Welcome to Friday 411, issue #106. In 4 minutes, with 1 insight and 1 action, you’ll discover how to prevent the most common process breakdowns.
1 Insight
If your processes are not documented, accessible, and properly executed, your team is wasting time, energy, and money.
Carillion was the second largest construction company in the UK. In 2016, it boasted nearly 43,000 employees. By 2018, the company had collapsed, and an additional 75,000 people in the supply chain were impacted by its demise.
The company crumbled for multiple reasons. One of these was because of KPMG, Carillion’s auditor. They failed to properly scrutinize the company’s financial representations, accepting manipulated figures without sufficient evidence. KPMG didn’t have good processes in place to ensure the accuracy of Carillion’s reporting.
Repeatable processes affect every business’s success. A restaurant makes the same burgers and fries over and over. Manufacturers create the same products every single day. Lawn companies deliver the same services time and again.
When you have a breakdown in your processes, it wastes time, causes missed opportunities, and creates massive headaches (for employees, leaders, and customers).
Where do processes usually fail? How can you prevent these breakdowns? Let’s explore the five biggest culprits and how to avoid them.
The Five Biggest Process Breakdowns (and How to Prevent Them)
Whenever a process fails, it’s usually one of these five reasons:
1. Reliance on Memory
When processes exist only in people’s heads, inconsistency becomes inevitable. Mistakes become especially perilous when a single person holds the process in their mind.
If they leave or are injured, you must recreate the process, wasting time and energy. Employees spend unnecessary time recreating steps, and knowledge walks out the door when someone leaves.
Prevention: Follow this 8-Step Process to Document Your Processes.
2. Processes Aren’t Accessible When Needed
A manufacturing plant struggled with employees falling from ladders that had not been properly secured. The leaders created new protocols, trained the staff, and tested everyone on the process. They even posted the safety instructions where they stored all the ladders. But their injuries did not reduce.
The process wasn’t located where employees could see it when they needed it. The plant manager created stickers with the safety steps. He put those stickers in multiple places on every ladder. The plant workers could see every step to securing the ladder when they needed it. Immediately, ladder injuries dropped — and people’s bodies stopped dropping.
Prevention: (1) Identify the specific location(s) where processes need to be seen. (2) Store all process documents in a central, easy-to-find location.
3. Unclear Roles and Responsibilities
Complex processes involve multiple people and departments. If people know what the steps in the process are but don’t know who handles each step, confusion reigns. Work stalls because team members either assume someone else is handling it or multiple people duplicate efforts, creating inefficiencies.
Prevention: Identify the person responsible for each step.
4. Inefficient Handoffs
A great process can still fail if handoffs between team members are poorly executed. Handoffs are critical points where information, tasks, or responsibilities move from one person to another.
When handoffs lack proper documentation or clear communication protocols, important details often get lost in translation. One person’s failure to properly transfer work to the next team member can create a domino effect of delays and mistakes throughout the entire process.
Prevention: For every handoff in the process, identify steps that ensure a smooth transition.
5. Ignorance of Resources
Even the best employees can’t complete tasks if they don’t have access to the right tools or information. For example, a team member could get locked out of critical software when no one informs him of a password update.
Prevention: Every step in the process needs documentation of any tools, documents, software, passwords, or other resources that are critical to timely completion.
The Role of Leaders
As a leader, you own your team’s processes — even if you aren’t directly responsible for doing the work of the processes. When you avoid process breakdowns, you give your team:
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- Clarity: Your team knows their roles and the precise steps it takes to achieve success.
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- Capacity: Your team can get more done in less time when they know how to execute the processes.
By addressing these process breakdowns, you create a smoother, more efficient workplace—where you spend time getting results, not dealing with roadblocks.
1 Action
Determine which of these five breakdowns is most common for your team. Implement the prevention.