Today we are exploring the handoff problem and why work falls through the cracks.

G'.

Day.

My name's Mike from Lone Wolf Unleashed.

And so a while ago, in fact, a little bit ago, it's one of my favorite episodes of a podcast I've listened to, and that is the interview between Tim Ferriss and Sam Caucus.

I think I've mentioned Sam on a previous episode because I'm a massive Sam fan.

And he described 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 their task is done.

So let me tell you a little bit of something about me, okay?

This is one of my main pet peeves.

If you ever meet me and you want to prank me, do this, okay?

One of my main pet peeves is when I'm doing something, 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.

What a process 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 going to drive my car.

If my keys aren't in my cube, where they normally are kept, then I can't drive my car.

This is further complicated when you're dealing with multiple people in a process.

Let's say we only have one car.

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.

If we are operating a process, communication is part of how you are performing that process.

And if you are not communicating while you're performing that task or after you've performed that task, you have not performed that task.

And so what Sam has done in his KPIs is he has not put communication as a separate 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 for you?

You know, you might be a small business owner, you might be a solo founder.

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, you know, trying to swim.

You feel like you're sinking.

We want to make sure that you are in a position to execute.

The way that we can execute is by having things in the right place at the right time for you to do that.

Even if you are a solo business, you are dealing with other stakeholders.

The way that you communicate and the way that they communicate with you is incredibly important in terms of decreasing the cycle time of your process.

What does that mean?

It means that the process will take less time to perform.

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 cash flow should improve, particularly if it's in the delivery process.

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 early ones, you have documented out what you do.

Now, a process map does deal specifically with what is done.

Okay, Verb down, 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.

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.

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 creating a strategy for running ads and 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 going to communicate with them up front when you're doing something.

That setting of the expectation is really important because I've got another guy in my program who runs a claims advocacy business.

And part of what he's going to start to do is since he's 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.

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.

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 a game.

Business is a game.

But 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 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 the communication that goes into 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 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 time tasks are being completed.

Because what you want to be able to do then, as a manager is you want to make sure that the time that you spend managing, following up.

How did you go with that?

Oh, can we check in?

We need to do a standup every day because I don't trust that you're going to do the work.

No one wants that.

You know, no one wants that.

You want to make sure that the time that you're spending managing is.

Is far less than your time that you would have taken doing those tasks yourself.

Right.

Cause 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.

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're freed up, that you are unleashed, 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 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 out 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, and in what channel and in what respect that you're communicating them with and see if 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 measure, but it's embedded into 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.