How to Build Systems in Your Business That Actually Hold

A business system is a repeatable process, and the point of one is that it frees your attention for the hard problems. Build it on the fundamentals you already do well, write it down so somebody else can run it, use it even when you are tired, and review it on a schedule so it does not quietly become a tradition.

We all crave a system. Some way, some path, to get there and get it done. We crave it because it is the best way to get things done on a continuous basis.

A system means a repeatable process. When something is repeatable it takes less energy, because you step into it and it is already set up and you know what comes next. Fewer mistakes, fewer risks, less effort. And because it repeats, you can stand back and analyze it and make it better.

Here is how I build them, where I have broken my own, and the one question that tells you whether a system is still earning its place.

Why do fundamentals beat the new tool every time?

Because the fundamentals are what the new tool sits on, and most businesses buy the tool first.

I have always found it strange that we chase the next piece of tech instead of focusing on the basics. People ask what makes the Special Operations community different. We have all the cool kit, and that is not the differentiator. What makes Special Operations different is that they do the basics better than anyone else.

Same in sport. I still remember getting lectured by a football coach about blocking and tackling. No play works and no game gets won unless you block and tackle better than the other team. When I coached rugby my number one focus was fundamentals, because I had studied the All Blacks and worked out that is how they became one of the longest running dynasties in any sport. They do the fundamentals of rugby better than anyone. So I coached pass, catch, tackle. Nothing more.

I listened to other coaches talk about this play or that special integration of switches and runarounds. About fifty percent success in practice, zero percent in a game, because they never put the fundamentals underneath it.

Too many of us are looking for the next AI agent or agency that launches us to the next level. That is fine, and if you do not have the systems to onboard a client, manage capital and manage people, you will fail. You will fail for the obvious reason, which is that you cannot take payments or pay vendors and team members, and the whole thing collapses.

The fundamentals are not sexy. They are what sustained success is made of.

How do you build a system?

Start from something you already do repeatedly, then make it explicit enough for somebody else to run.

1. Pick a process you run more than once a month. Onboarding, quoting, hiring, the weekly review. Something with a shape already.
2. Write down what you actually do, not what you believe you do. Those differ, and the gap is where the errors live.
3. Strip it to the fundamentals first. If the basic version does not work reliably, no amount of tooling on top will save it.
4. Give it a place for everything. The point of a system is that you never spend attention locating the next step.
5. Adopt somebody else's and modify it. A system that works for another company will not work for you unmodified. Take the shape, change the details.
6. Put action steps in it. A broad system anybody can adopt has no action steps in it by definition. Whoever implements it still has to do the hard work of specifying them, and that is the part that gets skipped.
7. Review it on a schedule. Ask how you could do this better, then ask your team the same question. Resting on a system that works today, without reviewing how it performs, is a path to failure.

Good systems mean nothing until somebody acts on them. That is the difference between an organization that improves and one that grows algae like a pond in summer.

Habits and systems have been part of everything I do since I was a Boy Scout. You have to know where in your rucksack you put your knife and your matches. That carried into my military career, and I still pack the same way when I hunt and in my everyday carry bag. I know which pocket the cords are in, where the spare pens and the backup earpiece live, which slot the computer goes in, where the keys go. It mitigates the stress of hunting for a power cord, which frees me up for the next keynote or for working out who I can introduce to somebody I just met.

What happens when you step outside your own system?

You find out how much the system was doing for you.

Ms. Suzanne and I were at a conference in Denver, in a hotel room, doing what we always do when we travel together, with one difference. She was not coming home afterward. She was going on to Texas to see our folks.

I had my new electronic notepad out on the desk next to my computer. No big deal. What I did not account for was that Ms. Suzanne had her new electronic notepad out too, and that although they are different makes and models the cases make them look almost identical.

I have spent years making fun of her nesting when we get on a plane or into a hotel room. She is the one who does the extra sweep before we leave. She de-nests. She is very good at it. So good that she packed my notepad and took it to Texas.

I stepped out of my system. Part of the system is that the item gets used and then goes back to its place, so the item is always where it is supposed to be. Except when it is in Texas.

