I’m sure you are familiar with the universal phenomenon of the odd sock. You know what I mean? You insert a pair of socks into the washing process and no matter what you seem to do, one will go missing, and you end up with one odd sock, sad and forlorn in among the happy pairings in your sock drawer.
Well, my wife has a sure-fire way that avoids losing socks during the washing process. One of those ‘simple, when you think about it’ type of answers. She manages the washing process so that every time there is a change, the pairs are accounted for. When they go into the washing basket in the laundry, they do not go in unless paired up. When they go into the washing machine, they only go in as pairs. When they get hung on the line, they are also hung up together in pairs, and when they come in, you guessed it, they are kept in their pairs. Try loosing a sock when you manage things that tightly.
Simple? Yes. Of course you could clip the socks together at the beginning, but if the clip fails, you can lose a sock, and clipped together they don’t wash as well.
Alternatively (read as ‘The bachelor method’), the socks are easily lost if the washing is done as a huge bundle going through multiple points of change and coming out the other end to be paired up (hopefully).
But what’s the point - in management and business terms?
Simply this: if you want to make sure you don’t lose things (business opportunities, customers, whatever), then your processes, forms, checklists, etc., need to make sure of every change-point. Whenever something gets handed from one place to another, one person to another, goes to the next step in the delivery process, whatever it happens to be, you must make sure that the critical items are controlled.
For example, when a customer at the gym gets sold a package deal, they then get taken to the cashier and the cashier takes the money. But what happens if the cashier is not there, and the person has to come back? You will need to make sure that the person does eventually connect with the cashier and pay the money. So, on your form or checklist, you put a little section that the staff member and the customer both sign that gives the completion of a set action - in this case ‘Take the customer to the cashier’ is the required step.
Is this a bit much? Not really, when you consider the confusion it avoids.
Consider the following alternative consequences:
Scenario One: Customer comes back in the next day to see the Cashier.
Cashier: “Hello Mr Customer, sorry I was not here to see you yesterday. I see you have joined up on the corporate deal. Great.
Thanks for joining. Will that be cheque, savings or credit?”
Or:
Scenario Two: Customer: (coming back in to reception the next day) “I have joined up on the corporate plan”.
Reception: “Great, come through for your first evaluation with one of our trainers”.
Trainer: “Hello. You aren’t on my list. When did you join?” (The customer is not on the list because they have not followed the process. The minimum that will go wrong here is a slight inconvenience or annoyance for the customer. The maximum is anyone’s guess, it could simply be some lost business, but perhaps grounds for an expensive lawsuit. Who can tell?
You must have processes for these things. The processes must be followed. The best way to have a process followed is to have co-signing of key steps along the path. When you do, things run smoothly and you don’t lose things in the cracks (change-points).
An accompanying benefit is you can also put in place new staff resources with minimum training, because they are following a process and a form, and can learn on the job.
You also don’t lose any socks. Worth doing for that reason alone! | 
