Business Strategy books

Five Reasons to Implement Systems: 1. What is measured can be scaled and improved. 2. You will know where and to whom to direct your energy and expertise. 3. You can stop micromanaging and empower your employees. 4. Your employees, especially your top performers, won't be able to deceive you with hype. 5. You will simultaneously become more effective and have more freedom.

If you walk through our offices, you'll see screens and data streams everywhere. By displaying our data in the office, we are creating accountability and highlighting radical transparency. Because everyone sees everything, it's an amazing way of using the carrot and stick simultaneously—without having to say or do anything. Because the numbers are in plain view, performers feel recognized just as nonperformers feel uncomfortable. If the latter feel too uncomfortable, all the better; they will either up their game to avoid further embarrassment or leave the company. Transparency is the ultimate performance-enhancing drug. And when it doesn't work to motivate your poor performers, they will weed themselves out—which is exactly what you want.

You simply cannot scale your business without creating the systems for it to operate without you. You have to make lists. You must create manuals (video libraries may be more effective than printed ones). You must codify your knowledge. If it exists only in your head, you have a job to do. If you want to have a sustainable business, codify what you know and make sure it gets transferred to everyone else in your organization.