t have a strategy… you better get one.

I had to create a new document today for a number of people to manage. I had a suggestion from a few people to put it on Google Docs. I am not a huge fan of Google Docs… it is not quite as responsive as I like and I really like local documents so that I can work offline whenever I want. Not too mention, it is not as fully featured as MS  Office Applications or OpenOffice.org Applications.

Nevertheless, it really did make most sense for me to have this particular document online so that I don’t have to continue to email the document when I make an update.

So, I got to thinking… how great would it be for there to be a way to synchronize Google Spreadsheet with a Microsoft Spreadsheet? If I could find a way to mirror the two documents… one online and one on my desktop, it could give me the best of both worlds. I figured if I could synchronize my Google Calendar with my Outlook Calendar, surely I could do it with my documents, also.

Evidentially, I am not the only person thinking the same thing.

In my search, I found DocSyncer. You have the ability to have all the supported documents automatically sync for you. It is a little slow in the sync (i.e. you can’t make a change and force it to sync right away), but it really does seem to work well.

Setting DocSyncer up is a breeze. In about 15 seconds, you have your account set up. You simply add your Google Apps login information, install the software and it will start to sync. It takes a little time for it to get the sync done the first time (so be patient), but it work great.

Try it out. Let me know what you think.

I have been thinking a little about the reasons why I might procrastinate getting something done.

I sometimes amaze myself at what I will procrastinate. I will put off till the last minute some things that don’t take very long in the end. Often times these small things can make me a lot of money if I would just get them done.

Not long ago, I put off getting a time card program set up for my employees because I just didn’t want to deal with it.

In an effort to understand why I procrastinate, I have learned something interesting about me.

First. When I complete a project, I get a great sense of accomplishment… even when that project was very simple.

Second. I hate starting a project, because I am afraid that I won’t be able to get it complete… because if it doesn’t get complete, I feel a great lack of accomplishment.

Third. I am very apprehensive about any project that has many unknown variables. If I don’t know how do large components of the project, I don’t like to tackle it because I don’t know how long it will take.

So, there are a few simple things that I do that have helped (not completely mitigated, but helped):

1. Bite Sized Chunks. If I can break a project down into small tasks, I can get small victories and small bits of accomplishment.
2. Make A Task List. I have found that a written list gives me the added satisfaction of crossing something off. As computer-centric as I am, there is something nice about a pen and paper list.
3. Delegation. The fastest way to get something off your list is to delegate it. If you are an owner or a boss, this may be easy… if not, this may not be possible. Just don’t procrastinate getting it delegated.
4. Set a goal to learn something new everyday. I think that the biggest reason for procrastination is that we are afraid we’ll have to learn something new. If you already know you are going to learn something new, make your tasks fit to what you are going to learn.
5. "Plow Through" time. Sometimes I find that I get a list of a number of things that will take a bit of time. If I set a block of four or five hours as "plow through" time and unplug, I can get a lot accomplished in a very short period of time.

The thought of empowering people so they fill the gaps in processes and procedures is a simplistic perspective on the argument for finding the right people.

Justin Foster says, "The Right People will help create the right processes!" While I agree with that, so often, finding the right people is either illusive or impossible.

One of the key factors his argument doesn’t take into consideration is that of unions. I have talked on this subject a little before. But I would like to share another example.

My sister-in-law purchased a treadmill last week. The delivery driver was going to drop it off in the garage. It was fully assembled and was incredibly awkward and heavy.

She asked him to take it inside.

He wasn’t happy about the request.

He brought it into the front room but was asked to take it downstairs.

He said that his union rules prevented him from taking it any further… so he left it.

Good businesses are designed to keep the customer first in mind.

Good unions are designed to keep the employee first in mind.

If you have those two different visions in your business, you will never be able to find the right people that are willing to put the customer first and fill in the procedural gaps.

My seven year old son bought a Rubik’s Cube with some money that he saved. He wants to learn how to solve it but isn’t quite experienced enough to do it all on his own.

