The org board. How to develop a company structure - стр. 5

Often it is the desire to move away from daily operations (the front of the battle) that encourages owners to implement management tools. However, one needs to realize that simply adding an organizing board and other tools will not facilitate the switch on their own; they will only create the necessary foundation. After you implement the management tools, you need to cultivate competent executives, and only then can you delegate the management of operations. If you go about this with an intelligent plan, you could implement management tools in a small business in six months to a year, and cultivate your executives within a year. This is a big job. You will have to invest as much time and effort as you would in establishing your technological processes. But the game is worth your while – the company will not only become well-managed, it will also gain a significant advantage over its competition.

The Valuable Final Product (abbreviated to VFP) is one of the key management concepts defined by L. Ron Hubbard in his articles. You see this all the time – your employees perform lots of actions, but not all of them are actually directed towards results. Or you see how someone is always preparing to do a job: he arranges his papers, organizes the computer files, he invents clever ways to organize his desk tools, etc. Another employee is running around crazed and completing one thing after the other. He may look busy, but he’s still not producing the results you expected. Why is this happening? Why do we have those who produce results and those who are busy with "doingness"?

In the dictionary, we can find the following definition for product, "an artifact that has been created by someone or some process" where artifact is “a man-made object taken as a whole”. An accountant prepares a report and sends it to the IRS, that is definitely a product. When a barista puts the final touches on a cup of coffee and hands it to the customer – that is also a product. When the owner of a company develops a strategy, by spending his time and energy on it, and describes it in a document that can then be studied by his executives – the strategy here is a product.

Note that the word object means “a tangible and visible entity”, where tangible means that it can be perceived by the senses as something that exists. Therefore, somebody’s brilliant plan that is not shared with anyone is not a product because other people cannot perceive it, unless they are able to read the person’s mind. For that plan to become a product, it has to be at least shared with someone, and then it will become a product. The product is always tangible, even when it comes to such "intangible" things as designs, plans, and ideas. They need to be described on paper or introduced during presentations – otherwise they are not products. A motivational meeting that inspires employees to succeed is a great product for an executive, as the change in employee attitude is quite tangible – you can see and feel it. But the product that is not noticeable to others, by definition, cannot be a product. If the, "I was trying”, “I attempted to”, “I was getting ready to”, etc don’t result into something that can be perceived by the senses, it’s not a product.