Every business needs a Systems Champion and it’s arguably one of the most important yet overlooked roles. But what is a Systems Champion exactly?
A systems champion is a person who is responsible for promoting the use and adoption of business systems within an organisation. This person may be tasked with identifying areas where business systems can improve efficiency, gathering feedback from employees and stakeholders, and working with other team members to develop and implement new systems.
Systems champions are often passionate about the value of business systems and are committed to helping their organisation realise the full benefits of these systems. They may also be responsible for training employees on how to use business systems and providing support and guidance as needed.
In short, they often complement areas where the business owner is weaker.
In this video, David Jenyns shares his Systems Champion job description and talks about tips to find your ideal candidate for this role.
You can download the position description here.
Timestamps:
0:13 What skills are required for a good systems champion?
1:09 Building a systems-driven business doesn’t happen by accident.
1:29 The systems champion complements areas where the business owner is weaker.
1:49 The personality of a business owner vs a systems champion
2:25 The personality of a SYSTEMologist.
2:58 The common thing amongst all systems-driven businesses
Transcription:
What is a systems champion? As a systems champion, you need to meet people at all different levels and you need these great people skills. You’re going to need some documentation skills. You’re probably going to need to get comfortable with the different software because you’re going to be recording things, you’re going to be saving them in certain places. You’re going to be streamlining and figure out what is going to work best for your team. You need to be curious.
This is a role that I think you can grow into. There’s tremendous opportunity here. The business owner, as we said, wants this and they need it. And you need to be the champion to keep this front and center for the team. Building a systems driven business doesn’t happen by accident. It takes time. There’s going to be resistance, there’s going to be challenges, and it’s going to be all of these distractions that will pop up in business that will appear more important. And you, as the systems champion, need to keep this front and center and keep the team focused on continually chipping away at these one percenters.
The systems champion will often complement areas where the business owner is weaker. There are plenty of different tests you can take out there for disc profiles and things like that. I like one called Kolbe, which tests how you get things done. It’s not so much there’s a right or wrong, it’s more about the natural inclinations when it comes to problem solving. Here’s an example—If you look at what I’ve got, Angel, our systems champion is really ranking quite highly on fact finding and follow through, whereas I got a three and a five. So her natural method of problem solving is different from mine.
I’m stronger with my quick start and implementor skills, where she’s stronger in fact finding and follow through, or at least that’s where she prefers to start. You might be the same—You might find it interesting to just have a look at your skill set as a systems champion and maybe even think a little bit about the team because as you work with different team members as well, you want to kind of play to their strengths. I know the SYSTEMologists, they’re different again and you’ll learn a little bit more about SYSTEMologists as we go today, but they help to guide you through and can speed up the process and they make you look like a rock star for the business owner, and they oftentimes help to push that first domino to get the critical client flow documented and they effectively create the gold standard by which things can be done. And a lot of the systemologists have these natural tendencies, again, being higher in the fact finding and or the follow through.
Again, there’s no right or wrong, it’s just about understanding those natural inclinations and the way that you solve problems. I think with everyone being different, one thing I can say that is common amongst all of the great systems driven companies that I’ve worked with is that they all find their systems champion and they become such an important asset to the business—they help to really drive this forward and support the company.
My goal here today is to give you everything that you need to make this work. And it’s hard work, but it’s incredibly rewarding work. You’ll get a level of insight and understanding of business that really cannot be matched, isn’t anything else, because you sit across all of the different businesses and you connect with all of the different team members and you learn what’s going on and thinking about the business and how it functions as a whole.
So yeah, I suppose that the whole point here is to kind of just let you know how important the work that you’re doing. And here at SYSTEMology will do everything that we can to support you and to make you look awesome in front of the business owner. I want the business owner to see how valuable you are, to see how much improvement you’re able to bring to the business.
