A process Driven Organisation

I believe, a truly process driven organization is a learning organization which achieves its business objectives by managing activities in a designated way. The processes within the organization allow the managers to focus on their teams’ efforts, reduce any need for micromanagement, and save time and effort so that they may deliver on the strategy, meet existing customers’ needs and primarily contribute productively to the growth of the business. To put it simply, a process driven organisation has all the ingredients required for achieving success and growth for all its stakeholders.

I have noticed many entrepreneurs who belong to yesterday’s generation, still prefer to be a people driven organization for the fear of losing control over their organization. In people-driven organizations, usually there is a lot of focus on the individual and the skills that they possess as the way of delivering business strategy. There are a number of challenges for people-driven organizations.

• With limited hours in the day, there is only so much that one person can achieve.
• An organization’s success may become limited to the skills of individuals. Which could result in loss of precious time, as we attempt to inter cross knowledge between team members within the organization.
• The right talent and skill at an affordable cost may not always be available in the job market.
• There is an exceptional amount of faith, sometimes unrealistic, that everyone will operate in the way or at a speed which they were intended to.

On the contrary, a process driven organization tends to be

• A learning organization where, due to the exponential changes in the VUCA environment, learning has to be continuous and unlearning is of prime essence.
• Adaptable to the changing environment as transfer of knowledge is not a constraint as employees are trained in processes and evaluated for performance to ensure pre-set standards are being met.
• Moreover as job roles, expectations and deliverables are clearly defined, productivity is enhanced and in many evolved organisations result in reduced supervision.
• Implementing Change Management within the organization is relatively easier as organisations are more adaptable and processes can be replicated easily.
• An organisation is more agile as it has processes that monitor (a) the environment on a regular basis (b) review of processes for continuous upgrade and alignment with desired results.
• Helps in quick resolution of issues. Unless the issues are identified, they are not resolved. Once identified, the focus is on immediate problem solving.
• It also improves involvement of employees across the organisation in problem solving thus reducing the silo mind set.
• Process driven organisations are also better at retaining talent as there is no room for traditional biases and prejudices which taint perception, hamper productivity and may at times jeopardise performance appraisal.

In my opinion, it is essential to align the organization to processes both culturally and operationally. The secret lies in thinking of the organization’s activities as a series of end-to-end processes which may extend outside of the organization too, but are at the core of day to day serviceability.