How to Level-Up Your Systems to Grow Your Business

Are you using the right tool and system for the job?

For us as a creative firm, Systems provide scaffolding for the creative thinking, inspiration, ideas, and discoveries that bring our client’s brands to life.

I. How Systems Can Uncover and Maximize Potential

We use systems to harness the best of our team’s skills, strengths, and experience along with our offerings to consistently produce excellent work and deliver strong results even when unexpected challenges arise. Rather than limit creativity, well-designed systems utilize both discipline and flexibility to generate reliably effective outcomes while making room for inspiration and new ideas.

We define a system as the way a number of parts - people, information, products, tools, etc. - interact with each other. At Giant Shoulders, we have a system for everything we do, from branding to visual design to web development. This gives us a toolkit of tested methods that work together in a defined, replicable process which we can customize for our clients’ needs.

This affords us consistent performance both for our clients’ brands and our own internal process. For the client, it actualizes their mission and values by making theory practical, moving beyond what looks pretty or feels good to ground their brand identity in codified and actionable structures. For us as a creative firm, it provides scaffolding for the creative thinking, inspiration, ideas, and discoveries that bring our client’s brands to life. 

“There's a point, far out there when the structures fail you, and the rules aren't weapons anymore, they're shackles.”

Commissioner Gordon teaches a rookie police officer in The Dark Knight Rises

II. Using Design Thinking to Make Systems Awesome

We use design thinking to develop and continually improve our systems so they effectively achieve our goals. Design thinking is simply the practice of approaching problem solving and goal fulfillment by using critical thinking to arrange the different parts of a system in a purposeful way so they accomplish their intended objectives. Lawton Ursrey at Forbes advocates for design thinking to be at the core of business strategy development, and calls it a “proven and repeatable problem solving protocol that any business or profession can employ to achieve big results.” Using design thinking to build, assess, or refine a system provides insights to what is working, what needs to be fixed, and where there are unrealized opportunities for improvement.

Systems connect things at three levels: objectives, methodology, and tools. An objective is the goal to be accomplished (a destination to be reached). A methodology is the means of achieving that goal (the route to get to the destination). The tools are what are used on the practical, tactical level. Tools can be anything from physical objects to conceptual models, production processes, creative techniques, or software applications - whatever is used to do the actual work. In the travel metaphor, the toolkit is like the vehicle used to drive along the route to the destination.

Design thinking is the process of aligning people, methods, and tools to effectively achieve an objective. Taking the time to 1) define the objective, 2) brainstorm, select, and refine a method of approach, and 3) identify, construct, or properly fit the right tools will increase the efficacy and efficiency of reaching a goal. Working toward goals without employing design thinking is like driving without specifying the destination, selecting a route, or choosing a vehicle to match the terrain. It is possible to reach the destination, and often some of these necessary steps happen subconsciously or intuitively, but being thoughtful and intentional about aligning these components can maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of the journey.

A dynamic approach to systems allows you to continually retool, transform, and refine your system as the environment changes or weak spots are discovered.

III. Navigate Change with Confidence

Dynamic systems have the potential to evolve and improve over time or adapt to external changes, while overly rigid systems can stifle creativity, inhibit growth, and often become outdated or unwieldy. Inflexible systems fail to allow room for valuable inspiration or the incorporation of new insights, and have limited scalability as an organization grows. Adapting a system as the environment or needs change, or as weaknesses and opportunities are identified, ensures that the system remains an asset instead of becoming a liability.

It can be easy to unintentionally become held back by a tool or method because it has performed well in the past, but when the environment or needs change, what used to be a good method or tool may no longer be the right fit. For example, a Ferrari is a beautiful and powerful vehicle (tool), but if a route (method) to a destination (objective) transitions, for example, from flat pavement to rocky terrain up a mountainside, sticking with what used to be an effective tool could inhibit or entirely prevent success. Alternatively, the opportunity for adaptation might be in the method rather than the tool - the fastest way up a mountain could be navigating along winding, paved roads instead attempting to force a straight path up. Additionally, methods and tools both benefit from periodic assessment and maintenance to ensure high performance. Honest evaluation of how well a system matches a current situation, paired with willingness to adapt, replace, or refine methods and tools keep all the components aligned and empower the system to accomplish the objective regardless of variance in external conditions.

Using design thinking, we modified the way we applied our methods and found new tools to adapt our system.

IV. How We’ve Used Systems to Adapt During COVID-19

Like many organizations, the pandemic has challenged our usual way of working, and we have had to modify the tools we use to employ our methods in new ways in order reach our objectives with the same level of quality. At Giant Shoulders, our model is built on collaboration. To help our clients create their brands, our first step would normally be to get all the key stakeholders in the same room for an in-person workshop, where we would lead them in a series of exercises to draw out and distill their mission, vision, and values. Working together in an interactive environment is key to our process to accurately shaping those outcomes, but during the pandemic, this kind of in-person workshop is no longer an option. Our system needed some changes if we wanted to continue our success while working within the new limitations.

Using design thinking, we modified the way we applied our methods and found new tools to adapt our system - the way the physical, digital, relational, and conceptual pieces fit together. Our objective of guiding our clients to create a strong brand was still the same and our method of a collaborative, strategic process was still sound, but we needed to retool that method in order to deliver results at the same level of quality in a new environment.

We reexamined our process and identified the key functions of the activities we perform. After strategizing, researching, and experimenting, we tweaked our exercises, reformatted the structure of our workshops, and found an online platform to support the changes. Our work with clients over the last year has demonstrated the success of our adapted system as we’ve continued to produce firmly rooted, bold, and vibrant brands that have energized clients’ teams and bolstered the clarity, reach, and power of their missions and vision in the world.

As the pandemic continues and the world looks to the future of what’s next, systems continue to be challenged, and questions persist about how businesses and organizations can adapt. At Giant Shoulders, we help leaders and organizations develop their leadership brands that syncs up with their cultures through systems.

To learn more or interested in what Giant Shoulders does, visit our website or send us an Email.