December 3, 2025 • 14 mins
Most small teams don’t fail because they lack passion — they fail because they’re trying to run a business on memory, hustle, and winging it. In this episode, we uncover the real cost of operating without systems and the operational pain points that drain small teams every single day.
If you lead a small business or manage a small team, this conversation gives you the clarity and tools to stop the chaos, protect your team’s energy, and rebuild your business foundation with structure and confidence.
Ready to close the gap between goals and results?
For a clear and consistent way to lead your business, download the free GAP Guide.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hey, hey, hey, welcome to Leveraging Operations
and Leadership.
I'm your host, Tanya D.
Harrison, and today we are goingto be pulling back the curtain
on something that drains mostsmall teams faster than anything
else.
And we're going to be talkingabout the hidden costs of
(00:20):
working without systems.
Small teams don't fail becausethey're not working hard.
That's usually not the case.
They fail because they're tryingto scale chaos.
And today I want to break downthe operational pain points that
(00:41):
quietly drain time, money,energy, and reputation and talk
about how to fix them.
This is something that I haveyou've probably heard me talk
about before because I'm reallypassionate about it.
I find that a lot of people talkabout manual processes, and yes,
(01:07):
we do want to automate manualprocesses, and we do want to
incorporate AI whenever we canin order to increase efficiency
and actually expedite certainthings.
So that's not what I'm I'mtalking about, right?
What I'm talking about justsystems in general, structure in
(01:29):
general.
We're definitely going to talkabout automation and AI because
that's something that I think isreally important.
But the first thing is gettingthe chaos under control.
That is step one.
So when we're talking about thedifferent costs, these
operational pain points, thefirst one is the cost of rework.
(01:54):
So I want to start here becausethis is the profit leak that
most leaders massivelyunderestimate.
Rework shows up as fixingavoidable mistakes or clarifying
unclear instructions and redoingtasks that weren't executed
(02:14):
correctly the first time.
Every time you go in and youtouch something again, that is a
rework, right?
So if I have to do somethingover and over again to get it
right, it's a rework.
IDC, which is one of the majorglobal research firms, they
found that teams lose 20 to 30percent of their productivity
(02:37):
every week due to poor systemsand inefficient processes.
That's not an exaggeration.
For small teams, it's theequivalent of losing an entire
team member's workload weekafter week.
And then on top of that, PMI orProject Management Institute
reports that rework can swallowup to 40% of a team's labor cost
(03:04):
when clarity and process aremissing.
So that is huge.
And like I said, for small teamswhere every dollar counts and
every hour matters, that isdevastating.
And it's something that wedefinitely want to make sure
that we take a look at.
As you're going through thisprocess, as you're listening to
(03:26):
this podcast, think about someof the things that you are
reworking that's causing you togo over it and touch it over and
over again.
And then at the end, when I giveyou some quick tips to
implement, you can start there.
The second thing is missdeadlines and brand reputation.
(03:48):
And this is more than just aninternal thing.
Because if you are missingdeadlines, you say that you're
gonna have something done by acertain date and you're not
having it done, that is going towreak havoc as well.
Because this is where leadersoften underestimate the damage.
Your brand is way more than yourlogo, your brand is your
(04:12):
consistency, your ability todeliver what you said you were
going to going to deliver and todeliver it on time.
So those service levelagreements, meeting those
deadlines, they are extremelyimportant.
PwC Customer Experience Studyfound that 73% of customers say
(04:35):
reliability, not pricing, notspeed, not features, but
reliability is the number onefactor in whether they continue
working with the serviceprovider or not.
That's huge.
So they're not talking about allthe stuff, they're basically
saying they want to be able todepend on you.
(04:58):
If you say you're going to doABC by December 31st, that's
what they want.
So when deadlines slip becausework lives in email threads and
random documents and Slack orsomeone's memory, the real
consequence isn't the delay,it's the signal or the message
(05:21):
that you're sending out that youcan't fully count on us.
In a small team, one misseddeadline can cascade into three
more because you don't havebackup staff or layers of safety
nets.
You're operating with a leancrew.
Every delay ripples.
(05:42):
So this is where brand trustquietly erodes, and most leaders
don't recognize the patternuntil referrals dry up or repeat
customers start to fade.
You definitely want to make surethat you are paying attention to
this area, and now the hardestcost is burnout.
(06:08):
Is burnout.
Gallup found that 76% ofemployees experience burnout, at
least sometimes.
And the top causes are notoverworked, they're unclear
expectations, unmanageableworkloads, and constant pressure
created by inconsistent systems.
(06:32):
Let's be real, burnout isn't apersonal issue at all, it's an
operational issue.
And for small teams, theconsequences hit harder than for
larger organizations.
