When I talk about OurWay, people sometimes hear my way.
But it isn’t.
It’s not my way, or your way, and it’s definitely not everyone doing things their own way.
It’s OurWay.
It’s the bridge between your people and your processes.
A bridge that’s definitely needed in most businesses, to close the gap between what a business owner wants their team to do, and what actually happens day to day.
Many business owners have invested huge amounts of time ‘documenting their processes’. They’ve created folders, files, and systems that would be gathering dust if they weren’t online. Others carry a very clear picture in their head of how things should be done and feel increasingly frustrated when the team don’t ‘just get it’.
Why don’t they use their initiative?
Why can’t they see it’s just common sense?
Why does it only seem to work when I’m there?
So days get frittered away firefighting.
Correcting mistakes.
Redoing work.
Stepping back in to fix things that shouldn’t need fixing.
Not because people don’t care, but because the ‘official’ way never really translated into real life, and when things get busy, people fall back on memory, habit, or whatever feels quickest in the moment. So the gap remains.
OurWay exists to close that gap.
Not by adding paperwork or slipping into corporate language, but by setting clear expectations and developing a shared way of working that meets them.
At McDonald’s, we didn’t talk about systems or processes. We talked about The McDonald’s Way of doing things. A simple, practical, agreed way of getting each task done that everyone bought into, because it made it easier to do a good job, day in and day out.
The McDonald’s Way to cook french fries, dress a Big Mac, onboard a franchisee, manage a new supplier.
It was OurWay of doing things, and you can develop your own!
…with your team!
This isn’t on you alone! OurWay isn’t built by you disappearing into a room to write your way down.
It’s built by working with your team – the people who do the job – and agreeing, together, the simplest and most logical way to do each task. The way that actually works.
You talk it through.
You discuss how the work really gets done.
You iron out the inconsistencies and remove the blocks
You agree what ‘good’ looks like.
Then you capture it. Simply. In real language. Ideally as a short How To video, recorded by the person doing the task, explaining the what, why and how, as they go.
That way, it reflects the realities of your business, not a theoretical version of how things should work.
Honestly, people don’t follow documents – they follow clarity. And clarity comes from being involved, understood, and supported.
When people help shape OurWay of working, it doesn’t need enforcing. It sticks because it makes sense, it makes their job easier, and they own it.
Of course developing OurWay takes investment – of time, and therefore money – but the return on that investment is huge. A business where things happen as they should, when they should, and to the standard expected…without you needing to be there!
Are you ready for that?
