Last April 17, I read the news on the Internet, as I do every day, and saw a report that an Indian firm, Godrej & Boyce, produced the last typewriter and was shutting down its Mumbai factory. The story seemed plausible to me — I haven’t used my Brother daisy-wheel electric in eons and I can’t tell you the last time I’ve seen anyone use a typewriter to dash off an angry letter to the editor, let alone get their daily work done.

A little more than a week later, it was announced that these “RIP, typewriter” stories were all wrong. There are still companies manufacturing those old-fashioned mechanical marvels and if you want one — seriously! — new and used typewriters are fairly easy to come by.

Many people who grew up entirely in the Internet era are waxing rhapsodic about “the satisfying ‘clickety-clack’ sound of the keys” and ”getting in touch with the basic creative process, like it was back in the days of Faulkner, Hemingway, and Kerouac”.

“It all comes back to the basics.“
Dave Thomas, “Wendy’s” founder (1932-2002)

Well, before I dismissed these people as daydreamers, I had to think about how we communicated in the pre-word-processor, pre-smartphone era. True, the typewriter was not encouraging or forgiving but it made you plan…carefully. It made you pay attention to details.

Documents in those times (portrayed so effectively in movies like “The Front Page” and TV shows like “Mad Men”) were thoroughly edited and revised before being released. Calling back hundreds of design documents or proposals — or hundreds of thousands of newspapers — simply wasn’t practical. And once word got around that you were careless or sloppy or didn’t get the facts straight, your reputation was ruined.

“This is Bensinger. Give me a ‘rewrite man’.“
The Front Page (1974)

In the 21st century, business documents, news stories, blog posts, tweets, etc., are generated at alarming speeds. In fact, the speed of communication has become the main driver of communication; the message itself is often an afterthought. Thoroughness, accuracy, and attention to detail — in short, the quality of communication — have suffered significantly.

This may not mean much to the casual tweeter or blogger but to business, reduced quality of communication can be toxic. Deadlines are important – second-place finishers don’t usually get championship rings — but so is quality. First-place finishers can have their trophies taken away.

So, as a business leader — think about your policy, procedure, email, or other document you’re about to issue. Isn’t it worth the extra few minutes to get it done right?

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OnPolicy is a new document management system from Bizmanualz, designed to help ensure high-quality communication by automating the document review-and-approval process, organizing your policies and procedures, making them readily available when and where they’re needed, and ensuring periodic reviews of all your documents. See the OnPolicy website or email us (info@onpolicy.com) for more information.

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RECOMMENDED READING

1. Jacob, Shine, “Typewriters About to Become a Page in History”, Business Standard, 17 April 2011 – http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/typewriters-about-to-becomepage-in-history/432497/.
2. McCracken, Harry, “Rumors of the Typewriter’s Death: Greatly Exaggerated”, Technologizer.com, 26 April 2011 - http://technologizer.com/2011/04/26/typewriters-not-dead/.

Policies and procedures provide the framework and direction for addressing many common business problems your organization might face.  Let’s look at the top ten business problems solved by Policies and Procedures.

1. Accounts Receivable procedures to reduce accounts receivable (A/R) aging and ensure even cash flow.  Every company needs Strategies for Writing Accounts Receivable Procedures.  Your accounts receivable process is the heart of your cash cycle.  Salespeople can find plenty of customers but without cash-paying customers, you can’t pay your bills, which is part of your Strategies for Writing Accounts Payable Procedures.

2. Sales procedures to standardize sales pipeline management and ensure a consistent sales pipeline.  Sales procedures allow you to take control of the sales and marketing cycle.  Developing measurements, sales assignments, and target markets are all important elements of your sales process.

3. Disaster Recovery procedures will assist in an orderly and timely response to emergencies your company may face, as well as control the inevitable chaos that occurs.  Every company needs to effectively respond to disasters or emergencies in a timely manner; if not, they could be out of business.  In recent months, we’ve had ample opportunity to learn the lessons of the Gulf oil disaster, such as “having a disaster recovery plan before the need arises”.

4. Human Resources procedures ensure non-discriminatory practices; specifically, well-defined employee hiring and termination practices will help you avoid costly litigation.  Human resources procedures address diverse topics such as recruiting, hiring, training, retention, termination, and — most importantly –complying with local, state, Federal, and even international employment laws.

5. Quality procedures (nonconformance, corrective action, and auditing) improve product and process quality.  The ISO 9001 quality standard addresses quality control, quality assurance, and quality management practices.  Learning how to meet quality standards with ISO 9001 will help your organization reduce costly rework and overtime, thereby improving quality, satisfying customers, and contributing to your competitive advantages.

6. Customer communications procedures, like collecting data from customer feedback and complaint handling for process improvement.  ”Poor customer communication” is the root cause of much customer dissatisfaction.  If you know what your target customer wants, your business has all the information it needs to satisfy the customer. Implementing communication procedures will help you act on your customers’ wants, improving sales.

7. Shipping and receiving procedures are needed to track materials purchased and sold.  Most of shipping and receiving revolves around inventory or assets, which requires processes for handling, inventory management, asset acquisition, and asset disposition.  Specific supplier requirements — and the policies and procedures that flow from them — ensure that you receive what you want, when you want it, in the quantity you want, and with quality built in.

8. Management procedures can improve poor meetings, poor internal communications, and poor reporting.  Management is really about communication — that’s why improving internal communication benefits the whole company.  One of the best ways to improve communications is to develop, document, implement, and monitor a procedure for communications.