Another stat for you, accordingto guidance from the Small
Business Administration andCHURN, losing one employee in a
(06:57):
team of fewer than 10 can wipeout 17 to 25 percent of your
team capacity overnight.
That's huge.
In reality, the operationalimpact is often even higher
because the remaining teammembers absorb the stress.
Burnout doesn't happen becausepeople are unwilling to work.
(07:20):
That's not the cause.
Small teams are full of hardworkers.
Burnout happens because work isunclear, is unpredictable, and
often duplicated.
All things that are preventable.
This is stuff that you couldfix, but only when the systems
(07:41):
are clear.
Small teams feel the costs ofpoor systems faster than big
companies because you don't havethe redundancy.
You don't have the extra staff,you don't have multiple layers
of review.
(08:03):
You are working with leanresources, high expectations,
immediate client demands, andlittle room for error.
So every operationalinefficiency hits harder.
You feel it more.
But small teams don't need morepeople, they need better systems
(08:25):
because better systems createcapacity without payroll creep.
So the first thing you want todo, you want to get rid of the
chaos.
So the good news is, right,small teams can fix operational
chaos quickly because you'reagile.
(08:47):
See, that's the great thingabout small teams.
It's not all bad.
And here's where you want tostart.
The first thing you want to dois create clarity before
creating systems.
Document your critical workflowsthat drive results.
This may look like youronboarding process, fulfillment
(09:07):
process, communication, that ishuge.
Um, billing, of course, andproject delivery.
How does that occur?
Think about what your criticalworkflows are, and you want to
make sure that you aredocumenting them first.
No matter who's doing theonboarding, who's doing the
(09:27):
fulfillment, whatever it is,it's consistent and it's the
same.
The second thing to do is tochoose one source of truth.
Your team shouldn't chase tasksall over the place.
They shouldn't have to go toemail and group chats and Google
Docs.
(09:47):
I recommend committing to aproject management platform and
make that the home base.
Make that the place where youare assigning the task and
following up with people, andthey are putting their notes if
it's done or not done, etc.
Make that the home base.
If you prefer not to have aproject management platform,
(10:11):
which I highly recommend thatyou have, you still need to
identify one place so people arenot confused and going all over
the place.
You're losing time.
Number three, standardizerecurring work.
Anything you do more than twicedeserves a checklist or a
(10:32):
template, and next week we'lltalk about automation, but for
right now, I'm just talkingabout standardizing the
recurring work.
Checklists are extremelyhelpful.
Having templates, you're doingthe same type of proposals, you
should have a template forproposals.
(10:52):
There should be templates foronboarding.
Everybody should get the sameexperience, and that is an
experience of excellence.
Every person that you serviceshould get that.
That should be your standard.
(11:12):
The fourth thing is build aweekly operating rhythm.
And this is a simple rhythm thatwill transform your team.
Whether it's and you decide whatit looks like: weekly planning,
daily touch points, you could doan end-of-week wrap-up every
(11:35):
Friday by 3 p.m., you do anend-of-week wrap-up or a monthly
KPI review.
I would do something at leastweekly so that everyone is
getting together, they'remeeting, you're discussing, and
then that way, if you havesomething that needs to change
based on the plan, based off ofsome statistics or metrics that
(11:59):
you've reviewed, you canimplement that.
But it should be something thatis not random, something that
occurs every single week.
Everybody knows that this ishappening, this is what we need
to bring to the table.
These are the things that we'regoing to discuss because you're
going to have an agenda.
The fifth thing is setexpectations with real
(12:20):
guardrails.
Systems are not aboutmicromanagement, they're about
clarity, being able to provideclear instruction.
Make sure every team memberknows what success looks like
before they start.
If you want somebody to hit atarget or hit a goal, you have
to show them where it is.
(12:41):
And this is what you're doingwhen you provide that level of
clarity.
They need to understand whatsuccess looked like.
So if you were listening to thisand you're thinking this is
exactly what's happening insidemy business, you are not alone.
Most small businesses aren'tbroken.
(13:02):
Their systems are missing,they're just lacking systems.
And when you fix the structure,you fix the stress.
And then you're also going toprotect your team's bandwidth,
your bandwidth, your brand'sconsistency, and your business's
profitability.
Because working without systemsdoesn't just slow you down, it
(13:25):
costs you money.
And I'm talking money in time,dollars, trust, and team morale.
So that is where you want to getstarted.
Do not, like I said, we're goingto talk about you know systems
and automations and things likethat, but you do not want to
(13:46):
automate chaos, you do not wantto bring technology in when you
haven't defined what thingsshould look like.
Get that level of clarity first,clear up some of the chaos, and
that is it.
Thank you for joining me foranother episode of Leveraging
Operations in Leadership.
(14:06):
And if you found this helpful,please share it with another
leader.
