Episode Transcript
Adam O'Leary (00:01.002)
If you're business owner struggling to get all your key processes and procedures out of your head and documented, then our guest, Katrina Purcell is about to give you a simple win you can implement today. I want to give a big welcome to Katrina Purcell, a strategic and operational leader who empowers tech startups and nonprofits to optimize their operations and achieve ambitious growth. Get ready for her real world guidance on cutting through the jargon and delivering tangible results.
Katrina Purcell (00:01.32)
If you're business owner struggling to get all your key processes and procedures out of your head and documented, then our guest, Katrina Purcell, is about to give you a simple win you can implement today. I want to give a big welcome to Katrina Purcell, a strategic and operational leader who empowers tech startups and nonprofits to optimize their operations and achieve ambitious growth.
Get ready for her real confidence on cutting through the jargon and delivering tangible results. Katrina, so excited to have you here. Adam, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. Absolutely. So what
Adam O'Leary (00:30.232)
Katrina is so excited to have you here!
Adam O'Leary (00:35.884)
Absolutely. So one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, I've heard you mention this over and over and over, and I thought it was just so fascinating because you're talking about a single point of failure that exists in so many businesses. Do you mind kind of going into this and sharing why that's such a big issue?
Katrina Purcell (00:39.478)
Sure. I've also realized recently that it also exists even in our personal lives. But when you start to think about you have that one employee who let's say they win the lotto.
It used to be get hit by a bus. No one wants that anymore. Now they win the lotto and they decide to leave. Right. And what happens? Maybe they've been your key employees since day three. Right. Everything lives in their head. Everything comes along. But the minute that person takes a vacation, everything crashes. Right. And one of my clients has someone very much like this in a, in their COO role. And every time she has to travel for work, it's like everyone knows and everything explodes.
Why is that? Right? Well, because everything goes seamlessly because she's involved in everything. Right? Because in her brain, she can easily figure out what's supposed to happen and who should talk to who and how things should be handled. But in the absence of writing things down, when you pull out that person, everything crumbles. And so many companies are running that way today.
Adam O'Leary (01:59.35)
It's crazy. It is crazy to think about it. just as you just said that, I mean, I just thought of like 10 companies right off the top of my head that the founder is basically managing all these different hats, right? And so how can a founder go ahead and be able to get this types of information and document it?
Katrina Purcell (02:00.414)
It is crazy to think about it. And just as you just said that, I mean, I just thought of like 10 companies spread out that the founder is basically. Exactly.
Katrina Purcell (02:21.288)
So the first part is understanding that just because you document something doesn't mean you're taking away creativity, innovation, or excitement. It also doesn't necessarily mean that you're putting yourself out of a job. I think a lot of people think, well if no one knows how to do it, they can't lay me off, they can't fire me. That's actually not true.
They could still, right? And so the first step is really thinking about a process that you have that you're doing on a daily basis that you like. The outcome is repeatable. The outcome is something that you always want to happen. And then think about what are the steps that you're doing to do it? And the part that you have to do with a founder in that case is sometimes interrogate because they might be doing things that they don't realize that they're doing because they've been doing it for so long. And so a lot of times it takes a second person.
Right? So try and train the intern, try and train someone brand new, because they're going to ask you really great questions about how to do it. And this is something that as we start to get more AI agents built, people are starting to have to do, because an AI agent is essentially an intern. You have to train them on how to do things. And unless you can write down what you're doing, you can't train them. And so I've actually seen the use of AI and the excitement around AI actually getting people to sit down and think about what their processes are.
which is exciting for me because I love process.
Adam O'Leary (03:46.094)
I love that and it is crazy true. I've been starting to use AI a lot more in in in my life and for all these different processes but one of the craziest things I've realized and I'm very thankful for is that I I spent a lot of time learning what an SOP was because I had to start managing people people would be like hey can you start outsource this to this or train this new person and what I've learned is that when you're
Katrina Purcell (04:12.346)
Exactly. is that when you're trying to explain something to somebody it's how you interpret it but the other person on the other side has no idea what you're talking about. Right? Exactly.
