You might have heard about a playbook. So, what is it, what are the benefits of a business playbook, and why do you need one?
A business playbook is a comprehensive guide that outlines the strategies, processes, and best practices for operating a business. It serves as a valuable resource for employees, management teams, and stakeholders, providing multiple benefits:
Consistency and Efficiency: A playbook ensures consistency in business operations by documenting standardized operating procedures (SOPs) and workflows. It helps align employees' actions with the organization's goals and objectives, promoting uniformity in how tasks are executed across different teams and departments. By clearly defining processes and workflows, a playbook helps streamline operations and eliminate redundant or unnecessary steps. It provides employees with a roadmap for completing tasks efficiently, reducing errors and delays in execution.
For 20 years, we've been telling our clients that if they want to build or scale a valuable business they can sell for a (small or large) fortune, they need to create a systems-dependent business, not an owner-dependent one.
Therefore, we encourage our clients to document their SOPs – because you can't scale or exit easily without them. More recently, we have promoted Playbook Builder for this because it's user-friendly and has some cool technology built into it. Of course, alternatives include Google Docs, Microsoft SharePoint, Trainual, Waybook, Notion, and more to consider.
Onboarding and Training: Playbooks are valuable resources during employee onboarding and training. New hires can refer to the playbook to understand the company's values, culture, and expectations. It gives them a structured overview of their roles and responsibilities, accelerating their integration into the organization. Playbook Builder shines here because you can embed videos, email them to your employees, and track their engagement (or lack thereof) with the email.
Knowledge Management: A business playbook acts as a centralized repository of knowledge, capturing institutional knowledge and best practices within the organization. It helps preserve critical information, preventing it from being lost when employees leave or transition to new roles and can be continuously updated with new insights and learnings. In any multi-generational family business, a family business history provides the sense of identity, continuity, and values that build a firm foundation for the future.
Decision Making: Playbooks offer a decision-making framework, providing guidelines and procedures for various issues or scenarios. They serve as a reference point for employees and managers facing common challenges or complex situations, helping them make informed decisions based on established strategies. In department or leadership team weekly meetings, have a segment where you “IDS an issue” (IDS is an acronym from the Entrepreneurial Operating System for the 3-step process used to resolve a business issue where you Identify, Discuss and Solve a problem). With a clear focus on problem-solving in the weekly leadership team meetings, they can be valuable and productive.
Scalability: As a business grows, maintaining consistency and operational efficiency becomes more challenging. A playbook becomes particularly valuable in scaling operations as it provides a standardized approach that can be replicated across multiple locations, teams, or business units.
Continuous Improvement: Playbooks are not static documents. They evolve over time as the organization learns from its experiences and identifies areas for improvement. Regularly reviewing and updating the playbook allows the company to incorporate new insights, optimize processes, and adapt to changing market conditions.
Risk Mitigation: By documenting procedures, protocols, and compliance requirements, a playbook helps mitigate risks. It ensures that employees know regulatory guidelines, safety protocols, and ethical standards, reducing the potential for legal and operational liabilities.
A business playbook offers structure, consistency, and guidance to an organization, leading to increased efficiency, better decision-making, and improved overall performance. You can scale a business more effortlessly with a playbook followed by all. You can more readily exit or transfer a business to the next generation. Finally, the playbook codifies how business gets done, which avoids having a well-meaning but inept team of people trying to run the business.
If you are busy in what seems like endless fire-fighting, got-a-minute interruptions from staff to ask how something should get done or feel overwhelmed by the lack of processes in your business, schedule a complimentary consultation with me and let's see if we can help you untangle the challenges and develop a roadmap with a playbook that can get you to the next level in your business!
SCHEDULE YOUR COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATION HERE
MASTERCLASS: Why Every Business Needs a Playbook
We are also doing a special Masterclass on this topic on:
Thursday, June 29, 2023
10 AM PT / 1 PM ET
A Masterclass designed to give your business a BOOST like never before!
Sign up for Why Every Business Needs a Playbook