If you have anything that youwould like to hear, anything
that you'd like us to discuss,you can send me an email and
info at signalpartners.com.
Also, please just take a coupleof seconds to leave us a review
(14:26):
and let us know how we're doingit.
Talk to you soon.
unknown (14:30):
Bye.
Hey, hey, hey, welcome to Leveraging Operations
and Leadership.
I'm your host, Tanya D.
Harrison, and today we are goingto be pulling back the curtain
on something that drains mostsmall teams faster than anything
else.
And we're going to be talkingabout the hidden costs of
(00:20):
working without systems.
Small teams don't fail becausethey're not working hard.
That's usually not the case.
They fail because they're tryingto scale chaos.
And today I want to break downthe operational pain points that
(00:41):
quietly drain time, money,energy, and reputation and talk
about how to fix them.
This is something that I haveyou've probably heard me talk
about before because I'm reallypassionate about it.
I find that a lot of people talkabout manual processes, and yes,
(01:07):
we do want to automate manualprocesses, and we do want to
incorporate AI whenever we canin order to increase efficiency
and actually expedite certainthings.
So that's not what I'm I'mtalking about, right?
What I'm talking about justsystems in general, structure in
(01:29):
general.
We're definitely going to talkabout automation and AI because
that's something that I think isreally important.
But the first thing is gettingthe chaos under control.
That is step one.
So when we're talking about thedifferent costs, these
operational pain points, thefirst one is the cost of rework.
(01:54):
So I want to start here becausethis is the profit leak that
most leaders massivelyunderestimate.
Rework shows up as fixingavoidable mistakes or clarifying
unclear instructions and redoingtasks that weren't executed
(02:14):
correctly the first time.
Every time you go in and youtouch something again, that is a
rework, right?
So if I have to do somethingover and over again to get it
right, it's a rework.
IDC, which is one of the majorglobal research firms, they
found that teams lose 20 to 30percent of their productivity
(02:37):
every week due to poor systemsand inefficient processes.
That's not an exaggeration.
For small teams, it's theequivalent of losing an entire
team member's workload weekafter week.
And then on top of that, PMI orProject Management Institute
reports that rework can swallowup to 40% of a team's labor cost
(03:04):
when clarity and process aremissing.
So that is huge.
And like I said, for small teamswhere every dollar counts and
every hour matters, that isdevastating.
And it's something that wedefinitely want to make sure
that we take a look at.
As you're going through thisprocess, as you're listening to
(03:26):
this podcast, think about someof the things that you are
reworking that's causing you togo over it and touch it over and
over again.
And then at the end, when I giveyou some quick tips to
implement, you can start there.
The second thing is missdeadlines and brand reputation.
(03:48):
And this is more than just aninternal thing.
Because if you are missingdeadlines, you say that you're
gonna have something done by acertain date and you're not
having it done, that is going towreak havoc as well.
Because this is where leadersoften underestimate the damage.
Your brand is way more than yourlogo, your brand is your
(04:12):
consistency, your ability todeliver what you said you were
going to going to deliver and todeliver it on time.
So those service levelagreements, meeting those
deadlines, they are extremelyimportant.
PwC Customer Experience Studyfound that 73% of customers say
(04:35):
reliability, not pricing, notspeed, not features, but
reliability is the number onefactor in whether they continue
working with the serviceprovider or not.
That's huge.
So they're not talking about allthe stuff, they're basically
saying they want to be able todepend on you.
(04:58):
If you say you're going to doABC by December 31st, that's
what they want.
So when deadlines slip becausework lives in email threads and
random documents and Slack orsomeone's memory, the real
consequence isn't the delay,it's the signal or the message
(05:21):
that you're sending out that youcan't fully count on us.
In a small team, one misseddeadline can cascade into three
more because you don't havebackup staff or layers of safety
nets.
You're operating with a leancrew.
Every delay ripples.
(05:42):
So this is where brand trustquietly erodes, and most leaders
don't recognize the patternuntil referrals dry up or repeat
customers start to fade.
You definitely want to make surethat you are paying attention to
this area, and now the hardestcost is burnout.
(06:08):
Is burnout.
Gallup found that 76% ofemployees experience burnout, at
least sometimes.
And the top causes are notoverworked, they're unclear
expectations, unmanageableworkloads, and constant pressure
created by inconsistent systems.
(06:32):
Let's be real, burnout isn't apersonal issue at all, it's an
operational issue.
And for small teams, theconsequences hit harder than for
larger organizations.
Another stat for you, accordingto guidance from the Small
Business Administration andCHURN, losing one employee in a
(06:57):
team of fewer than 10 can wipeout 17 to 25 percent of your
team capacity overnight.
That's huge.
In reality, the operationalimpact is often even higher
because the remaining teammembers absorb the stress.
