A long time ago, when I was in school, we were sent to gather radishes at a state farm near Boryspil. It was like a “labor camp.” Practically the same as a pioneer camp, but with the added entertainment of four hours of free labor in the fresh air. We were picking radishes. We dreamed about those radishes at night, we included skits featuring radishes in our KVN performances, all the jokes were about radishes, and in the cafeteria, when they served us radish salad, we took it as a mockery.
We were divided into teams and set up a “socialist competition.” We, adhering to the ideas of collectivism, immediately decided that collecting radishes collectively would be the most effective approach. We assigned roles within each team. There were the radish pickers who pulled them out of the ground. There were the carriers who brought the radishes to those who tied them into bunches, and there were the packers who placed the bunches into boxes. Everything was great. Everything was efficient. Right?
What was actually happening? In reality, the radish pickers were just tearing up the radishes and
didn’t care about their future. In the future, radishes were either in short supply for
knitters, if they managed to keep up, or in excess, piled up in a heap, if
knitters couldn’t keep up with the work. The porters and stackers, also being
tied to their function, either couldn’t keep up or were idle. For a moment, but
were idle. The pickers themselves also learned to work “intensively” — they would throw a bunch to
knitters and then take a break.
Then, someone among us said, “Forget this circus, I’ll harvest the radishes myself.” This is the team’s norm, which means my share in it is my responsibility, and I’m accountable for my share, but I’m not responsible for your role-playing games. And what turned out? It turned out that if a person takes full responsibility for the entire process—pulling them out, tying them into bunches, placing them in a box, and carrying the box to the stack—everything was much more efficient.
It was unnatural from the perspective of the communist idea of collectivism, and we even felt a bit embarrassed to announce our discovery. It seemed that the “individualist” was working more effectively than the collective. But gradually, one by one, we shifted to individual work. Mutual complaints disappeared. Everyone did their own job; there were no super-champions, as no one had the ridiculous motivation to exceed the norm, but there were also no laggards. Previously, the norm was systematically not met, and importantly, it was impossible to identify specific culprits, and it wasn’t constructive to look for blame. Everyone pointed fingers at each other, saying either “you are knitting too slowly” or “you are harvesting too little.” All decisions boiled down to rearranging people between “departments,” but it was impossible to achieve a state of equilibrium even theoretically.
The most interesting thing is that this “individualistic” approach has once again taken on collective traits. But now it’s based on mutual assistance and situational understanding, which is, right now, more effective. If a person has just returned from the stack after taking their box, and their colleague has already packed theirs, the first one, without thinking, grabs the “other person’s” box and carries it to the stack, while the second one, in the meantime, without wasting time, starts on their next task. A person who finds themselves with a rope readily helps to tie up the “other person’s” bundle along with their own, while someone with scissors understands that passing the scissors to their neighbor would take longer than just cutting the twine right now and then putting the scissors back in place.
We tried to forget this “non-collectivist” experience, as it didn’t fit into our worldview. But now I can remember it and share it again. I want to talk about the simple difference between a functional approach to organizing a business and a business process approach.
The functional approach is about sitting and waiting for “your” radish. In this approach, an organizational structure is outlined, each person is assigned roles, and they fulfill them. They have incoming tasks — they complete them. If not, they don’t. Is there a backlog? The others wait. Is there underload? Then why aren’t the others managing? There’s no point in motivating or incentivizing a person — they have little influence. It’s also impossible to find someone to blame or someone truly responsible.
If a certain person becomes overloaded, their work is divided into functions, and one of those functions is handed over to another, new person. For example, one person was responsible for triangles, another for squares. When there was an influx of triangles, what did they do? They divided the responsibility between blue and red triangles. There were more blue ones, so they assigned that to the more experienced person. The red ones went to the newcomer. And when orange triangles appeared, it became clear that a “triangle department” was needed, along with a manager and three subordinates—each responsible for their own triangles. Of course, some people are underloaded while others are overloaded and demotivated because the rest are slacking off while they are working. Importantly, at the next stage of the business process, both triangles and squares are needed, and even though the work has now been distributed among five people (one for squares and four for triangles), the bottleneck, in the form of an excess or shortage of certain shapes, still remains. Should they assign another person? Well, yes, that’s the usual approach. See above.
The essence of the business process approach is that the specific functions or hierarchy do not matter. What matters is how, in what way, and through what means value is created. Who performs a process or a stage in the process is irrelevant. It could even be outsourced workers. This means that one person can participate in different processes, and several people can be involved in the same task. Take the process of gathering radishes, for example. It doesn’t matter who is better at tying or pulling; what matters is that the radishes are in a pile. If you are the best puller, you will be more useful when you are tying radishes rather than sitting and waiting for the tie-makers to finish with what you have pulled.
It turns out that at the company, “documenting business processes” is not enough. A lot more needs to be done. People need to be pulled out of their “bunkers,” and the idea of collective responsibility needs to be instilled in them. They need to learn that the color of the triangle doesn’t matter. It’s important to understand that a spirit of mutual trust and understanding has been cultivated within the team. Instead of just drawing up KPIs and then pointing fingers at each other, everyone should work together on a common goal, according to their qualifications and competencies. If a manager has five minutes, they should create a presentation for their subordinate instead of sitting around waiting for it to be done. If a back-office employee has time while waiting for incoming requests from the front office, they should do something to increase those requests. They could even analyze the market and share the results with others. That way, there’s no need to have a dedicated analyst who spends all their time playing Solitaire and only does analysis when asked, and even then only in writing with the manager’s approval.
Utopia? Yes. Why? Because the transition to a process-oriented business organization is not a goal, but merely an unnoticed and transitional stage in the evolution of a company. Many companies fail to understand this and try to find a cure-all in documenting and implementing business processes. As long as processes are carried out within the framework of functional responsibilities, you can consider that they are not being executed.
For processes to run almost “on their own,” the company must evolve into a different type of organization—one that prioritizes the quality of its personnel. After all, an inspired team, infused with a spirit of collaboration, cannot emerge on its own. There are very few companies in Ukraine, and even in the former USSR, where the HR person is the second most important figure in the company. Typically, the second person is someone from the back office. It’s rare for the second person to be a “frontline” employee who understands what the client needs. And it’s even rarer for the second person to be an HR professional—not just any HR person, but a leader. There are very few HR professionals who can boast of having leadership qualities. The functional environment in which they developed as specialists often required them to simply execute tasks as they came in and to avoid any “non-their” work.
And what is most important, such “utopias” are only possible when the information exchange between employees is transparent, dense, and effective. In small groups, this happens naturally. In larger ones, it’s more complicated. But that’s why a process-oriented approach is increasingly justified compared to a functional one, as we live in a new era—an era where information technology provides us with a crutch that can enhance our communication abilities. When what one person says is heard by everyone at once, when each person accurately sets expectations for the behavior of others, when distance is not an obstacle to communication or work, when tasks are accomplished collectively and efficiently as if they were being done in a small group, where there are no “freeloaders” waiting for something to happen without their involvement.
The worst recipe for a leader in modern times is to build an “information wall” around themselves, isolating from the flow of information that is buzzing within their team, and justifying it by claiming they want to focus on “macro management” rather than “micro management.” Management and awareness are two different things. The ability to be heard is one of the best motivators for people.