A Process Without a Number Is a Wish

A process without a number on your Scorecard is a wish. Put one measurable on it, compliance, frequency or outcome, and you can finally tell whether it works. And, you'll keep it alive!

Your sales process is documented. Somebody trained the team on it. Ask the room whether it is working and every head nods.

Now ask how they know.

That pause is the subject of this issue. Without a number, "it's working" is a wish with a positive attitude.

Back to Basics: Wooden looked at the socks

John Wooden opened every season the same way. He showed his players how to put on their socks, and then he had them check their feet. A wrinkle you can see is a blister you can prevent. A wrinkle you wish away is a blister in the second half.

A measurable is the anticipatory looking. The document says what should happen. The number tells you whether it did.

When we were building our remodel company

We believed in our processes right up until a job proved us wrong. At that time, no number was watching any of them. We had a wish, and wishes do not show up on a Scorecard.  

I see the same thing in session rooms now. A leadership team tells me a process is Followed By All. I ask how they know. Someone says it is in the shared drive -- somewhere. Access is not process adoption, and a document on a drive is not a number.

Three numbers. Pick one.

In Process!, the Measure step of the FBA Checklist gives every process three ways to be measured.

Compliance. Did it happen, the right way? Scorecard may say something like: Estimates sent within 48 hours of the walkthrough: 7 of 8 this week.

Frequency. Is it happening often enough to get the result? A salesperson who needs one new order a week, at a 33 percent closing ratio, needs three proposals a week. Three is the number to watch.

Outcome. Are we getting the result we want? For example, jobs closed with zero punch-list callbacks.

Pick one. Teams that try to measure all three will end up measuring none of them by week four.  

Here is the test. Imagine the number misses next Thursday. Would anyone in your Level 10 Meeting do something different because of it? If the answer is no, you picked a likely unhelpful metric. It will fill a row but change nothing. Pick again.

The trap is counting what is easy to count. Emails sent, meetings held, documents updated. Those numbers move whether or not the process works.

A number also needs an owner, a weekly goal and a first move. The first move is what the owner does the first week the number misses, decided now, while nobody is defensive. Usually it is one question: did we skip a step? That question turns a red cell into an Issue, and Issues get solved. Red cells with no owner get explained, and explaining is just wishing out loud.

The AI prompt

This prompt interviews you one question at a time and produces one Scorecard line. Paste it into the AI tool your company uses.

Before you paste anything, check your company's AI policy and keep customer names and financial detail out of it. Read the output with discernment. It drafts. You decide.

Act as an EOS®-fluent operations advisor. I have one documented process and no measurable for it. Interview me one question at a time and wait for my answer before the next question. Ask, in this order: (1) the name of the process and what "done right" looks like in one sentence; (2) who owns the process; (3) which of three measures would tell us fastest that it is working: compliance (did it happen, the right way), frequency (is it happening often enough to get the result), or outcome (are we getting the result we want); (4) what a good week looks like as a specific number; (5) if that number misses next week, what the owner would do first. Push back if I pick a measure nobody would act on, and say why. Then write one Scorecard line in this format: Measurable | Owner | Weekly goal | First move when it misses. Keep the line under 40 words. Finish with one sentence I can read aloud at my next Level 10 Meeting to introduce it.

This week

Pick the process your team is proudest of documenting. Put one number on it. Add the row to your Scorecard before your next Level 10 Meeting and let it run red if it has to. Red is information. LIke I said, nothing is a wish.

Process creates freedom. A number is how you find out whether you have it yet.

Lisa

2027: Save the Dates

• For EOS Implementers: Monday, February 8. The EOS Implementer® Process Workshop. Free, 90 minutes, live on Zoom. Walk into your next Quarterly with continued Mastery to teach Process. Live only, so there is no replay. Save your seat at lisagonzalez.com/pages/february-8-implementer-process-workshop.
• For companies running on EOS: Monday, March 8. The Process Component Bootcamp. Free, 90 minutes, 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM Mountain, live on Zoom. An introduction to self-implemented process work and the simple tools to start it. Bring your leadership team. It is not recorded, so there is no replay. Register at lisagonzalez.com/process-success-bootcamp.

Both are sponsored by Strety.

P.S. If your leadership team would rather do this work in one day, together, with me in the room, reply to this email and I'll send the details.

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