Management Systems

Management systems isn’t the most fun topic, but it’s one of the most vital for any leader at any level to deliver consistent results. Effective leaders treat their management systems like top racing drivers treat their instruments and controls – it’s as vital as the engine and steering.

Learn about how to think about your management systems, how to design them, and how to keep them from being burdensome and wasteful. This 8 video series is a great opportunity for a leadership team to watch, learn, and apply together, and also a great way for brand new managers to get a handle on a new aspect of their work.

Watch the Management Systems videos on YouTube

Introduction

What is a Management System?

Your management system functions like an aircraft’s instrument panel, guiding organizational performance by focusing attention on critical indicators, providing clear direction, detecting early problems, and monitoring behind-the-scenes risks. Discover why this matters for teams of any size.

Why Should You Care

Most leaders underestimate their management systems’ impact. Learn how these frameworks create crucial vertical and horizontal alignment, build performance confidence, prevent outdated priorities from consuming resources, optimize capacity, and establish the foundation for genuine improvement.

The Mechanisms

Explore how calendar management, meeting structures, metrics, reports, and communication channels function as an integrated system. See why combining and simplifying these elements beats adding complexity, and how to avoid the “Christmas tree effect” of initiative overload.

Principles of Design

Discover what makes management systems energizing rather than bureaucratic. Learn why the work itself must be the customer, how to balance adaptability with stability, and how the trio of slowification, simplification, and amplification creates superior outcomes.