Recently, I discovered something profound about leadership while babysitting my grandchild — and it changed how I think about building reliable teams.
In January of this year Jan and I had the privilege of watching our 19-month-old granddaughter Hannah for six days while my daughter and her husband celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary on a cruise.
My daughter is a great mom. She also has the Working Genius of Tenacity — which means she loves to cross T’s and dot I’s to create beautiful systems. So I should not have been surprised at her level of organization when they dropped off Hannah at our house.
An unexpected SOP
Accompanying the car seat and box full of diapers (neatly divided into daytime and nighttime!) was a small duffel bag with Hannah’s clothes. Inside were six clear zip-up bags, each containing exactly one day’s outfit. Organized by day. Sunday’s bag even had a dress with color-coordinated sweater and leggings.
But here’s what stopped me in my tracks — the shared Apple Note.
Two full pages detailing Hannah’s daily routine from wake-up to bedtime. Not just a list, but enough detail to guide twelve hours of care. While there were no checkboxes, it was a boutique checklist ensuring Hannah would be well-cared for with consistent routine, even away from home. A flawless SOP.
And the six days went flawlessly. No separation anxiety — at least for Hannah — mom was a different story! A consistent daily routine for Hannah even though she was at our house, not her own. It was a delightful time. And for me, it was a reminder of why I started my own business — for the freedom to do things like this.
The psychologist Erik Erikson described human growth as overcoming a series of crises. The first one that happens for infants he describes as Hope:Trust vs. Mistrust. Even before they can speak, little ones are wondering: Can I trust the people around me to take care of me when I cannot take care of myself? While there are many facets of this, consistent rituals and routines help these little ones build trust.
So, an SOP (standard operating procedure) for Grampa wasn’t just a checklist. It was an important part of Hannah’s development.
The same is true for organizations. But the trust question is slightly different: “Can I trust my team to execute in my absence?” As the business or ministry grows, another question arises: “Can my team leaders trust their team members to execute in their absence?” And perhaps the most important questions of all: “Can my clients or customers receive the same level of service when I’m not the one delivering that service?”
SOPs can make this happen.
One goal as business leaders is to develop the people around us. For most organizations, that means taking the stuff that lives only in our head and getting that systematized into standard operating procedures — what author Dan Martell calls a “playbook.”
The playbook is the one place where the SOPs and the checklists for following them should be located. For Hannah’s care, it was a shared Apple Note. At Edens View Coaching, we use ClickUp to store the SOPs and task and project templates that are auto-created to make sure those processes are followed.
In Systemology, David Jennings writes:
“The secret to ensuring your business develops a culture where systems are not just created, but actually used, is to introduce some level of accountability. Use project management software to create milestones or checkpoints for the tasks that your team has to check off as they go along. The checkpoints for a task can be templated so, once set up, it’s a snap to duplicate. And if you use the documented steps as a guide to creating checkpoints, the hard work has already been done. The end result is a uniformity of results that reduces errors and waste to a bare minimum.” (David Jenyns and Michael E. Gerber, SYSTEMology)
This kind of system-building takes time. But so does correcting mistakes from unclear processes and procedures. It’s not a question of whether this will take time, but where you’ll spend that time — pro-actively on the front end or reactively on the back end.
In his book Buy Back Your Time, Dan Martell has some great ideas on how to optimize the pro-active time you spend:
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The Camcorder Method (the training videos)
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The Course (the steps involved in the process)
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The Cadence (how often these tasks should be completed: monthly, weekly, daily, etc.)
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The Checklist (the high-level items that must be completed every time)
The key is to get started. Remember: progress is better than perfection.
Reflection Questions
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When have you followed a well-written SOP yourself? What level of trust and confidence did that create in you? Conversely, when were you tasked with something that was unspoken, unclear or with incomplete expectations? What were the results?
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Flip the script. Think about a time you created a clear SOP for your team? What were the results? What about the times where you didn’t get what was in your head down on paper? How did these time increase — or decrease — your trust in a team member?
Action Item
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Pick one process that lives mostly in your head and start creating an SOP. The easiest way to do this is the Camcorder method — use Loom, Clickup Clips, or Zoom Clips to record yourself describing that process in detail and then share that recording with your team. Delegate the task of turning that task into a checklist.
Further Application
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Systemology (https://www.systemology.com/)
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Process Driven (https://processdriven.co/)
Documenting processes with SOPs is only one part of developing your team. Content and checklists aren’t enough. For more on this, see our article on the Delegation, or contact us for more support.