Customer Reviews

Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I personally have experienced situations where you are overwhelmed with work, are aware of the steps that could be performed to improve your efficiency but are "too busy" to make the improvements to relieve your burden. Appeals to superiors to be allowed to make the effort are generally met with, "after we complete this phase", but unfortunately another similar phase often follows. In many cases the constant inefficiencies lead to a total system failure.

Carpenter nearly experienced a total failure in his company, a telephone service provider called Centratel. After acquiring the struggling company, he spent years solving crisis after crisis, working 100+ hour weeks and yet many weeks barely managed to meet payroll. Finally, necessity being so often the mother of invention, Carpenter reached the level of crisis where he had to make dramatic changes or see the company die. His solution was to look at Centratel as a system with choke points, feedback mechanisms and points of dramatic improvement.

After taking the time to document operations and procedures, Centratel experienced dramatic improvement in quality and quantity of service. The new employee management procedures led to an improvement in the quality of new hires, greater retention of employees and an increase in morale. All of this translated into increased revenue and profits as well as a sharp decrease in the length of his workweek. As has been documented so many times, reducing the number of work hours increased the productivity per week as the increase in quality more than compensated.

Giving all due respect to Carpenter and his achievements at Centratel, his experiences are not new to the overall understanding of management science. The classic example of this is the British experience in World War II, where after the outbreak of the war factory workers patriotically volunteered to work long hours. After the brief initial increase in productivity, there was a dramatic drop and the solution was to mandate a limit in the number of hours in the workweek. The lowered length of the workweek brought productivity back up.

Nevertheless, the advice in this book is sound, for the simple reason that it is rarely possible to improve productivity until you understand what it is that you are doing. This is accomplished by fully documenting all operations; the act of doing it forces you to understand them, the first step in the repair process. Considering what you do a set of systems is a workable perspective, just not the only viable one.

Sam Carpenter has brought all the main principles that will lead to success in your work and life together in one book. Some books will change your mind this book will change your life if you apply what it teaches. The author shows that our entire world operates based on systems, from nature to the human body to successful businesses 99.9% of things go right when the system works. The problem is when you or a business are not on a system you spend your time running around putting out "fires" and "whacking moles" instead of solving the root of the problem."... orderliness and attention to detail are the roots of peace". "...disorder--always leads to desperation". The problems you encounter are really caused by system failure. Your job is to create systems that cause you to get the results you desire in life and at work. If you are a manager or business owner these systems must be documented on paper and be a working and changing tool that all employees agree on. When problems arise you determine what system failed and correct it. You should spend the majority of your time examining and tweaking systems to perfection, this is the best use of your time. Surprisingly,..."outright mistakes and random errors account for only a small percentage of total error. Most problems stem from nonexistent system management and show themselves as errors of omission". Sam Carpenter will show you how to create a document that expresses your purpose, and then create principles and systems that lead to the accomplishment of that purpose.

The book is absolutely packed with excellent life and business insights that will take you to the next level in your life, career, or business if you follow them. I have had a great twenty year career in business management and wish I would have had this book when I started. I was always successful when I put systems in place that operate with or with out me but was unsuccessful trying to just make things happen by my mere presence and experience. The beauty is that the system principles also work for losing weight, relationships, and for me stock trading and investing. Five stars for this book, it should sit on your shelf right next to the other books that have changed your life.

What a refreshing change. A business book written by a business-owner. A real world practitioner. Not an ivory tower, "B School" theorist looking to test an idea or attract consulting clients. I run my own business, employ 25 people and deliver business and marketing consulting services to insurance agency principals. I appreciate the challenges of getting a growing business to run on systems, both for myself and my clients.

Last year, I bought 600 of copies of this book and sent them as a gift to my best clients. I'm still running into clients at seminars and workshops throughout the country who are thanking me for the positive impact this book had on their lives. Any serious entrepreneur who values their time and wants to get their business to the next level should put this book on their "read now" list.

Everyone familiar with Michael Gerber's E Myth will appreciate how this book takes the same premises and delivers a practical Action Plan that works. Sam's story confirms the truth of his message and provides both inspiration and a useful road map throughout the book.

The author describes his background and evolution into an effective business person. Most all businesses can use the information in this book. We waste a good deal of time doing all sorts of things --- most of them non-critical to marketing or the actual making of money. That's why we need a system and then we need to work that system. Your business can become orderly and disciplined --- more important, profitable --- if you get a system and put it to work.

The truth is, you can actually work less and earn more if you put some of the tasks that take so much time on autopilot. Moreover, you'll discover where to put your focus. I know from my own businesses this is critical. So much a business person does is totally non-productive. This book will be a life-saver.

Highly recommended.

- Susanna K. Hutcheson

"Work the System - The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less."

My instant reaction was to reject the book based on the title. I am a work ethic guy. I reject get rich quick and short cutters. I wrongly assumed this was one of those books. It is not.

