Last week our post we exposed you to the first factor…looking at yourself.  This post will address the second of four factors that we must look at…Factor Two: The nature of the relationships between the parts of a system;.  How do the various parts of the system you are involved in work?  t together and identify how to make your system more efficient.

Now that you have identified what system you are a part of, and how you are functioning, we must identify how the rest of the system is working.  It is important to understand that whatever your view is, it contains your  preconceived ideas of how others should do their job .   If you are in a position to have an outside consultant come in to review how your system is working, that is best.  If you are reviewing the system in-house, then you must get honest input from all levels within your system.  This is not an easy task, however the best way I have found to date is to ask each member to document their process and what they would like to see changed and what is working best.  As we discussed last post, this will involve, compromise, working together, sharing best practices, understanding what makes each other happy, what makes each component satisfied and a team player.  In other words, how you can be efficient and mutually benefit every component of your system.

Once everyone has documented their  day to day processes and identified the good…bad…and ugly, you must:

1. identify how each individuals inefficiencies are causing issues within the system as a whole
2. Identify if an individuals efficiency is causing inefficiency somewhere in the system
3. understand that it may be impossible for all components to maximize efficiency
4. decide which inefficiencies are acceptable and have less impact on the system as a whole and change the ones that need to be chanted
5. modify expectations and benchmarks of the components of a system based on identified efficiency and accepted inefficiencies
6. identify which other systems your system interacts with

Please don’t let the word component as a way of describing the people and processes in the system lead you to believe this is a cold and calculated process.  It is anything but that.  We use this word because it could be a person, automated process, or outsourced process.  If thinking you are just a component in a process disturbs you, then you need to look around you and realize that everything is just a component in a system.

If you think this part was difficult, wait until you begin to look at how your system interacts with other systems.  Nothing good ever comes from effortlessness!