Do You Love Processes & SimCity? I Do!!

Hello👋🏼

I love simulation games, and this passion of mine has made me a great COO (for hire.)

But before we dive into that, here are 3 random and fun things I would like to share with you:

1. This is the journey of how the team at Factorio made the game available for the Nintendo Switch

2. This YouTube channel shows people in past decades doing ordinary things, from  "Inside a Borders bookstore in 1997" to "iPod and iMac browsing at an Apple store 20 years ago "

3. This soundtrack of the first SimCity game I played on the Super Famicom, remains my famous game music of all time.

❶ LEADERSHIP IDEA

Do you like simulation games? I love them, from Sim City to Factorio. I love them because they let me build up complicated systems and watch them work (or not work) together.

One of the things that's really interesting about simulation games is that they are, at heart, about delegation. You, the player, are in charge of a city, or a factory, or a space station, and you have to set up systems to make it all work. You have to delegate tasks to different parts of the system, and then step back and see if it all works together.

That's why I love building company processes and structures. A company is a machine and an organism, and I love making all the cogs fit together. How do our structure clarify our strategy? How do the different departments interact? How do our process empower our people? How do the different roles work together? How do our culture inform our processes? What processes are in place to deliver great results? I enjoy building and optimizing company processes and structures. I find it fascinating to see how a company can be run like a well-oiled machine and a healthy organism.

One of the things I love the most about my past career and my current job as a “fractional COO” for founders and businesses, is that I get to see lots of different company structures and team processes. I also get to experiment with how they interacted with the people in them. I get to see what worked (or not worked). This gives me a lot of insight into how groups of humans function. I find the integration of the "2S2P" of operations (Strategy, Structure, Process, People) the most fascinating IRL manifestation of how groups of humans function.

Alright. Enough of me ranting. Let’s put all these into action:

Here are 2 questions you may ask to see if you are delegating effectively. Do you find yourself ...

1. Having to adjudicate for your leadership teams/business units often?

- Are your managers always looking to you to make the call?

- How often do your leaders move forward without your involvement?

- Can they resolve conflicts on their own?

- Can they reach constructive compromises, or do they always wait for that weekly meeting with you?

2. Overriding decisions often?

- Do you find yourself getting frustrated with the choices your team make all the time?

- Can you trust that your team can make good decisions?

- Do you often feel you are the only one that care about quality and performance?

If you relate to some of these challenges, in addition to the skills of delegating, here is another area I would suggest you to look into: The structures and processes of your teams/company.

This is an underrated area many bosses don't invest enough time into. Great structures and processes are essential to delivering performance. They exist to empower your team execute your strategies. Great structures and processes are foundational in better delegation.

But structure and processes is delicate and complex. It takes a lot of time, people, and discipline to create and fine-tune. Most bosses don't spend enough time on this, partly because they don't enjoy the grind, and partly because they instead spend the time dealing with the poor outcomes of crappy processes, such as disagreements, stagnation, "fires," low quality outputs, poor decisions, etc.

Obviously, having a good COO/operational person would help improving this tremendously, but finding one is a difficult challenge by itself. Another option is to find external help, from software solutions to external consultants to someone who loves SimCity and processes like me.

But the most important thing is that you as the boss, invest time and energy in this area. The better the structure and processes, the easier it is to delegate and the less you need to adjudicate and override decisions.

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YOU CAN SUPPORT ME:

Reply to this and chat with me! Tell me what you think of this. Or whatever is on your mind. I will always reply, I guarantee it.

And if I fail to keep my promise? Email me and let me know at siu.david@hey.com 🙃

Share this with someone whom you think wants to sound smarter, and or anyone who deserves something light and fun.  (Plus, they trust your recommendations more than my LinkedIn ads.)

Thank you for reading this. I think about leadership & psychology in the showers. I know it's odd, but these topics are important and fun. I hope you find them useful too.

Work diligently. You are bound to be successful.
David