davidjenyns

A pie shop owner in England went on breakfast TV last week. Between wages and suppliers, his costs are going up close to £4,000 a week. He worked out that's 20,000 to 30,000 extra pies just to stand still. I'm not weighing in on UK politics. But it got me thinking about the costs that never make it onto a budget. The time your team spends asking where things are. The job that gets done twice because nobody wrote down how it's done. You're paying for those every week too. Which job in your business gets redone most often?

Skydance just told staff they'll be back in the office five days a week. The reason they gave was that the best ideas come from people in the same room. My team is spread across Australia and the Philippines, so nobody can lean over a desk and ask me how something's done. That's pushed us to write down how each job gets done. When someone's stuck, that's where they look first, not my inbox. If your team couldn't tap you on the shoulder for a week, where would they look?

You can be a champion of systems without being the systems champion. You're the visionary. You're built to spot the next move, not document the current one. That's exactly why it stalls when you try to drive it yourself. Give the job to someone whose job it is.

The UK just promised to cut £800m a year of business paperwork. Good. Nobody starts a business for the forms. But lots of owners hear "systems" and think paperwork. A good system is a recipe card on the fridge, written by the cook. Which of your systems is just paperwork?