I’m totally into this Asian shrimp baguette sandwich at Spize Cafe in downtown Raleigh. It’s amazing.

I was there last week and went to the bathroom, where I saw the sign in the photo. I whipped out my phone/camera (yes, I pulled out my camera in the bathroom—but thankfully, it’s a one-person unit) and took the picture. More on that in a minute.

Are All Systems Go?

One of the things I’ve started doing when I’m consulting for a law firm is asking it to send me its operations manual. I want to see the systems the firm has developed for its day-to-day operations.

I’m not actually reading the material page by page. I’m mostly interested in determining how well the firm is documenting the basics of its operation.

For instance, I want to know whether an inexperienced employee can take a credit card payment from a client. Are there instructions for talking to the client? Are there instructions for dealing with the credit card machine or software?

I’m trying to figure out whether the firm can operate based on the systems or whether employees are constantly interrupting their supervisor when they have to do something they haven’t done before.

Why do I care? Because in lots of law firms, the supervisor is the person who hired me as a consultant. If she doesn’t have good systems in place, then her day is filled with interruptions. The interruptions are largely trivial, and they repeat themselves time after time.

More often than not, when systems aren’t in place, the first thing she wants to consult with me about is time management. She can’t get her work done. Why? Well, you already know why.

Why You Can’t Beat the System(s)

Back to Spize: you’ll notice from the sign that Spize has documented a system for cleaning the bathroom. The restaurant provides its employees with detailed instructions on how to keep the place spotless. I’m confident that it has systems for the rest of the operation back in the kitchen area. The place runs like clockwork.

Why do businesses create systems? Because they work. They keep things humming along. They make it easy to bring on new employees, shift people around when someone is busy with something else, and, most importantly, they make it possible for anyone to accept a payment from a client.

I’d argue that our businesses are really nothing more than a collection of systems. The business is the system. For most small firms, the system is passed along orally. It changes as it gets passed along, and it gets weaker and weaker as it grows more distant from the source. When the people change, the systems don’t always get passed along. The business grows weaker and weaker and sometimes dies. You’ve got to have systems.

How to Tell Whether Your Firm Is Bucking the System

You don’t need to pay me to figure out whether you’re winning or losing on the systems front. You can pull your own documentation and see what you’ve got. I’d suggest you look at the system for making coffee. Is it documented, or does it rely on the old person teaching the new person? If it’s documented, is it up-to-date for the latest coffee pot and the new place where the filters are stored?

Look carefully at the coffee system. It’s as revealing as the credit card system. In fact, I suspect that for many law firms, these are the two most critical systems for running the practice. How do your systems stack up?