Burnout doesn't happen becausepeople are unwilling to work.
(07:20):
That's not the cause.
Small teams are full of hardworkers.
Burnout happens because work isunclear, is unpredictable, and
often duplicated.
All things that are preventable.
This is stuff that you couldfix, but only when the systems
(07:41):
are clear.
Small teams feel the costs ofpoor systems faster than big
companies because you don't havethe redundancy.
You don't have the extra staff,you don't have multiple layers
of review.
(08:03):
You are working with leanresources, high expectations,
immediate client demands, andlittle room for error.
So every operationalinefficiency hits harder.
You feel it more.
But small teams don't need morepeople, they need better systems
(08:25):
because better systems createcapacity without payroll creep.
So the first thing you want todo, you want to get rid of the
chaos.
So the good news is, right,small teams can fix operational
chaos quickly because you'reagile.
(08:47):
See, that's the great thingabout small teams.
It's not all bad.
And here's where you want tostart.
The first thing you want to dois create clarity before
creating systems.
Document your critical workflowsthat drive results.
This may look like youronboarding process, fulfillment
(09:07):
process, communication, that ishuge.
Um, billing, of course, andproject delivery.
How does that occur?
Think about what your criticalworkflows are, and you want to
make sure that you aredocumenting them first.
No matter who's doing theonboarding, who's doing the
(09:27):
fulfillment, whatever it is,it's consistent and it's the
same.
The second thing to do is tochoose one source of truth.
Your team shouldn't chase tasksall over the place.
They shouldn't have to go toemail and group chats and Google
Docs.
(09:47):
I recommend committing to aproject management platform and
make that the home base.
Make that the place where youare assigning the task and
following up with people, andthey are putting their notes if
it's done or not done, etc.
Make that the home base.
If you prefer not to have aproject management platform,
(10:11):
which I highly recommend thatyou have, you still need to
identify one place so people arenot confused and going all over
the place.
You're losing time.
Number three, standardizerecurring work.
Anything you do more than twicedeserves a checklist or a
(10:32):
template, and next week we'lltalk about automation, but for
right now, I'm just talkingabout standardizing the
recurring work.
Checklists are extremelyhelpful.
Having templates, you're doingthe same type of proposals, you
should have a template forproposals.
(10:52):
There should be templates foronboarding.
Everybody should get the sameexperience, and that is an
experience of excellence.
Every person that you serviceshould get that.
That should be your standard.
(11:12):
The fourth thing is build aweekly operating rhythm.
And this is a simple rhythm thatwill transform your team.
Whether it's and you decide whatit looks like: weekly planning,
daily touch points, you could doan end-of-week wrap-up every
(11:35):
Friday by 3 p.m., you do anend-of-week wrap-up or a monthly
KPI review.
I would do something at leastweekly so that everyone is
getting together, they'remeeting, you're discussing, and
then that way, if you havesomething that needs to change
based on the plan, based off ofsome statistics or metrics that
(11:59):
you've reviewed, you canimplement that.
But it should be something thatis not random, something that
occurs every single week.
Everybody knows that this ishappening, this is what we need
to bring to the table.
These are the things that we'regoing to discuss because you're
going to have an agenda.
The fifth thing is setexpectations with real
(12:20):
guardrails.
Systems are not aboutmicromanagement, they're about
clarity, being able to provideclear instruction.
Make sure every team memberknows what success looks like
before they start.
If you want somebody to hit atarget or hit a goal, you have
to show them where it is.
(12:41):
And this is what you're doingwhen you provide that level of
clarity.
They need to understand whatsuccess looked like.
So if you were listening to thisand you're thinking this is
exactly what's happening insidemy business, you are not alone.
Most small businesses aren'tbroken.
(13:02):
Their systems are missing,they're just lacking systems.
And when you fix the structure,you fix the stress.
And then you're also going toprotect your team's bandwidth,
your bandwidth, your brand'sconsistency, and your business's
profitability.
Because working without systemsdoesn't just slow you down, it
(13:25):
costs you money.
And I'm talking money in time,dollars, trust, and team morale.
So that is where you want to getstarted.
Do not, like I said, we're goingto talk about you know systems
and automations and things likethat, but you do not want to
(13:46):
automate chaos, you do not wantto bring technology in when you
haven't defined what thingsshould look like.
Get that level of clarity first,clear up some of the chaos, and
that is it.
Thank you for joining me foranother episode of Leveraging
Operations in Leadership.
(14:06):
And if you found this helpful,please share it with another
leader.
If you have anything that youwould like to hear, anything
that you'd like us to discuss,you can send me an email and
info at signalpartners.com.
Also, please just take a coupleof seconds to leave us a review
(14:26):
and let us know how we're doingit.
Talk to you soon.
unknown (14:30):
Bye.
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