Adam O'Leary (04:14.975)
trying to explain something to somebody, it's how you interpret it. But the other person on the other side has no idea what you're talking about. Like it's almost like, I think a lot of founders, especially when they're first starting this process of outsourcing, is that they almost think that the other person is quote unquote dumb, or they're not qualified for the job. And I've heard that so many times. And in reality, I think most of the time it is a training issue.
Katrina Purcell (04:28.926)
Agree.
Adam O'Leary (04:44.265)
And I'm curious your thoughts on this is how can somebody know if it's a training issue? So if it's from their own faults that's causing the problems or if it is truly time to let that employee go?
Katrina Purcell (04:49.814)
if it's a training issue, so if it's from their own faults that's causing the problems, or if it is truly time to let that employee go? What a great question. Well, one of the first things would be having someone else try to follow the SOP. So is the SOP written well enough that you could bring someone who knew nothing and have them follow it? Because ideally, that's actually how your SOP should be written. Because if you start to think about business continuity planning,
Right? What if something happens, your key employee can't actually get where they need to go in order to fill the process and you need someone to fill in. You need that person to be able to follow that step-by-step checklist and get the outcome that you want. And I think that's the most important piece is that when you build an SOP, you're building it to the outcome that you desire. So you're not building the perfect process. You're building whatever process gets you to the outcome that you want. And the outcome is what you should judge.
There are going to be times that people will take an SOP and they will say, okay, I'm going to make this little piece mine, or I'm going to do this this way. But as long as it gets to the outcome that you want, that's really what you should be judging. In terms of evaluating, yeah, it's, it's, you know, we, we tend to think that SOP means I'm actually regulating every minute of your day and I'm deciding exactly how you're going to do your day. But really it's just, no, I want you to get to this outcome.
Adam O'Leary (05:58.85)
I love that.
Katrina Purcell (06:12.306)
I actually don't necessarily care as long as these specific milestones or these specific checkpoints get met. And this is the outcome that I wanted. And we tend to put people into boxes. What I like to do is evaluate if someone can follow the actual SOP and get to the outcome. It's a training issue if throughout that process they have questions that aren't answered in your materials. So if I have a question about why we're using a particular tool,
If I have a question about why this step comes before that step, those are things that should be in the training, right? And those are actually smart questions because sometimes we have these processes that are handed down through time. We've just always done it that way. Well, why have you always done it that way? Now you have this new system and the new system does these three steps. A person shouldn't have to do them anymore. Those are smart questions. Those are an employee who cares.
and an employee who's very interested in, yes, I want the outcome, but I want the most efficient way possible. Now, if someone is following the process and they're kind of not getting to the outcome, they're stopping halfway, or there's definitely points where you feel like their questions are leaning down a path of they just don't want to do the work, that's when it becomes a time to sort of reevaluate and see if that person is really a good fit for your company.
Adam O'Leary (07:32.745)
Absolutely, and 100%. I totally see that. And I'm starting to think in a slightly different way is what about, so let's say if I'm a founder and I have some managers or vice presidents or whatever they might be and they're managing a team. One of the things that I know happens with employees is that they almost, they don't want to give up work because then all of a sudden it's like, well, then what do they need me for?
Katrina Purcell (07:35.682)
I'm starting to think in a slightly different way. What about, let's say if I'm a founder, I have some managers, presidents, or whatever they may be, and they're managing...
know happen to employees is that they almost they don't want to give up work because then all of a sudden it's like well then what do they need right and there's there is that fear I've seen it yeah it's like like I have to like literally calm people down and be like hey look no no I'm not doing this to get rid of you I'm doing it to make you better and free up your time so how can a leader be able to be able to tell
Adam O'Leary (08:00.296)
And there is that fear. I've seen it inside of my own team. I have to literally calm people down and be like, hey, look, no, no, I'm not doing this to get rid of you. I'm doing it to make you better and free up your time. So how can a leader be able to tell an employee that they need to create these SOP, create these documentations, obviously not to get rid of them, but to be able to make them better? How would you go about saying that?