As the leader of this house, it falls upon me to figure it out and teach him (that, at least, is the excuse I use because I have always wanted to learn how to solve it).

So, I have been spending quite a bit of time learning how to solve it. I can solve it in about 3 minutes now and have all of the major patterns memorized. I am starting to learn some of the simpler patterns so that I can learn how to make it easier for him (plus, I think it is pretty cool).

I realized, as I was spending some time this weekend, that there are many lessons that can be learned from the Rubik’s Cube. Applying these lessons to life and business will help us get a lot more accomplished.

Here they are (or at least the top ten that I came up with).

1. If you spend six, ten or twenty hours on something, you can’t expect someone else to learn it in 10 minutes.
2. If you make the same decisions based on the same variables, you will get the same results.
3. If you make different decisions based on the same variables, you will get different results.
4. If you make different decisions based on different variables, you will get unpredictable results.
5. One small change to one small thing can have large ramifications on other things.
6. Messing something up is easier than putting it together.
7. After you have done it once, it will only get easier the next time.
8. Learning the patterns makes all the difference.
9. Nothing great was ever accomplished without a lot of time, patience and persistence.
10. If you give up, you will never get it done.

Do you sometimes tell your customers you don’t have time for them because you are not available or because you think your are not available?

Think of this as you read this anecdote (I don’t call it a story because I am not sure if it is true):

George Phillips of Meridian,  Mississippi , was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?"

He said, "No."

Then they said "All patrols were busy.  You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available."

George said, "Okay"  He hung up the phone and counted to 30.

Then he phoned the police again.

"Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I just shot them!" And he hung up.

Within five minutes, six Police Cars, a SWAT Team, a Helicopter, two Fire Trucks, a Paramedic, and an Ambulance showed up at the Phillips’ residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George, "I thought you said that you’d shot them!"

George said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"

The next time your customer asks your for some support, take into consideration the importance of that request to your customer. If you really are too busy for them, be careful, they may just prove you wrong.

The right people are everywhere… they are all around you. Yet the statement is always heard among employers, "It is so hard to find the right people."

What they are really saying is, "It is so hard to find the right people at the cheap price I am willing to pay."

Justin Foster comments that if you find the right people, you don’t need a process for everything. His terminology seems a little different than mine. He talks about people filling in the gaps when not having a process and I think of the gaps as the procedures of a process. I think that everything needs a process.

The challenge, though, is finding the right people. Although the people are all around, they aren’t going to come to work for you based on your current tactical approach?

Why?

Well, here is the issue. In order to find the right person, you have to find the person who is willing to take ownership. Someone that is willing to take long term ownership. Someone that is willing to take extra time and put in extra effort to make something his own.

That person costs more than the average. That person will want to step outside the realm of his responsibility and create new processes, new procedures and implement new ideas. This person expects to be empowered to do that.

There is a significant problem with this person. Or, more accurately, these people. You get too many bosses and not enough workers, processes get out of hand, quality suffers and automation ceases.

And just when you think you have the right person, that person will leave you for the other "right job". It is like the old saying, "A man waits all his life for the right woman. Once he finds her, she won’t marry him because she is waiting for the right man."

When you are an organization with three owners that all know their part, it is really easy. When you are an organization that relies on many people, there things that have to be dictated. Not everyone will take ownership. No matter how good you are at recruiting, you will never get all of your people exactly where you want them.

The best example is a fast food restaurant. I would be great with the customers. I would be efficient with the food. I would be exact with the money. I would cost more than 15 times their normal starting wage. I would never be hired.

Finding the right people is a good sentiment, but sometimes you have to settle because you can’t afford the $100 per hour price tag that good people will cost.

In business, to ensure efficiency, you should have a process for everything. You should know what needs to be done to accomplish everything you do as effectively as possible.

You may not realize it, but even if you are a one man show, you have processes that dictate the things you do. If you are a small operation, then it is likely very easy to tell me what you do on a regular basis. As you get larger, that becomes more complicated.

