The Handoff Problem: Why Work Falls Through the Cracks

Transcript

Good day. My name’s Mike from Lone Wolf Unleashed, and today we are exploring the handoff problem and why work falls through the cracks. So, a while ago, in fact, a little bit of ago, um, it’s one of my favorite episodes of a podcast I’ve listened to, and that is the interview between Tim Ferriss and Sam Corcos.

I think I’ve mentioned Sam on a previous episode. Uh, ‘cause I’m a massive fan. I’m a massive Sam fan. Um, and he described, uh, this thing around when you’re in a process, when you’re operating within multiple processes and how you judge performance is the way that people communicate when it’s. When their task is done.

So the way that we operate in our business, um, and the way that we unders, I’m just waffling.

So let me tell you a little bit of something about me. Okay? This is one of my main pet peeves. If you ever, if you ever meet me and you wanna prank me, do this, okay? One of my main pet peeves is when I’m doing something and I might be in a little bit of a hurry. And I want to get something done. And the thing that I need that’s usually in a place, isn’t in the place.

You know, it could be cooking a meal, it could be doing anything. And if the thing isn’t there where it should be and I go to use it, it’s incredibly frustrating for me. So.

What a process is, is it, is it operates well when the right thing is with the right person at the right time. Okay, so right thing, you know, it might be my keys if I’m gonna drive my car. If my keys aren’t in my cube where they normally are kept, then I can’t drive my car. Okay? This is further complicated.

When you’re dealing with multiple people in a process, let’s say we only have one car. And my wife uses the car and then returns the keys somewhere else. She doesn’t communicate where she’s put the keys or that she’s home so I can use the car. That becomes a problem and it slows things down, particularly if that car is needed, right?

So, uh, if we are, if we are operating a process. Communication is part of how you are performing that process. And if you are not communicating while you are performing that task, or after you’ve performed that task, you have not performed that task. And so what Sam has done in his, uh, KPIs is he has not put communication as a separate, um, performance measure on.

Their position descriptions. It’s just embedded, it’s inherent in terms of how they take care of responsibilities. Now, why is this important? This is, why is this important for you? You know, you might be a small business owner, you might be a solo founder, okay? And the idea here is that we’re taking you from solo flounder to a solo founder.

Okay? We don’t want you sort of trying to. You know, trying to swim, you feel like you’re sinking. We want to make sure that you are in a position to execute, and the way that we can execute is by having things in the right place at the right time for you to do that. Now, even if you are a solo business, you are dealing with other stakeholders and the way that you communicate and the way that they communicate with you is incredibly important in terms of increasing or decreasing.

Decreasing the cycle time of your process, what does that mean? It means that the process will take less time to perform and if it takes less time to per, per to, if it takes less time to perform, that means that you are freed up now to use that time for something else. You’re able to deliver those same outcomes in a shorter period of time and your cashflow should improve, particularly if it’s in the delivery process.

Okay? So what we need to be thinking about is when we’ve documented our processes, and I’ve done a previous episode on that. You can go check that out as one of my earlier ones. Um, you. Have documented out what you do now, a process map does deal specifically with what is done. Okay? Verb noun, doing something, moving through multiple tasks to get to an outcome.

The other part of that is understanding which stakeholders you are communicating with and in what respect, in what channel, in what way. So what you want to be able to do is you want to be able to have a clear understanding about. Who you’re communicating with and when. So, an example of that is I’m currently working with a marketer, and part of his process with me is that I need to complete the foundations document.

Now, I, it would be my turn to complete that Foundations document and I, let’s say I have completed the foundation, which I have now. If I don’t tell him that I completed it, what does that mean for him? It means that he has to follow up. It means that he’s not able to then do the part of the process that he’s supposed to do in terms of, um, creating a strategy, um, for running ads and, uh, social posts, those types of things.

So he’s slowed down by me not communicating that. So there needs to be a way, a clear way that people know the expectation about how you’re gonna communicate with them upfront. When you’re doing something and that setting of the expectation is really important because I’ve got another guy in my program who, um, runs a claims advocacy business, and part of what he’s going to start to do is since his documenting out his process, he’s going to be able to start to communicate to his client very, very specifically all the things that they need to do.

In order to speed his part up. Now, why is that important for them? Why does that matter? It matters to them because if he’s able to do a quicker job and a better job, they get a better outcome. So it is, this is all what it’s about, right? It’s about better outcomes. It’s about doing things faster in a better way.

That frees up time that leads to better outcomes for both you, your supplier and your customer. So what we want to be able to do here is create win-win, win scenarios. This is, this is a game, business is a game, but we, we can do things that allow us to be in a position where every party wins. And that’s what I love about business is there’s always a puzzle going on about how we can all work together to continue to deliver value.

So, so the handoff is perhaps the most important part of the process is how handoffs happen between the tasks. It’s not necessarily completing the tasks themselves. It’s the handoff and it’s communi and it’s the communication that goes into, uh, what is, what that task was about. So have a think about this because you might be in a position now where you’re wanting to hire your first employee.

You might have followed my podcast all the way through, and you’ve documented out how things work, and uh, you might go, well, a way for me to save time in this particular area of my business is to bring someone on. You have to make sure that those communication channels are open and ready to use and that they are used when the tasks are being completed.

Right? Because what you want to be able to do then as a manager, is you wanna make sure that the time that you spend managing, you know, following up, how did you go with that? Oh, can we check in? We need to do a standup every day. ‘cause I don’t trust that you’re gonna do the work. No, you, no one wants that.

You know, no one wants that. So you wanna make sure that the time that you’re spending managing is far less than, uh, your time that you would’ve taken doing those tasks yourself, right? Because otherwise you wouldn’t have taken someone in the first place. So that’s my challenge to you this week. I want you to think about how you’re communicating with your different stakeholders in your business.

I want you to think about that as you’re doing different various processes, how you can speed that up. You might come up with some ideas about being able to just eliminate some of those channels altogether, which is great. Okay. Um, which follows? Part of, you know, the way of working, of eliminating, delegating and automating.

The goal here is that you save time. The goal here is that you are unleashed, right? That you are freed up from your business that’s been consuming all your time. Remember. You started your business for freedom and flexibility, and we get freedom and flexibility by creating good systems.

And part of those systems is we have documented out and those tasks that we need to be able to do within those processes are, are running very well and that the communication between those different tasks is also running very well. So I challenge you with that this week. Have a go at doing that. Make sure document your process, do a process map.

Don’t just write down on there the tasks that need to be done. Write down on there the different types of stakeholders that you’re communicating with and in what channel and what, in what respect that you are communicating them with, and see if there’s, you can refine some of those ways. Remember. If you are not communicating, you are not performing, that goes to your suppliers as well and your customers communicating back with you.

So if you are a solo business and that’s happening, then that’s something you need to keep your finger on. If you are running a team. Make sure that you’re thinking about how you build into your KPIs, this way of working, this different way of working. That’s not having communication set as a separate, um, measure, but it’s embedded into the, the ways of working in your business.

Thank you so much for listening today. I appreciate your time. You could have been doing so many other things with your time, but you decided to hang out with me and learn how handing off in your process is probably the most important thing that you can do in your business. I will see you next week.