Also, it’s important that management shows its commitment to the highest standards, whether those standards have to do with internal processes or processes that directly involve your customers.

9. You also need compliance procedures to ensure your company conforms to the requirements of various regulations, statutes, and standards.  This is where policies and procedures can help your organization.  Compliance is one of the primary problems solved with policies and procedures.

10. Accounting procedures ensure that you fulfill your fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders.  Accounting is a process to track transactions of items, cash, and information.  Accounting procedures help to ensure consistency, reliability, and accuracy of those transactions, which (in turn) helps to build trust in your financial statements.  What Are the Top Ten Accounting Policies and Procedures?

Prewritten policies and procedures from Bizmanualz help solve many of these common business problems.  The Top Ten Core Business Policies and Procedures you will need can be found in the Bizmanualz CEO Company Policies Procedures Manuals bundle.

Top 10 Business Problems Solved by Policies and Procedures

1. Accounts Receivable procedures, to reduce A/R aging and ensure even cash flow.
2. Sales procedures, to standardize sales pipeline management to ensure consistent sales.
3. Disaster Recovery procedures, to control the response to chaos in an emergency.
4. Human Resources procedures, to ensure non-discriminatory employee hiring and termination.
5. Quality procedures, to improve quality.
6. Customer communications procedures, to collect data from feedback and complaint handling for process improvement.
7. Shipping and receiving procedures, to track materials purchased and sold.
8. Management procedures to improve poor meetings, communications, and reporting.
9. Compliance procedures to conform to regulations, standards, and laws.
10. Accounting procedures, to fulfill your fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders.

What do you think? How quickly could your most urgent problems be solved by implementing effective policies and procedures?

I recently posed this question to the “Bizmanualz Policies Procedures Network“, or group, on LinkedIn:

“The same teams (Brasil, Italia, España, Deutschland, etc.) are perennially among the top contenders for the FIFA World Cup. Do you think it’s the personnel or the system that makes these teams consistently great?”

I’d like to know what you think, and why. To me, it’s sort of a “Heredity or environment?” question: it isn’t one or the other. I mean, you could have one or the other and you might do well. However, if you have both good personnel and a good system that optimizes their individual skills and experience and blends them…

Look at some of the great individual performers of all time, in team sports – Pelé, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Babe Ruth. As capable as they were, they didn’t reach the zenith of their respective sports until they were surrounded by other capable people and learned to work as a team, using a system. (I wish I could have John Facenda narrate those last two sentences.)

Strangely, we forget how much their coaches — and the systems they designed and implemented — had to do with their successes. Feola, Jackson, Sather, and Huggins — all devised systems that ensured quality and consistency. Management also scouted well and hired not just talented and hard-working player personnel, but those who understood the “team concept” and put the team ahead of individual accomplishments.

The same is true in business, of course. Some of your employees are undoubtedly star performers but until they have a system that coordinates — meshes – their actions with those of other capable people, and until everyone buys into the concept of “team first”, they’re never going to reach their potential. And as a result, neither will your company.

You have to have a management system that fosters quality, consistency, and ongoing improvement to the system and the people using it. And, you have to have the right players.

By the way, I may as well get a plug in for our LinkedIn policies and procedures group. We’re at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=86367. If you’re not part of our group, or if you haven’t joined LinkedIn yet, consider this your invitation to join us.

I look forward to your comments — here, by email, and on LinkedIn. I’m especially excited when you challenge my “knowledge” or my way of thinking. (Or as they say in my favorite sport, ice hockey, “You wanna go?”)

Let’s get it on!

Capturing and retaining critical knowledge within your organization is important for developing your policies and procedures.  But communicating that knowledge effectively with customers, employees, and suppliers is the key to growing your organization.

Policies and Procedures that are written but not used will quickly become outdated.  Poorly written, confusing, or long text-based documents will not be used either.  What is used is the informal network of knowledge experts, mentors, and old hands that have done it enough to know what to do without procedure documents.  Is better documentation the answer?

Maybe… depending on what you mean by better documentation.  Procedure documentation can certainly be improved.  Redundant passages can be integrated, unclear terms can be defined, passive voice can be transformed into active voice construction, and poorly written or confusing parts can be clarified and re-written.  But this is of little help if people are not using the procedures.  Communications are two-way interactions.  Procedures provide the basic information but text-based procedures are only one-way communications systems.  A robust knowledge management system must communicate in many different directions in order to reach many different people.

Many-to-Many Communications

One form of a many-to-many communication system is using lean visual management.  Employees get involved creating visual maps, aids, and scoreboards for key processes.  Process improvements are captured as well as current process metrics, targets, and results.  Visual management provides the visual cues that remind employees of important process history, of key training elements, and of what is expected.  Visual management can be used to replace text based documents, create engagement, and foster the involvement lacking in purely text based procedures.

Online social networking concepts can be used to connect employees with each other.  Organizations can use visuals, job aids, video, and online interactive social media systems to go beyond text-based procedures.  Social media tools  encourage knowledge sharing, updates and feedback that increase knowledge transfer throughout your organization.  Collaboration becomes a reality if you create the knowledge management system that supports it.

New knowledge management systems can transform how your company communicates, interacts, and uses your policies and procedures at every level.  Implement a collaborative system that continuously improves user involvement, training, and communications.  Leverage your policies and procedures investment to garner more sales, save time and money, and grow your company.  It is all possible with new knowledge management system concepts.