Ask five people in your organization how you do something. I bet you get five different answers. Five different ways of doing the same thing. Five different reasons for doing those things. Five different timelines for getting those things done.

The important distinction is between a process and a procedure. The more you can dictate a process the greater efficiency you can incorporate. However, often times, if you get too specific on a procedure, you can negate much of your efficiency. The reason is that as people become more proficient at what they do, they will invariably find short cuts to the procedures you teach them… so, what are the differences?

A process is a high-level view of tasks. It is the main steps at which something gets accomplished. For example, to the right is a section of the process that I go through to build a new web site for a client. You can click to enlarge and see the section better.

Notice that the steps indicated are very generic. They aren’t specific to how it is to be accomplished… only that it needs to be accomplished. That is a process.

A procedure is a step by step guide on how to accomplish a task. To the left is a sampling of a procedure for one of the tasks in my process above. It is a step by step instruction sheet for accomplishing that task. You can click to enlarge.

Often times, it is important to follow certain steps in order to complete a task to be as efficient as possible. Some times, it doesn’t matter at all. For example, if you have a task of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, taking out the bread is a critical first step, but it really doesn’t matter whether you put the peanut butter on or the jelly on first. Putting the top on the sandwich has to come last unless you are getting creative with a traditional sandwich building exercise.

So, the question some will have… do you have to have a process for everything? My opinion is yes… you should. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but you should know what you do and how you do it. If you don’t, how can you sell it? How can you tell other people what you do and why you are better?

In my opinion, the more important question is, should you have a procedure for everything? I think that entirely depends on what you are trying to get accomplished and why type of employees you want to have. If want to hire $7 per hour employees, you better have a procedure for your tasks because it streamlines training and gives you an objective measurement for what you are trying to accomplish. If you want to hire a $50 per hour or $100 per hour employee or contractor, then a procedure will just get in the way.

Sometimes you want to have the expectation that someone will take a process and fill in the procedural gaps, but more often than not, you don’t have the luxury of being able to afford the person that can do that.

I am often at a boiling point thinking about the laws we have. We have so many laws that infringe upon our personal rights. Laws as simple as a requirement to wear a seatbelt to as critical as the laws that protect one against violence from another.

I heard on the radio today that more and more businesses are putting into place no gun policies. As if telling someone, that wants to bring a gun, that it is wrong will magically stop that person from bringing a gun. It is the same with any law that we have. Making a law requiring seatbelts, speed limits, shoplifting, larceny, theft, drugs, etc does not, nor ever will prevent a "thing" from happening.

Congress can pass laws till they are blue in the face. Businesses can have policies that affect customers and, more specifically, employees, but it doesn’t make a difference. People do not follow a law or a policy simply because it exists.

It is the enforcement of those laws and policies (and fear of the consequences thereof) that make law make a difference. People may follow the law out of a sense of right versus wrong… assuming they agree with it. But, even the most OCD of people (you know who you are) won’t agree with all laws and won’t do everything perfect simply out of a sense of right and wrong.

The primary reason people obey the law or policy is because of fear of reprisal of some sort. They are afraid of the consequence. Think about that when you are driving the speed limit when you are in a hurry. Why do you stay within or at least kind of close to the speed limit and not just drive as fast as you can? What do you do when you see a cop?

Consider this when you try to put a policy or practice in place in your business. If you aren’t willing to follow through on that policy or practice it won’t matter. If you don’t enforce, you might as well not make the policy or practice in the first place.

A good day at work is not defined by the number of hours you spend on a project, sitting behind a computer or talking with clients. A good day at work is measure by what you have accomplished that is meaningful.

Don’t confuse busyness with working. Don’t think that just because you put in 8, 10 or 12 hours that you actually accomplished something.

If you can’t look back on your day and honestly say that you have completed something of consequence or significance, then you didn’t have a good day at work.