When you have a system, stick to it, monitor it and improve it. When you reach into the rucksack and the thing is not there, the question is not where did it go. The question is where did I not follow the system.

How do you restart a system after it breaks?

By remembering why you built it, because your mind will make a very reasonable case against it.

Travel does this to me. It always feels good to come home, because home is familiar and familiarity feels safe, and that safety comes out of routine. Everything from the bedtime routine to the lunch routine. Routines give your mind room to think about other things, because a routine involves almost no decisions. You just do it.

Some are harder to restart than others. Mine is getting up to work out, which is the first thing I do at home and has been part of my routine since I joined the Army. After a trip my mind says you do not need to do that, sleep in, you are tired from travelling. That is the lazy side talking.

When I remember why the routine exists in the first place, that it makes the day better and gives me the energy to help other people, I get up and go. The trick is not discipline in the moment. It is having the reason close enough to hand to answer the argument.

Do not let a break in a routine become the reason you never return to it.

Why is changing a system so hard?

Because your survival instinct reads change as wasted energy, and it is not entirely wrong.

Three weeks into a new year and most people are exactly where they finished the last one. The problem is not the external catalyst or the people telling you this is your chance. The problem is internal. There is a voice that says you should do something, and another that says it is too hard or now is not the time. We cave to the second one because it is the easier path.

Change is hard. There is no debating it. Then we stay the same and wonder why the business is not growing and why a relationship is faltering, and ask what is wrong with me.

That last question is actually the right one, asked the right way. Not woe is me. What do I need to do differently. All change starts with a decision to do something different and to face the unknown. When you notice yourself arriving at that self-awareness, that is the moment to move. Build the plan, commit to the outcome, become the person you want to be.

When is a system just a tradition?

When the only reason you still do it is that you have always done it.

I went to a school famous for its traditions, Texas A&M. Some were harmless, like Midnight Yell Practice before a home game. Others we held on to far too long, and some of those were hazing. In my sophomore year a cadet died because of one of them. We could not see that what we were doing was wrong, because it was tradition and the Corps of Cadets were the keepers of it.

It is worth sitting with how a group of eighteen to twenty-one year olds fell in line behind tradition without once asking about its value or its integrity.

Tradition is good when it gives people a sense of gathering and something in common. Thanksgiving is a tradition worth keeping. Sometimes we hold on for the wrong reason, and I am not talking about switching from turkey to ham.

You probably do not think of the business activity you have always run that way as a tradition. It is one. So ask: which activities do I need to change in order to change me and my business? And about your routines, ask whether you do it that way because it is the best way, because it is the easiest way, or because you have always done it that way.

That is the question a review is for, and it is the one most reviews avoid.

What it looks like when the system pays

Two things sat on my ranch goal list for more than six months, and I finally cleared them both in a weekend with a lot of help from my neighbor.

The bigger one was building a road to the site where we will put the cabin. When I say road I mean a 4x4 trail up the ridgeline. It took far longer than planned because of mechanical problems: my chainsaw was too weak, then the pull rope broke on the gas chainsaw. No problem, because I had a bow saw and my neighbor had a two-man pull saw. We got through the tree blocking the path, and his tractor scooped the scrub oak out of the way and moved the deadfall. We ended up on top of the ridgeline with my F250 parked at the cabin site.

Then the well. I had been thinking about that one for over a year, hoping the lifter gaskets would hold and the well was not dry. I mounted the new engine on the platform, attached the V-belt, and it fired right up. Five minutes later, water. Out of the nozzle, out of the top of the pump, out of just about every seam there was.

The point is not the road or the well. The point is that a goal missing its original timeline is not a goal you failed. And that I could not have done either without a relationship with my neighbor, because otherwise I would still be out there with a bow saw working through a sixteen-inch pinon pine.

Where to start

Pick the process that breaks most often and write down what you actually do, step by step, including the parts you would not put in a manual.

Then ask the tradition question about it. Best way, easiest way, or always done it that way.

The 7 C's of Leadership assessment shows where the gaps are before you start building. When the systems are the bottleneck and there is nobody to own them, that is what a Fractional COO is for.

Frequently asked questions