Why companies with well-described business processes are doomed to extinction

Small companies are working on the enthusiasm of their employees. Everyone tries to contribute to the common cause. And this is not an exaggeration ... But as time goes on, business grows and new people come to the company, for whom the main thing is not a common cause, but the amount of wages. This in itself is not bad, if, due to the pathological laziness of a significant part of humanity, these employees would not try to reduce the amount of work they do.

And then the top management begins the formalization of activities. Business processes are defined, job descriptions are compiled, KPIs are entered ...
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And then it all depends on the safety margin of the business. If it is, the company will live long enough. It will gradually lose the market (which happens with the same Microsoft), but it will not immediately go to the bottom. But yesterday's startup without capital, unique products and loyal fans immediately go to feed the fish.

Why? Yes, because all formalization is in fact an excellent opportunity for idlers to cover their fifth point in the complete absence of results!

Do not believe? Examples in the studio!

Hell KPI

KPI is an evil of universal scale, allowing the most stupid and worthless performers to kick a noodle and avoid responsibility.

Once for sellers came up with a formula linking the number of calls and sales. Such a spherical horse in a vacuum. And on this occasion, they put the phone sellers a plan of 10-30-50 calls per day.

The quitters chose 10-30-50 most non-piercing customers and called them with a dialogue like “Hello! Are you going to buy? Not? Well, okay ... ”That is, the calls they made, they are great. And that no sales, so it is not their problem.

Then the smart heads thought and changed the KPI from the number of calls to the total duration. Here the most tedious sellers became heroes who “sucked in” the buyers from all sides, did not let them go, tired them, brought them to white heat. It had no effect on sales.

I decided to combine both options. That is, you need to make 20 calls, but so that at least two minutes each. It turned out to be more difficult, but our people are not afraid of difficulties! As a result, in the sales departments there were only professional talkers able to actively maintain a conversation on any topic.

Business Developers

What sellers do is triviality and baby talk compared to the frills of their “older brothers”, business development managers.

These guys in beautiful suits and with corporate credit cards should, in theory, find major clients and partners for their companies.

In theory, they should communicate a lot with the leaders of large companies, talk about their product and gradually push them towards a purchase, a partnership ...

In fact, they sleep until dinner, then they call friends to those very large companies and go with them to eat (at the expense of their corporate credit card, of course). Cute talk about life and come up with what the results of the meeting can be written in the report.

Formally, managers do their work according to official duties. Sales from this will not grow.

Marketing mirages

Surely every one of you at least once in your life read a marketing letter filled with happiness and joy of something like this:

Beloved colleagues!
I can not be silent !!!
Yesterday we participated in the event "Methods of breeding squirrels in captivity", where we presented our product - industrial pumps for wells "Sosun" !!!
Our booth attracted many visitors (photo booth with young marketers, guest models and several lovers of beautiful indefinite age and appearance).
We have collected a lot of leads that have already been transferred to the sales department !!!

Yeah, wait! Business cards you have collected from visitors. And for all visitors, including housewives and school teachers. Now the sales department will work out their KPI on calls, offering them powerful pumps ...

And marketers are happy - because they did everything as described in the business processes. They had to participate in the exhibition - they participated. Hello to the marketing budget!

What shall we do, boyars?

The question is hard, because there is no definite answer. Rather, there is no single answer for various professions.

For sales managers, nothing is better than control of employees . With him, the army of sellers is forced to do only business, and not to waste time on stupid KPI implementation.
Want details? They are here .

It’s best to get rid of development managers altogether. We need connections with the right people - it’s better to pay once to a mediator who works for the result. He will lead you not just for an amateur to eat Darloward, but for the person who really makes decisions.

Marketers should either be tied to sales (oh, how they don't like it! They just hate!), Or work on the direct order of the sales department.

For the marketer left to himself is able to generate how spectacular, so useless activity. And yes, sellers should also assess the quality of the work of marketers and the leads they generated.

And less formalism.