I actually love competing with companies and people who lack work ethic. Not so sure I would want to compete with those with good systems though.

The gist of the book is "Its all about the systems you build to support your business". Spend your time working and perfecting them.

Carpenter breaks the systems down into 3 different areas.

1 - Defining your Strategic Objective. I might call this goals.

2 - Then create a set of Principles. Principles could be considered to be corporate culture. I have often said that a CEO should not focus on doing all the decision making but on culture so that decision get made with the right logic and thought. Coach on culture but let people make decisions.

3 - Then the book moves to specific procedures. And documenting them well.

The part of the book that focuses on procedures is very similar to Gerbers eMyth and the principles those books tout. What I like a lot more about Carpenter is he is not saying he is the sole genius and you need to make every job so mindless you can hire a non thinking monkey to do it. He encourages feedback on the systems from everyone.

Work the System definitely applies to business but also can be applied to personal life. Things flow more smoothly if we have good systems in place and if we constantly perfect them.

The book's points and are valid. Carpenter puts it all together with a very interesting book. He tells his personal story of working for years from dawn to dusk and getting no where. And how, in desperation, he changed his approach from "doing" to "working on the system". And how that turned his business and life around.

I usually do not rave about books I read. One way I judge if a book is good is if I actually take action as a result of reading it. I love this book and have taken action as a result of reading it.

This book transformed my organization over a very short timeframe. As the founder of my company, I was struggling to find ways to offload and delegate. I had a great team, and kept handing over different responsibilities, but it was chaotic and I kept sliding back into having more and more work to do.

Then I discovered Work the System... I saw that the solution wasn't "tricks" like a lot of other books promote. It was about creating a system for every function in our company, and documenting that system.

In hindsight it seems so obvious, but it took this book to really show me the way. Sam Carpenter's writing style is straightforward - you don't get hung up on jargon or anything. So it's easy to understand.

It kind of reminds me of the E-Myth series, except that Carpenter actually shows you the mechanics of how to do it. Sure, there's some theory in here, but mostly it's just how to get it done!

If you are a business owner or manager, and find yourself having to micromanage or are seeing your company lose ground whenever someone leaves and you hire a replacement (who has to relearn the job from scratch), you need to read this book.

I realized early on that the book probably wasn't a good fit for me, but skimmed through the rest to try to get some insights. Here's a quick synopsis and perhaps some takeaways.

The author starts out by talking about how his general views on the universe have shifted from a "we're all one" free-love view to an understanding that the world generally operates in predictable ways. The author worked 100+ hour weeks for an extended period of time, and in a time of desperation realizes that he must systematize his business. This takes sixty pages to develop.

Next, he explains the process of how to create principles, vision statement, and working procedures for a company from scratch were well laid out and clear. I liked the fact that the operating rules that he set out are open for revision at any time by any employee, and generally immediately revised. It lent a feeling of continuous improvement to the process that he laid out.

He discusses figuring out when you work best and work then on second quadrant items (of the Covey sense.)

The author continually cites Occam's Razor, but uses it in a very loose sense. You will hear of "fire-killing" and the "Work The System method" and being "outside and slightly elevated" probably about a hundred times each throughout the book.

Very little attention is paid to lifestyle design throughout the book. I thought it might contain a little more based on the jacket summary.

One of the irritating things was that the book focused only on one business, the author's business. It is a call center business, one that has a well-established business model and client interaction pattern. There does not seem to be a whole lot of creativity on the part of the employees, so it seems like it lends itself especially well to systemization. The author's main problem seems to be how hard it is to find drug-free employees that show up to work. Other businesses would have fewer clearly definable working procedures. Nonetheless, I feel like I did get a good feel for how certain aspects of any business (billing, payroll, etc.) could be more formalized, and what the benefits were (fewer mistakes, less time spent overall.)

Perhaps it's an age/generation gap, but some things seemed really out of touch or strange. The author preaches about removing alcohol and caffeine, and getting exercise and good nutrition a bit too much. I agree with these things, and I guess he's saying the body is a system like anything else. But it's repetitive.

There are some terrible examples, like seeing the way that toilet paper can be placed on the roller. He says: "it is a nearly 50-50 split with a slight advantage to those who chose 'top.' This means most people don't think one way or the other about the insertion of the roll in the dispenser. (Or, implausibly, one-half of the population is adamant that the roll be inserted one way and the other half of the population the other way.)...The important point is that it illustrates the lack of innate systems thinking by the vast majority of people." To me, there seem to be several fallacies here. Why could it not be that some have considered the problem, others have strong opinions, and others still don't care about it one way or another? What is the ROI of the roll orientation?

Generally, there's a bit too much pep talk and repetition for my liking.

I don't feel like I learned much that I didn't understand from common sense. Perhaps it's my science/engineering background that leads me to think that many of the "insights" were trivial. Overall, I would recommend reading a different book to learn more about systems thinking. Hope this helps someone thinking about getting this book.

