If you walk into your average gym, you’ll find that machines make up most of the equipment in that gym. On most machines, there is a little picture that highlights the muscle groups the machine is supposed to help you target. There might even be a graphic or description of how to use it.

These machines are expensive. They take up a lot of space, and most only allow you to do one or two exercises. And gyms love them. Why? Because compared to free weights (barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells), machines require essentially no training or spotting to use. They are safe and nearly idiot-proof. (There is always someone…)

They make it easy to operate the gym.

They work so well you can staff your gym with a couple of teenagers. Or you don’t have to staff your gym at all—like nearly all hotels and many 24-hour gyms.

These machines are examples of using structure to manage easier. Even though the structure comes with higher upfront costs and requires more floor space, it is more than made up for in reduced effort, risk, and costs down the road.

Many leaders find that growth makes their companies feel unwieldy and too difficult to manage. It’s hard to train staff, make all the decisions, maintain quality, and avoid mistakes. The solution for this is to use structure to manage your organization. Structures that require little training to use, minimal management oversight, maintain safety, and…are essentially idiot-proof.

When my clients build these, they find that the larger and more complex their companies become, the easier and more profitable they are to manage.

Doesn’t that sound nice?

Examples of What Structures Look Like in the Workplace:

• Policies: A simple description of priorities and how decisions should be made.
• Procedures: A step-by-step description of how to do things.
• Plans: A map for growth, change, or execution that shows the path between the intended outcome and the current starting point.
• Standards: A description of minimum measurable expectations.
• Physical Layout: Designing workspaces for efficient and intuitive productivity.

These kinds of organizational structures are like machines in the gym. They guide your people predictably, efficiently, and safely through decisions and actions.

Everything in Moderation

Of course, you can take a good thing too far. What people hate about bureaucracy or big corporations is their tendency to become overwhelming, mindless, and frustrating. When unmanaged, structures can take on a life of their own and begin to require more effort to sustain than the value they produce.

But never fear. You, dear leader, can control this. Ensure that any structure serves the larger values, vision, and goals of the organization. Using structure to manage should always contribute to the organization’s success. The organization should never serve the structure.

Your favorite accounting software, hiring processes, billing systems, remote work policies, or facilities should contribute to the overall success of the company. Your values, strategy, and priorities should never be hijacked by them.

The Right Amount of Structure Is Good

While overly bureaucratic companies are a nightmare, so are companies with no consistency at all. It isn’t great when every salesperson offers you a different deal, no location is run similarly, customer service depends on who you talk to, or your invoices get paid depending on the mood of the person in accounts payable.

Companies that are structured well are easier to manage. Companies that are easy to manage are usually more enjoyable to work at. This is because people prefer understanding the “rules of the game” over not having rules at all.

New employees want to quickly demonstrate their ability and not have to ask questions constantly. Your experienced employees want clarity about their roles, what’s expected, and how to navigate those expectations. Customers want to know how to get help, solve problems, and have their needs met as well. Using structure to manage this does it for you.

Don’t be scared of Without it, you can’t build much. When built well, it allows more people to succeed.

What are one or two structures in your workplace that would benefit from being defined or updated?

Take good care,
Christian