Do you play Wordle?
If you don’t play it, perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s the game where you get six chances to guess a five-letter word.
When I started playing it, I was selecting words at random to begin with. It was chaotic. Some days good. Some days terrible. No real pattern.
But then I started using the same first two words each day. And the variance in my results began to reduce. There was an occasional failure. An occasional “3”. But the typical result was a “4” or a “5”.
I had defined a process. I was using it. I couldn’t control the outputs but I was controlling the inputs. I trusted the process.
But I wasn’t satisfied. Could there be a better pair of words to start with?
I tried a different combination. Tested it. Lo and behold – my average score improved. I’d refined the process.
But again I wasn’t satisfied. So now, if my first word comes up blank, I vary the second word. Time will tell if that improves things.
And so it is with business, e.g., your sales process. Your warranty process. Your process for on-boarding new employees. Your process for when employees leave. Your process for [insert blank].
Chaos is chaos. It’s typically not good unless you’re deliberately trying to stir things up.
Are there areas in your business where you should (but don’t) have a process? If so, identify one area and
- Define a process.
- Use that process.
- Measure the results.
- Refine the process.
- Use it.
- Measure it.
- Etc. Ad infinitum!
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