When One Person Becomes the Operating System

Last week was full. I travelled, attended a wedding on the other side of the world, played some golf, navigated airports and generally tried to squeeze more activity into a few days than my body clock thought was reasonable. This weekend, Caroline and I made a highly strategic decision: we stayed the hell at home.

Saturday morning involved a wonderfully unproductive Ted Lasso marathon. It was a beautiful day outside, which briefly made us feel guilty, but not guilty enough to switch off the television. Later, we performed our parental duties, took the boys to the market and enjoyed some family time. But we also protected something Caroline and I have learnt to treat as a system: time for us.

That does not happen accidentally. If we simply waited for the diary to clear, the children to need nothing and life to become less busy, we would probably reconnect properly sometime in 2037. Prioritising time together is a simple system that protects something important before everything urgent consumes it.

Unfortunately, the weekend ended with another system making itself known: One of the batteries connected to my solar inverter went kablooey.

When we installed the system three years ago, South Africa was in the middle of the great solar gold rush. Eskom could barely keep the lights on, and solar installers were appearing faster than coffee shops in Cape Town. Since then, Eskom has become more reliable and the company that installed my system has disappeared.

Another supplier has taken over the customer base. They were very friendly when introducing themselves, but friendliness is less useful when a battery beeps incessantly and nobody returns your calls. Eventually, I reached the woman who had sent the introductory email. My request was not particularly complicated: could someone tell me what a call-out would cost, when a technician might be available and what the next step should be?

It seemed, however, that the answers lived inside the head of one sales representative who was also a technician and apparently the keeper of all technical, operational and commercial truth. Until he responded, nobody else could move. I did what most frustrated customers do. I asked my network for recommendations and started phoning alternative suppliers. I was not looking for the cheapest person. I was looking for the first credible person who would answer a phone and say, “It will cost you X for us to come out, we can be there on Y, and once we have inspected the system, we will tell you what needs to happen next.”

How hard can that be?

Systems drive behaviour

The new supplier may have perfectly rational reasons for being reluctant to help. They did not earn the original installation margin. The batteries may still be under warranty, which means there may be little immediate revenue in replacing one. In the short term, I may not look like a particularly attractive customer.

But the system they have created guarantees a poor customer experience. Every enquiry must pass through one busy individual, so every customer waits, staff can't make commitments, and potentially valuable relationships die before they begin. This is not primarily a people problem. It is a systems problem.

Michael Gerber’s work on the E-Myth argues that owners need to stop being the bottleneck and build businesses that can function without depending on individual heroics. Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints takes the idea further: the performance of an entire organisation is limited by its main constraint. In this case, the constraint is not technical capacity. It is the inability of anyone except one person to initiate a service call.

The irony is that the solution doesn't require an advanced artificial-intelligence strategy, a sophisticated CRM transformation, or a three-day executive off-site in the Winelands. It needs a basic triage process: Where is the customer located? What equipment do they have? Is it under warranty? What is the standard call-out fee? Which technicians operate in that area? When is the next available appointment?

A simple form, a pricing table and a booking calendar could answer most of those questions. AI could classify the enquiry, identify missing information, calculate a provisional call-out charge and draft the response. A human would only need to intervene when the situation genuinely fell outside the standard process. The aim is not to remove people from customer service. It is to remove unnecessary waiting from customer service.

PG’s Pro Tip: Remove the human bottleneck

Start with three actions.

Find the repeatable frustration. Look for the question customers ask repeatedly, the task employees keep escalating or the decision that always waits for one particular person.

Define the first useful response. You do not need to solve the entire problem immediately. Give the customer clarity about the next step, likely timing, required information and possible cost.

Build the smallest workable SOP. Create a short checklist, template, or decision tree that lets another capable person move the matter forward without waiting for the resident oracle to descend from the mountain.

Use this ChatGPT prompt:

Act as an operations designer for my business. I want to create a simple standard operating procedure for the following repeatable activity:

[Describe the customer request, internal task or recurring problem.]

First, ask me up to seven questions to understand the trigger, required information, decision rules, pricing or approval limits, responsible roles, expected turnaround time and exceptions.

Then create:

• A step-by-step SOP that a competent employee can follow.

• A decision tree showing what can be handled immediately and what must be escalated.

• A customer-facing acknowledgement template that clearly explains the next step, timing and likely cost.

• A checklist of the information that must be captured.

• Three measures that will tell us whether the process is working.

• The simplest way to automate or support the process using our existing software and AI.

Keep the first version practical enough to implement within seven days. Flag any point where we rely on one person’s knowledge, authority, or availability.

Every business needs good people. But when a customer cannot take the next step because one person has not returned a call, that person is no longer merely an employee. They have become the operating system.

And that is usually when things start going kablooey.