RANA’s series of articles on Process Leadership provides the opportunity to clear up some misconceptions. So, this article is dedicated to sorting the links between words we all make use of such as “leadership”, “process”, “enabling”, “asset” and “risk”.
First off, process is getting a bad reputation. It has become known as a set of rules by which to control the activities in the organization. Thus, the mid-manager has become a controller of the processes by which the people they manage work. It’s no wonder that large organizations have begun letting go of their mid-managers. They were originally hired on the scalar principle in organizations where it was generally thought that a manager could only supervise a set number of employees. Once that number was met or exceeded, another manager was hired. More employees had to mean more processes to control. This is where the misconception lies however, as process is not a set of rules; it is quite simply a series of steps leading to a result. If the organization has owners for processes (in other words, if people know how to do things), then the need for multiple mid-managers is sharply decreased and their role is to enable people to use their processes effectively. In other words, mid-managers are Process Leaders: they enable the people they work with to do things more effectively.
There is, of course, the multiplier effect with processes. Even a simple definition as a series of steps can get hardened into a statement like: this is the way you have to do things in order to succeed. However, processes need to remain fluid and transform themselves under enlightened ownership and leadership to remain current and ensure the continued success of the organization. Processes that have hardened into a rule multiply themselves so that eventually, they begin to contradict each other and get in the way of success. This predictable outcome leads organizations into higher costs and ineffective solutions. One such example is: more managers. Another consists of increased technology to overcome and control the piled-on workload of processes that have now become rules. Notice the toll on the organization that these solutions impose.
What is success, after all? It is simply arriving at a goal that has been set and that contributes to the effectiveness of the organization. Processes (knowing how to do things well) and Process Leaders (who enable people to perform well) lead to goal achievement and therefore, to success.
Then, there is risk. Organizations take a huge risk by avoiding to confront the internal workings of their organizations; they take a huge risk in adopting the same old governance principles; they take a huge risk in making the ways of doing things into hard and fast rules; and they take a huge risk in not creating and enabling the work climate where discussing how to do things well is part of the culture. Avoiding these risks is relatively easy; but it calls for the organization’s senior leaders to treat process as the asset it really is, rather than a set of hardened rules.