Katrina Purcell (08:19.478)
that they need to create these SOPs, create these non-gay messages, obviously not to get rid of them, but to be able to make them better. How would you go about saying that? Yeah, so I think, is it all the spam text messages that have made us so distrustful of people? Because there's definitely a missing level of trust that used to exist. I don't, you know, I think...
One of the things is involving people in the process, right? And so one of the main tenants of change management is that you don't want to just say, hey guys, guess what? Change is coming. There's going to be change without actually telling someone how they're involved in the change, how the change affects them and what piece that they can play in it. And so I think involving the team early on, why are we documenting SOPs? Why are they useful? This happens when companies want to rapidly scale.
Right? SOPs are vital for rapidly scaling companies. They are vital to ensure that your end user, whether that be an end consumer or a company, are getting the same thing every time they deal with someone within your customer service org or every time they deal with your implementation team.
for engineering teams, making sure that the project team, I could put any project manager in there and things are just going to hum and flow because the process is always the same. Right? And so helping them to understand that it's really about growing and scaling, not generally about scaling back. Because normally an SOP is going to show exactly where the people are required. Right? Where am I required to use my brain? And where is it something that can be automated? In which case, then I'm freeing your brain
to do things that are more creative or more thoughtful or more strategic, and I'm taking away the work that you most likely don't like to do. So I also love to start with a, we have these processes, what part of it do you hate doing? Because it makes it more about what they don't like and what they would love to give up, rather than sort of the office space version of like, what exactly do you do here?
Katrina Purcell (10:18.644)
which I have learned for a few client companies, can't use that anymore because apparently the new generation has not watched Office Space, which is pretty sad.
Adam O'Leary (10:28.574)
that's too funny.
Katrina Purcell (10:29.11)
It made me really sad. was like, isn't this a, this is a classic, surely, right?
Adam O'Leary (10:34.838)
For sure, for sure. And I like how you're positioning this is the fact that it's there's busy work almost, right? The stuff that nobody likes to do. And then there's what does a human require, right? The critical thinking, the creative tasks, all that type of stuff. And I think that's really, really fascinating. Do you go about, so obviously there's like process when it comes to like click here, do this, follow these types of buttons. So instructions, and then there is the creative side. How do you go about
Katrina Purcell (10:37.374)
The that you're positioning this is the fact that there's busy work almost, and then there's what does a human require.
Katrina Purcell (10:49.27)
And I think that's.
So obviously there's like process when it comes to like click here, do this, follow these types of buttons. So instructions and then there is the creative side.
Adam O'Leary (11:04.374)
when it comes to the creative side to create documentations for those as well.
Katrina Purcell (11:05.142)
to the creative side to create documentation for those as well? Yeah, so you have to leave room for not only interpretation, but room for creativity. And this is where the outcomes become so important. One of the spaces where we've recently created something which you might think is a weird thing to create an SOP for is design thinking sessions. Right? So inherently, design thinking sessions are very creative. They're very freeform. They're very sort of
go with the flow of what's happening, but how to actually...
execute a design thinking session, there is a process. There are steps that that person who is facilitating it is going to go through. There's pre-work that they would need to do. There are specific ways that they might mold the conversation and flow the conversation. And so when we write processes for those types of things, I would say we write them more as a choose your own adventure. So anytime that there's going to be audience engagement or anytime that there's going to be a meeting where other people are going to speak up, the process has to allow room for
if someone in the room speaks up and actually disagrees, or if someone in the room says something that's unexpected, how might you react? What could that look like? And there's a bit of improv in there, right? And I think a lot of business leaders now are taking improv classes and are thinking a little bit more about that, especially if they do a lot of big presentations or a lot of meetings where there could be information coming back at you, which is not what you expect, which when you're having meetings about
process when you're having meetings about changes or anything related to change management, that can happen. And so being able to think on your feet isn't something you can necessarily create a process for, but you can help by saying, hey, these are kind of your three things. If something happens that's positive, you can go this way. If something happens that throws you off, maybe go this way. Right? And so you can give people sort of guardrails as opposed to like specific ways to do them.
Adam O'Leary (12:59.806)
Absolutely. And I guess for everybody listening, what is one simple win somebody could implement today to get the biggest bang for their buck? Like what can they do within the next 10 hours to make sure that they're going to get a huge payoff down the road?
