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Organisations should be as capable as the people working within them, and yet, many of the systems, structures, and processes we use today were designed for a world that no longer exists. We continue to deploy management models meant for the industrial era and wonder why innovation, engagement, and productivity are stagnating.
The OS playbook is designed to help small-med sized organisations to build better businesses for their people through practical frameworks, templates, and tools. It’s inspired by the world of software development where developers leverage the benefits of boiler-plate templates, libraries, and frameworks to keep pace in constantly changing environments without needing to reinvent the wheel. It’s time the rest of the business caught up.
While the playbook is intended to be read and implemented sequentially, you may already have some of these practices in place, or something even better, so feel free to pick and choose the parts that are relevant to your situation. However, I do recommend reading the below section on values and principles first as they give context to all the remaining content.
To calculate the potential return on investment for improving your organisational operating system, jump to Appendix A for an idea of the impact OS improvements can have on your bottom line.
If you’re interested in deploying a functional operating system that aligns with the principles of this playbook, check out the Notion Canvases in the marketplace. 📨 Connect with me to discuss a tailored OS playbook for your org or get started with an OS Scan or Reboot package.
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Whether or not we’re aware, we are all guided by values and principles, both individually and corporately. They influence every decision we make, how we respond to different situations, the behaviours we value and reward, and those we shun.
Reducing company values to platitudes on posters risks not only the dilution of those values, but also misalignment as that vacuum is filled by whatever is deemed expedient in the moment. For our company values to have any value, they need to be embedded in our company’s systems, structures, decisions, and processes, guiding and informing everything we do together.
Creating a culture that enables people to perform their best and have fun doing it isn’t restricted to the realm of fantasy. From the greatest teams in history to the humble service desk, high-performing cultures start with an environment of trust, treating each other as humans first and connecting with a shared purpose that inspires and motivates people in the same direction.
Instead of trying to motivate or manipulate people to bend to the will of the business, we can start by treating people with dignity and respect, then create environments that enable them to deliver high quality work. It requires a focus on learning, designing, and cultivating the conditions for people to thrive and then letting them do so.
Rather than letting ineffective systems, processes, and practices get in the way of people performing their best, we need operating systems that are as capable as the people they are designed for. I hope that the OS Playbook will help you towards this aim.
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Guiding and containing all of the content in each chapter is the below principles which I have found to be applicable to organisations of all different shapes and sizes.
The structure of the principles is inspired by the Agile Manifesto for software development, which encapsulated a number of frameworks and practices under a simple, shared set of values and principles. The Over statements highlight the healthy tension between adaptability and predictability, where the items on the left are given greater emphasis without becoming too detached from the items on the right.