A company is only as good as its systems.
Or is that wrong…is bureaucracy a crutch for the mediocre?
In restaurants, both tend to be true at the same time.
A good restaurant can run on sheer personality. Charisma behind the bar, sixth-sense timing on the pass, someone’s nan’s Treacle Tart recipe still bringing in the punters.
It’s glorious. It’s messy. It’s pure vibes.
And it relies entirely on the same six people never calling in sick and never leaving. And it relies on the business never expanding and splitting up the dream team.
Then someone suggests systems. Great idea. Structure. Order. Checklists!
Before long, there’s a laminated binder with seventeen steps for polishing cutlery and an “onboarding journey” that includes watching a 40-minute video on mop storage.
The chaos is gone – but so are the vibes.
The problem isn’t systems. It’s shallow, soulless, box-ticking systems. The kind that let management feel like they’ve trained someone without actually investing in, well, actually teaching them.
Real systems—useful ones— catch the stuff humans forget (because the humans are busy trying to keep 17 tables happy). They clarify, and they support. They make great people better.
They don’t seek to replace them.
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