Katrina Purcell (13:02.687)
is one simple way somebody could implement.
Katrina Purcell (13:09.077)
10 hours.
Yeah, I think for me as a business owner, it's sort of think about the thing you do the most often that you hate, right? What takes the most amount of time? Figure out what is the outcome that you want. Think through how do you normally get that outcome and then figure out how to outsource it. So there's a lot of things that we do as business owners that aren't the reason we got into the business in the first place, right? We started our business because we had a passion. We had an excitement for one thing.
That was our zone of genius. And then we've fallen into doing these 10 other things that have nothing to do with it, but are required just to run the business and keep things afloat. And we think we have to keep doing them. But I'm actually a big believer in thinking through the outcome that you want and then figuring out how to outsource it, whether that is an AI agent or potentially a virtual assistant or potentially an intern from a college or university near you that might need the experience.
where once you have a repeatable process, they can continually get the outcome. Right? And so thinking through that and then buying that time back for yourself and then applying that to something you truly love.
Adam O'Leary (14:17.984)
I love that. That is fantastic. And what sort of results have you seen from companies who have implemented what you're talking about here and where can people go to learn more about you?
Katrina Purcell (14:27.059)
Yeah, so results, I had a company who was implementing a very large fast food chain. And originally their implementation team was really struggling because this company required a level of service and a level of consistency that they just couldn't deliver. And so by actually sitting down and figuring out what the process should be, what all the handoffs were, right? What the exact moment of moving from customer support to customer success, what does that look like? What should the handoff be?
they've been able to exponentially increase the number of those restaurants that they've implemented in because now they have a repeatable process. It doesn't change depending on what team you talk to or who you happen to get in the service queue. It's always the same exact thing. In terms of finding me, I am on the Manage Chaos podcast and I am available on LinkedIn and at katrinapurcell.com.
Adam O'Leary (15:22.924)
That's amazing. And question for you, guess, because now I'm really, really curious. How do you work with clients? Because there's so much stuff to processize. And I'm just curious, what is it that you actually do with these clients?
Katrina Purcell (15:25.043)
Yeah. Yes, it really depends on the client. And so my services in terms of consulting is very bespoke and very roll up the sleeves and get into the nitty gritty. So there are times where someone will say we don't even have a process and I'll be like, let me sit with your team.
and I'll actually do something. I'll say, actually you have a process, this is what it is. And I can come to you after a day of working with your team and say, here's all the hands on keys parts of the process. Did you even know that was happening? Is it getting the outcome that you want? Sometimes I do initial workshops with leadership teams who know that they need to change, but for whatever reason, they just can't either get it to stick or they can't get everyone on the same page. And so part of it is, where are we now? Where do we want to go? And what are our blockers to get there?
We build the roadmap and then we start to figure out where do they need extra help? Where do they need extra firepower? Where do they need someone who can roll up their sleeves and really embed with a team and get that change adopted? Those are my favorite things. I'm a huge fan of change management and I really love working with the team to guide and coach them so that it becomes repeatable for them and then I can step away. In some cases, I just full on fractional COO. So it's like, let's just really.
get into the nitty gritty, join the exact team, be on the exact calls, figure it out from kind of like zero to 100. What does that look like? And so I can kind of come in anywhere in between. There's different pieces I like. The most important thing is I only work with teams who I really like and who I feel really inspired by either their mission, their passion, or their vision.
Adam O'Leary (17:07.742)
I love this. Well, Katrina, thank you so much for joining me. You were absolutely spectacular to have on and I'm already thinking in my brain, like how much stuff have I not processized properly?
Katrina Purcell (17:17.461)
Yes, after one conversation with me, you'll have your whole calendar color coded and everything will be documented, I promise.
Adam O'Leary (17:24.333)
amazing. Well, thank you all for listening. We are so excited that you jumped in today. Seriously, give Katrina a look. She is an amazing, amazing person. And I will see you all on the next episode of Simple Wins.
Katrina Purcell (17:28.022)
excited that you jumped in today. Seriously, give Katrina a look. She is an amazing, amazing person. And I will see you all on the next episode of Simple Wins.
