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Systems Thinking - Not Automation Thinking
Was there a sale on this topic or what?
Tim Kilroy
18 Oct • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
In partnership with
Systems Thinking Is Everywhere
This week, I received TWO newsletters on the topic of systems thinking. Scott Clary has a great piece called The Paradox of Scaling Through Inaction: Why Smart People Build Systems and Milan Kordestani has a piece that ended up in my mailbox this week.
So let’s get straight to the point - systems thinking is good. It allows you to solve problems differently - imagining your problem as a broken part of a system is really helpful. It speeds diagnosis and repair. Additionally, problems within a system generally stay fixed until there is a meaningful change in the system.
Automations & Systems AREN’T The Same
So many people, however, confuse systems thinking with automation. Zapier & Make are super cool tools that help you connect disconnected things and create some automations. The burgeoning world of AI agents (check out Agent.ai from Hubspot cofounder Darmesh Shah) will start to automate a bunch more stuff.
But just because you automate a TASK doesn’t mean you are seeing or thinking in systems. Systems are more like project plan that has a desired outcome, whereas an automated task is more similar to finishing an assigned task in Asana.
The automation can be part of a system. But the system is a a flexible organism that adapts to new and different inputs to create the desired output. Automations are just repeated events,
Systems are fluid. Automations are rigid.
What Should You Be Thinking About
When you do start to think about your agency as a series of systems that create desired outputs, you may string together a series of automations to generate reports or adjust ad spend. But those are tasks with static inputs.
Your systems need to accept varied inputs - eg, a client hates video ads, can you system adapt to that and create the desired results? Systems are designed to create outputs. In order to effectively create “systems” in your business, you almost have to start building them backwards. What circumstances need to exist in order to create the output. What circumstances need to exist before that stage, and before that, and before that, etc., until you reach the circumstances of the initial input.
Automations are repetitive and linear in nature. Your business systems need to be adaptive and flexible because almost certainly, the original inputs will vary from client to client, team to team, person to person.
A “System” For Your Marketing
Are You An Agency Founder Who Doesn't Create Content or Do Lead Gen Because EVERYTHING Is On Your Plate? |
, If that describes you, this could be the best email you get all month. Everybody who is reading this is probably thinking, "OMFG, of course I want that, but I don't have the time or the budget to hire a marketing director or a lead developer." With the right frameworks, you can create a great stream of content for your site, your socials, your outreach & more by leveraging THE TEAM YOU ALREADY HAVE. It doesn't matter if you have a team of 2 or a team of 20, you have the resources to create great content RIGHT NOW. What you don't have is a structure to leverage the small bits of time that your team has available to create a machine that generates the content your agency NEEDS TO SUCCEED.
MEETING 5: Group meeting to fill in your distributed ownership org chart & calendar. MEETING 7: Group meeting to share early successes and failures, make adjustments and more... At the end of 12 weeks, this is what you will have in place: 3-6 Month Content Calendar Team Lead Approach To Content Development & Publishing Team Lead Outbound Messaging Workflow Team Partnership in Business Growth More Teamwork & Cooperation Shared Culture of Accountability More Creativity & Fun MORE LEADS, SALES & CLIENTS This is a beta cohort, so pricing will be attractive and the hands on will be high. Strictly limited to 5 agencies - ideally under 15 on staff, with a founder who owns the marketing & lead gen functions...and who truly believes that teamwork makes the dream work. |
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