Making chaos less chaotic!

The first time I played organized football, I knew we would be learning ‘plays’ so we could move the ball and score points. What I didn’t realize is later in life I would identify this as a process that made something complex, so simple.

So simple in fact, I can recite the process to this day: Head-up, On-side gap, Off-side gap, Away Linebacker. I might not be able to execute it today, being an older version of myself, but I still would know what to do if my coach called a: slot right motion, 21 George trap.

You see I was a lineman. And we lineman needed a process to know who to block on any given play, regardless of what type of defense was being used against us. We also had to put ourselves in the shoes of our fellow linemen. We needed to know whom they were going to block, so we could make sure we blocked everyone. And, we needed to do all that in about 10 seconds or less.

We all used the same process and we trusted everyone to ‘read’ things the same way because we practiced it over and over. Most interesting is that regardless of what play was called, we used the same blocking process.

So, even though many different things were happening with the backs and receivers, we always ran the same process. Regardless of what the defense was doing, we always used the same process. The only difference was for certain plays, with a key word in them, we had to move to our secondary blocking assignment because another player was going to take our place. The purpose of this was to trick the defense, so we could get an advantage. It almost always worked.

This process took what could have been very complicated, something that could have changed game to game, and made if very easy to learn and execute. It was flexible and consistent. As such, we were very successful.

What is chaotic in your business today? You can implement a process that makes your chaos less chaotic. Maybe it is a process for returns. Or maybe it is a method to up-sell customers on the phone or at checkout. Perhaps it is as simple as developing a set of great answers to common customer questions.

The benefits to you are at least twofold.

1) You know some important, potentially costly, areas of your business are being handled consistently & efficiently.

2) That comfort will free up your staff from managing chaos to thinking about better ways to run your business, which can mean more profits to the bottom line.

So, who is Head-up to you and how are you going to handle the On-side gap in your business?