Informal systems are not inherently weak. In a small business they can be highly efficient: people know one another, context travels quickly and exceptions are easy to resolve. Growth changes the economics of informality.
The system is there even when it was never designed.
Every business has a way priorities are set, decisions are made, customers are handed between teams and performance is reviewed. If these mechanisms are not explicit, they operate through relationships, memory and precedent.
As more people, products and locations enter the system, shared context declines. Different teams create local interpretations. Workarounds multiply and the organisation becomes dependent on the people who know how things really get done.
Do not respond by documenting everything.
Heavy process can destroy the speed and ownership the business needs to preserve. The priority is to formalise the junctions where ambiguity creates material cost: customer handoffs, resource allocation, pricing, risk, performance and cross-functional decisions.
A useful mechanism should make the work easier to understand and execute. If it exists only to evidence compliance with the process, its value should be challenged.
Build the minimum viable operating discipline.
Clarify the critical flows, decision rights, measures and forums first. Make ownership visible. Standardise what protects quality, risk and repeatability, while leaving room for judgement where variation creates customer value.
The goal is not to make the business corporate. It is to make its best way of working transferable and scalable.
The practical move
What leaders can do now.
- 01
Map where work repeatedly waits, loops, escalates or loses customer context.
- 02
Formalise the few cross-functional handoffs that materially affect value or risk.
- 03
Capture essential knowledge currently held by one or two people.
- 04
Remove process that adds control without improving clarity, quality or speed.
Evidence base
Sources and further reading.
Junction’s perspective is original. These sources informed the evidence base and provide useful depth for leaders who want to explore the subject further.