Listen instead on your Monday Morning Drive:

In the pursuit of balance, many businesses fall into a common trap: overengineering their processes. I’ve seen firsthand how this well-intentioned approach can backfire.

Let’s explore the delicate balance between process and knowledge and why too much of a good thing might be holding your business back.

The Process vs. Knowledge Dilemma

What are we really balancing in our businesses? Are we relying on processes, or are we leveraging knowledge?

The more tools and documentation we create, the more we insert — or inflict — process upon our business. On the flip side, when we have more people who deeply understand the criteria and nuances of our work, we’re building a knowledge base.

This struggle isn’t new. I remember developing the “purple book” for my company years ago — a binder that detailed all our warehouse systems and packages. The idea was simple: Anyone prepping an order could crack open the purple book and learn exactly what went inside each case. It was a bit of detail to drive better processes and make smart people more effective.

But here’s where things often go awry.

The Danger of Too Much Detail

I’ve met many business owners who’ve invested so much time and energy into detailed processes and forms that they can’t hire anyone at any level. Why? Because their processes contain an overwhelming amount of information new hires would need to learn.

The result is:

• Endless checklists
• Tasks that take too long to complete
• Too many opportunities for people to rush and miss crucial steps
• A process so detailed that no one wants to follow it to the letter because it’s too time-consuming

On the other hand, we have the knowledge problem: a single person who knows how to do everything. If they don’t touch every part of a project, it doesn’t get done correctly.

Neither extreme is sustainable or scalable.

Finding the Happy Medium

To find the balance between knowledge and process, owners must:

1. Learn to work with fewer details: Define fewer process items and allow for more interpretation. This approach requires increasing the number of knowledgeable people on your team.
2. Better define the ideal outcome: When you have multiple experts who might approach a task differently, make sure they’re all working toward the same end goal. Otherwise, you risk conflicting outcomes.

The Theater Analogy: Making It Work

Let’s take a page from the theater world to illustrate this balance.

Imagine a small group decides to put on a play. Someone wants to direct, someone wants to act, another wants to do scenery, and another lighting.

In an ideal world, everyone would stick to their specialty. But that’s not how it works, especially in smaller productions with few hands.

In college theater, for instance, actors often help build scenery and hang lights. Lighting technicians might end up as background actors. Everyone finds a way to be helpful, learning to do a bit of everything — even tasks they’re not ideally suited for.

This approach accommodates limited resources (people) and time constraints. Sometimes, we don’t have the luxury of documenting and implementing a perfect process. We need to get the work done now.

Cultivating Adaptability in Your Business

To thrive in this organic, adaptive environment, your team needs two crucial qualities:

1. Tolerance for learning: People will do things they’re not trained for. You need to be okay with that and willing to teach.
2. Patience for fixing mistakes: Mistakes will happen. The key is not minding the act of fixing them. Real growth happens when people make mistakes and learn from them.

If we always adhered rigidly to a manual or checklist, we’d end up with a soulless product — whether that’s a play or a business project.

Understand that, and you’ll achieve inner peace. (A patchouli incense candle may help, too.)

Bringing It Back to Business

I know I’ve taken you on a right-brain journey to address a left-brain challenge. So let’s bring it back to your world.

Look at your team. Do you have people clamoring for “process before progress”? Challenge them: “What if we didn’t have the time or resources for the process? How could we make progress, and how can you help?”

On the flip side, do you have people who just want to dive in and do the work themselves? Encourage them to help others make progress, allowing for learning and mistakes along the way.

The Myth of Perfect Balance

Remember, we’re not aiming for perfection here. Balance is about constantly looking for progress, even at the risk of never achieving perfection. There’s no such thing as perfect balance — it’s dynamic and always shifting.

It’s like those Instagram posts of perfectly balanced rocks over a creek. Sure, it looks impressive, but those rocks constantly fend off wind, gravity, vibrations, and rain. Eventually, they’ll fall.

The beauty is in the temporary balance achieved, not in permanent perfection.

Final Thoughts on Adaptive Balance

When a business owner tells me, “We need it to be perfect every time. We’re documenting our processes so that when we hire people, we can train them to make no mistakes,” I can’t help but think they’re taking all the fun — and growth potential — out of it.

Overengineering doesn’t solve everything. Neither does relying on a few knowledgeable individuals. Neither solution is scalable because it depends on a finite set of criteria that won’t always align in the real world.

If you want to be truly adaptable and thrive in the unpredictable business landscape, you need that sweet spot: a balance between knowledge and process that allows you to adapt to every situation. In this space of flexible, informed decision-making, your business will find its true potential for growth and success.