Stanley Notes On Systems

Yesterday I had the chance to sit through a DVD session of listening to Andy Stanley speak about Systems.Here are a few of my notes of what I drew from it:

• System is your organizations approach to getting things done.
• Systems create behaviors.
• Systems you inherit, adopt, create will effect what your volunteers, customers, people will do.
• Systems have greater impact more then mission, vision or tag line statements

How systems work - some extra notes to think about:

• Expectations - expectations whether stated, unstated and assumptions will always be made.
• Rewards (or lack of) - systems work off rewards whether they are given or not.
• Consequences (or lack of) - there are always consequences for every action taken.
• Communication (style & content) - what you are saying and how you say it. It has nothing to do with who, but what and how.
• Behavior (of those in charge) - how do you respond, create, interact.

At the end of watching Stanley speak, I thought of one thing right away: Whether you are intentional of creating systems or not, you are creating a system.

That talk caused me to look at the systems I have in place in several areas I am overseeing and trying to do. I feel overwhelmed with the work to do, but confident and encouraged about the work I have ahead of me. I'll be posting what some of those changes are in the coming weeks - AFTER I complete them.

Part of those system changes is leaving my blog to be a post-production, not a pre-production, aspect to the work I'm doing.

What are the systems you have in place? What are you doing to change or strengthen them?