Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less

The world is not a chaotic jumble of people, objects, and events clanging together in disarray. The world is a place of order and logic, a place of predictability. The world is a collection of logical systems!

First, I would create the Strategic Objective, which would define us and set goals. Second, I would put together the General Operating Principles, which would serve as our guidelines for making decisions. Third, we would write out our Working Procedures, which would exactly define every recurring process of the business.

most see problems as overwhelming in number: an onslaught from “out there,” only to be fended off by superhuman efforts.

getting things right most of the time is good enough. The part that doesn’t come out well is just part of the overhead: the cost of doing business, of taking risks, of external confusion, of coping with a changing world that is sometimes one step ahead of your best efforts, of being alive.

A life’s mechanical functioning is a result of the systems that compose it.

The mantra of the Work the System method is to isolate-fix-maintain. It is not enough to know what to do. One must take action.

The root cause of the turnaround was the discovery and application of the principle that management must focus on improving systems, not in performing the work or in repeatedly snuffing out brushfires. In short, quality products or services, a stable staff, and profitability are the result of the quality systems that produce them, not the reverse.

What is the most important difference between the manager of a large successful business and the manager of a small struggling business? The first manages systems; the second copes with bad results.

At best, a system combines efforts with other systems to help us reach desired targets. At worst, an errant component within a system creates problems that manifest themselves chaotically, chronically, and often subversively, contributing to the feeling that one is not in proper control of one’s life. That out-of-control feeling is not rare: Many p