Standard Operating Procedures are for Learning, not Control
The purpose of a standard operating procedure (SOP) depends on your leadership style perspective. Transactional style leaders are focused on control, so they see SOPs as a path to compliance and predictability. Developmental style leaders are focused on learning, so they view SOPs as hypotheses to test. Two very different perspectives about why we should do this work and why it is important. Since transactional style leadership remains the predominant style, business process design and management have struggled to gain adoption. Why, because the people doing the work can see what is coming. Their reluctance is grounded in hundreds of years of data on how leaders lead and how they have been taught to lead. When you do this work with people, you can feel their warranted reluctance; nobody wants to design their own shackles. Workflow design and the creation of work procedures should be about learning. They should help us understand how to deliver value more effectively and empower the people doing the work so they can do it better each day.
Designing business processes and creating procedures involves balancing system-level coherence with ground-level adaptability. Work is a complex system; it is neither static nor deterministic. Complex systems are composed of interconnected parts that influence one another in nonlinear ways, creating emergent, unpredictable, and often self-organizing patterns that cannot be fully explained by straightforward cause-and-effect relationships. Natural systems like the weather are good examples of complex systems. Predictability depends on how fast the complex system is evolving, and for many, like the weather, once you get far enough out in time, predictions are about as accurate as flipping a coin. SOPs represent how we work within a complex system. They are not trying to control it. Probes in a complex system help us figure out where the system is changing or adapting so that we can do the same.
Workflows are like the weather. Once it is documented, what happens during execution is not always what was planned. Leadership style then determines the next step after an SOP issue arises. Transactional style leaders tend to dig into why the standard was not followed and try to enforce compliance for next time. This perspective can miss an opportunity to learn and it can create more problems in the future. Let’s say a tool was developed that gave an employee three options to choose from while working to deliver a product to a customer but what the employee is experiencing in the real world is not one of those three choices. They now face a dilemma: do they highlight the problem with the tool, or do they just choose one of the three options to keep the line moving? Having transactional leaders increases the odds that the employee will just select one of the three options and not make waves. These leaders' workflows eventually become a series of workarounds to ensure compliance with a tool that doesn’t reflect reality. Not only that but over time, transactional leadership develops a culture in which everybody spends a tremendous amount of time trying not to get in trouble. In this environment, it is very hard to get people to document their work because standards are viewed as a control system for leaders. On the other hand, developmental style leaders try to understand what happened so they can learn and adapt for the next execution cycle. When something goes wrong, that is a chance to learn something, not a trigger to punish someone. In this case, the employee is much more likely to select none of the options and escalate their experience, which is not reflected in the tool's design. Standard operating procedures become seen as helpful, so they are much more likely to develop and use them. Developmental leaders create a culture of learning, and when things go wrong or don’t go as expected, it simply highlights that something is not well understood. The next logical step, then, is to go learn more about what we don’t understand. This is a learning organization at its roots.
The purpose of a standard operating procedure is to learn how to deliver value more effectively each day. How we perform our work should be viewed as an ever-changing river that adapts as the world around us evolves. If SOPs don’t change, it’s likely that people are not using them. The individuals performing the work should own their processes; they see issues in real time, and they know best how to fix them. Leaders need to roll up their sleeves and get involved where the work happens. Additionally, they must consider the larger system, lead business process design, and manage integration efforts at all levels. In our history, this has not been a traditional leadership role, but as complexity continues to increase, it is becoming more important for leaders to take this on. Finally, they need to set up the system so that those on the ground can succeed. Delegating this work to lower-level managers doesn’t work. Leading from where the work happens will make you a better leader, serve customers better, and improve employee engagement.
Do something today to improve your work-life balance. You won’t regret it. Have a great day, and good luck with your work-life journey.
