Today I’m challenging you to compile the rules of your startup. No doubt as you start your own business, you will want to write down exactly how you do things. You are used to living and working in a corporate world where you have tons of SOPs (standard operating procedures) and policies, etc. But when you start a business, you are making changes so fast, it’s hard to create policies and procedures that stick. So what do you do?
Most startups create a lot of unwritten rules, or “here’s the way we do it” rules. If you are around for any period of time, you teach new employees how to do things by one on one training, no guides, no rules, no onboarding, just face-to-face training on “here’s how we do it.”
Now, I’m not encouraging you to write SOPs right now. You don’t need that until you start to scale. But what I do want you to do is compile those rules. Create a document and put all of the “rules” in there. Those rules should help you deliver to your mission and your core values.
And so what have you done? You have started the process of compiling rules that will then help you create SOPs and policies once you are ready. You can evaluate the rules to confirm that yes, that truly is how you want XYZ handled. And you can quickly delete and change rules easier than you can policies and SOPs in order to stay agile.
It’s a good balance that will appease your corporate brain while allowing your entrepreneurial brain to not feel so constricted or like you will never get this figured out. You’ve created a framework and now you have given yourself freedom within it to move your business forward.
This is how I would recommend you stabilize your execution pillar in your startup.
Be Legendary!