What do you do if you're working 100 hour weeks running your own business year after year, and you're on the brink of bankruptcy, both financially and emotionally? Sam Carpenter was in exactly that situation with his call-answering service in Bend, Oregon. While laying in bed one night looking at the imminent death of his company, he was able to step outside himself and view the business from a different perspective. That event led him to build a business that is now a thriving entity, one that doesn't require much time at all to run in an efficient and accurate manner. Carpenter shares those thoughts in his book Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less. Once you have it explained, it all starts to fall into place as to how he was able to turn things around. And the material here can make the same type of difference both in your personal and professional life.

Contents:

Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction - The Simplest Solution

Part One - The Mindset: Control Is a Good Thing; A System of Systems; The Attack of the Moles; Gun-to-the-Head Enlightenment; Execution and Transformation; systems Revealed, Systems Managed; Getting It

Part Two - Critical Documentation: Swallowing the Horse Pill; We Are Project Engineers; Your Strategic Objective and General Operating Principles; Your Working Procedures

Part Three - Further Considerations: Good Enough; Errors of Omission; Quiet Courage; Point-of-Sale Thinking; Extraordinary Systems Operated by Great People; Consistency and Cold Coffee; Communications - Grease for the Wheels; Prime Time; The Traffic Circles of Pakistan; System Improvement as a Way of Life

Appendixes: Ockham's Razor and the TSR; Centratel's Strategic Objective; Centratel's 30 Principles; Centratel's Procedure for Procedures; Centratel's System for Communictions

References; Index

Carpenter was running a phone answering service as CEO while also trying to be a single dad. Due to constant turnover of staff, customer complaints, and a negative balance sheet, he was in constant danger of having to shut down since he couldn't meet payroll. This played out repeatedly until he was on the brink of losing it all. His moment of enlightenment came one night while laying in bed. He started to see his business as a system of systems, systems that would work together without effort if each one was designed to be efficient. Instead of being in constant firefighting mode, he could step back and address individual system issues. As the most troublesome systems were overhauled and documented, he could focus on others. The continual improvement of each of the interlocking processes had a huge impact on the business, allowing him to decrease complaints, reduce turnover, raise rates, and pay his staff better than average wages for the industry. Now he has an abundance of time to spend on more important business and personal pursuits, and the business nearly runs itself.

His system is highly dependent on making sure that every process in the business is documented, and that there is a consistent process for doing everything. Everyone in the company has the ability to instantly call a meeting to propose a change to a procedure if it will make the process better. And with a strategic objective and operating principles in place, everyone is working towards the same goal and the same philosophy as everyone else. In many ways, this sounds similar to process improvement programs that were popular ten years ago. But Carpenter presents it with far less methodology and complex structure as "experts" did back then. And Carpenter's approach also makes sense for application in your personal life. If you see your life as a series of systems, you can simplify and improve things there by optimizing the different parts.

The only thing I didn't care much for in the book is that a lot of time is spent in the beginning going over what led to Carpenter's revelation and why it was important. And in fact, he admits to repeating some of the material in different ways to cause it to become firmly cemented in your mind. I personally could have done with a bit less of that, but it doesn't negate the value of the book or his approach.

If you're running a business that seems to be living on the edge of failure, or if you're working for a company that isn't making much progress, Work The System could be the thing that frees you up to take things to the next level.

Disclosure:

Obtained From: Author

Payment: Free

I have run my own business for 7 years and I always thought that I was a very organized and focused person. However, after reading Sam's book, I realized I needed to go to the next level. I was lacking the right systems in place to expand my business and move it in the right direction. I was becoming stressed, over worked, and spread to thin with all of my responsibilities ( I was whacking a lot of moles). It was a harsh reality to step back and look at myself as Sam explained exactly what I would need to do to grow my business. I have now started the process and I am so grateful for the direction and mindset I learned in his book. I am so excited with what the future holds and ready to implement all of the systems he shared. I am confident that I will be a better owner, consultant and person. Thank you Sam!

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I've always heard that you should work ON your business, instead of IN your business. However, nobody ever tells you HOW you should do that. Until now. Sam Carpenter has been on the brink of disaster and brought himself and his business back. He shares all the secrets. Wake up folks - you don't have to work 20 hour days in your business, you need to put a system in place to do the work.

There's more than just the system - he shares the rational behind how to motivate everyone to come on board.

Ever notice that the really important books are the ones that you read and say "Gosh, that just seems like common sense. Why didn't I think of that?" (Common sense isn't that common.) This is one of those important books. If you have, or are going to start a business, please read this book. For yourself and your loved ones (who don't want to loose you to the business).

Oh - you'll never see a "Whack a Mole" game at Chuck E. Cheeses' again without thinking of "Work the System." (Sorry, you've GOT to read the book...)