- Trust the process is a saying that John Lee Dumas of EOFire uses almost every day when people ask questions about how to best use his Freedom or Mastery journal. “The process” is also a catchphrase coined by Nick Saban, the coach of Alabama, as he was building his fantastic football program.
- I wanted to call out the above people because as an outsider looking in all you see is someone who is at the top of their profession and as an outsider, all you can say is wow and how. How can people, teams or companies consistently execute at such a high level? The process is a set of systems that when followed get results. The process never focuses on the result, instead, it focuses on the daily activities needed to follow to achieve the result.
- As I have mentioned in previous posts, the difference between good and great is in the details. The details are in the process or the systems that we have in our company that when followed lead to great results. These details are fostered in the culture that you build within your organization. Whenever I have a situation arise in one of my restaurants, the first question I ask myself is if we had a system in place that should have prevented it in the first place. Most of the time the answer is yes, we had a system, it just wasn’t trained or executed correctly.
- A few weeks ago I attended a one-day training seminar that featured multiple six-figure speakers and thought leaders in business and leadership. By the end of the day, all I could do is shake my head in frustration. Frustration because most of the advice and topics covered are already built into our company’s systems. The real problem is that we do not follow our systems and trust the process every day. As our organization grows and we open more stores it is imperative that all our leaders know our processes and understand why they are so important. We need to define better what the process is, why it is important and how following the process can improve engagement and overall enjoyment.
- Let’s take a look at just a couple of processes that we have in our business. When we hire a new team member, we should take a picture of them on the IPAD and post in our company google account. This way when any manager or owner sees this team member for the first time, we can call them by name and introduce ourselves. What a great way to set a tone of we know who you are right from day one. Another process we have is a security measure to combat quick-change artists. Almost every one of our stores in Phoenix gets at least one quick-change artist per year. Our process is that only a manager can take a large bill and give change. The second stage which is the most important is that we only allow one money exchange. If they start to ask for alternate choices our process is to close the cash drawer and end the transaction immediately. We have so many of these little processes in our company that we may not even realize why we do things a certain way. The process is why so many chain restaurants have such loyal fans; every store can execute consistently.
- On a personal note, I also have a daily process and routine that I try to follow. If I stray from that routine, I am not as productive and start to feel overwhelmed by the seemly insurmountable tasks ahead. If I follow my process and use my journal, I can have an intentional plan of attack that gives me small wins every day. Trust The Process!