Think about something your organization does all the time.

Maybe it’s sending a newsletter, running an event, closing out a fundraising campaign, or onboarding an employee. Now ask yourself: What happens if the person who usually does that work gets sick tomorrow?

If work processes only exist in one person’s head, your organization is running on heroics.

A good process creates room for people to be human and provides an organization with a foundation to thrive.

Process is an act of care.

Thinking about process as an act of care starts with two questions: Do our systems assume people are machines or humans with limits and lives? If someone is overwhelmed or in crisis, does our process support them while allowing the work to keep moving?

Process can be a simple “how we work” document so that people understand the rules, an event checklist so success doesn’t depend on someone remembering 47 small details, or a backup plan for someone’s tasks that allows them to take a vacation without spending half of it checking Slack.

A lack of process inside your organization can also become an equity issue. Your organization’s processes shape whether people have the information and access they need.

Think about how someone learns to get things done in your organization. Who understands how things really work, and who’s still guessing? Who has access to budgets, decisions, and timelines? Who knows where information lives and how to move work forward?

Those information and knowledge gaps, especially for newer employees and people with less power in the organization, can shape how effectively someone can do their job. When essential information lives in someone’s head or people are left guessing at the rules, access to how the organization works becomes uneven.

And that gives leaders another important question to ask: Where are we blaming individuals for what is actually a systems failure?

If there’s an area of your organization that feels frustrating right now, resist the urge to redesign everything at once. Instead, choose one critical process you can make easier in 90 days.

Document one recurring workflow. Create one useful operations manual. Fix one meeting that has lost its purpose. Build one shared checklist (we love a good checklist at Blue Engine). Write the first version of a “how we work” guide.

Then use it, learn from it, and adjust it.

Putting a strategy, whether it be revenue or audience or something else entirely, into practice to reach your goals is much easier with the proper processes in place. Process is how strategy survives contact with real life.

People love outcomes. We raised $250,000. We hit our subscriber goal! The event sold out!

And, of course, those matter most and deserve celebration. We also encourage teams to look at what’s behind them. What had to be true to accomplish that result?

Documenting audience segments and sharing them so more than one person can send the right message to the right people on your email list, turning years of institutional knowledge into a shared checklist, or creating a regular cadence for looking at results together and deciding what to adjust all count. These are wins to be celebrated. 

If your team has an ambitious goal and you’re discovering that the path toward it requires some work on how you work, Blue Engine can help. Get in touch with us, and let’s build the processes that can carry your strategy forward.

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