As a leader, there was a point when I struggled immensely with the idea of having a routine for anything at all. Being so free-spirited, I prided myself on being able to do what I wanted, when I wanted and how I wanted. In doing so, I was devoid of any form of structure or system in place to guide my modus operandi. That seems like eons ago.

Fast forward to now. What you have is someone who no less values freedom. I , recognize that liberty doesn’t have to be at the expense of a system to help me navigate my obligations. They are not mutually exclusive.

In fact, because of my free-spirited nature, it is necessary for me to have a system in place. This gives me more free time to just be me in an authentic way.

Questions for you:

1. Are you confronted by exasperating and menacing challenges as a leader?
2. Is your day to day tasks taking longer than you believe they should?
3. Are you constantly asking yourself, “where did the time go?”

If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, chances are you may need to conduct a systems audit.

Let me clear the air. When I talk of systems, I am not talking about the elaborate, large-scale, complex constructs that require millions of dollars to implement. I am simply referring to a structured set of procedures. This allows us to flow quicker and easier in routine activities, allowing us the time to become more effective leaders. They can be as simple or as complex as you’d like; the choice is yours.

Think of your favourite fast food franchise. Notice when you order fried chicken in one restaurant in your neighbourhood. Go to another out of town and you find that you get the same thing. Franchises are the perfect example of what a system is and can be. This creates consistency — a necessary feature of quality.

Value of Systems

As a Host Site Leader for Leadercast Events, a podcaster, among the several other things that I do as a leader and entrepreneur, I can truly see the value of having systems in my business. For example, we all can relate to how daunting it can be trying to set up a meeting with someone in our office. This is multiplied ten times over if the person is in a different time zone than us. Instead of going back and forth to determine what time might be convenient for both parties and calculating time difference, I simply use a scheduling App called Calendly.

Then there are times when I need to send emails with the same content to multiple recipients. Rather than sending a Newsletter from an eMarketer, I simply used Mail Merge for Gmail. Not only does it saves time, it also creates a sense of personalization for the recipient.

A few months ago, I had a conversation on The Entrepreneurial You podcast with Kate Erickson, an expert in implementing systems,’ As a strong advocate for systems, she reiterated that “There is a beautiful thing about setting up systems…which gives you freedom.”

And freedom is what we can all do with more of.

Strategy to Develop Systems

Kate’s simple 4-part strategy which you can implement right away will take the pain out of developing those well needed systems to help you win your day.

1. Take inventory in your organization by writing down everything you do in a day
2. Write the steps for each activity
3. Look at steps and find efficiencies to identify what you can automate, delegate to others and batch
4. Document what the processes are having done steps 1–3.

These steps can be followed across all elements of your systemization process such as accounting, hiring, lead generation or lead conversion. Some examples are below:

Accounting (tracking your inflows and outflows) — A quick way to manage your accounting is by implementing “QuickBooks”. It is both budget and user friendly.

Hiring & Performance Management — if you a have a small to mid-sized team, BambooHR is an integrated system that frees your Human Resource from information processing spiral to become more effective, more efficient, and more human via their onboarding tools, e-signatures, time-off tracking and more.

Lead Generation and Conversion — a simple Excel Spreadsheet can be used to collate data about how your clients heard about you and calculating the rate at which those leads convert. Excel spreadsheets have the capacity to give you robust information from the formula you put in.

Therefore, systemizing our daily activities enable us to measured what we are doing so that it can be improved. It was Management Consultant, Peter Drucker who says, “you cannot manage what you cannot measure”. I have found this to be quite true.

Benefits of Systems

Not only does having systems beneficial and an asset for proper management and effective leadership, it allows what we do more scalable, giving us a chance to watch our efforts multiplied. Simply put, systems allow us to achieve more with less effort.

In concluding, start to constantly think about weaving the idea of systems constantly as you lead, before you know it, it becomes the fabric of your culture. As you look around your organization, what are the activities that you can systemize to eliminate inefficiencies?

I first contributed a variation of this post to the Leadercast Blog.