Michael Gerber's Franchise Prototype Rule to Win #4: All Work in Operations Manuals

The fourth of Gerber's rules, from p. 104:

All Work in the Model Will Be Documented in Operations Manuals.

In Gerber's view, the operations manuals communicate the structure of your business. They tell people what's expected. What to do, what to expect, how to behave.

Gerber again invokes Alvin Toffler from The Third Wave, (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1980) p. 389:

For many people, a job is critical psychologically, over and above the paycheck. By making clear demands on their time and energy, it provides an element of structure around which the rest of their lives can be organized.

You're designing a world for employees to live in. The operations manual tells them how to move around in it. After all, employees crave order in a disorderly world as customers. Give it to them.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Does this help? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.