Does your company run on systems or on heroes?
AI made your team busier. It didn’t make your numbers move. In this working session, your leadership team learns to build the systems that do, and where AI fits once they run.
No pitch. If a workshop isn’t the right approach, I’ll tell you.
With this approach I built a new business unit at Digital Smile Design: from $0 to $200K in one quarter.
What is not a system
A system is people, process and tools, owned by one person, measured by one KPI, running the same way every time.
Everyone wants to get into AI as soon as possible. When I get into a company, what I find is noise. People write hundreds of documents and bury each other in them.
AI raised the activity and the output. It didn’t raise revenue, performance or EBITDA: the numbers that matter. AI is a tool. It speeds up a process. It can’t be one.
That’s AI workslop, and it’s a system problem: no one can say what a document is for, or which KPI it moves.
What I see in companies
A business system is people, process and tools that run the same way every time and take the company to one KPI, with a single owner. Systems are what grow revenue, scale a company and increase EBITDA. Each one stands on three pillars. And it’s all about the incentives: how people move in your team, why they move, and what makes them move.
The right people in the right roles, with job descriptions they know and economic incentives for one thing: what do I pay you for? Procrastination is a sign of someone in the wrong place.
Each system has one owner, with a clear reporting line and a single KPI. Once it’s built, the system runs without the owner. It all cascades down from your company strategy.
How the information flows, when, and who handles it. Who decides (decision rights). Where work changes hands (the hand-offs).
Built for the 90% of cases that get results. Exceptions always exist; the system isn’t built around them. This is where humans and AI learn to work together.
The cadence is your operating rhythm: weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly. Weekly team reviews, 1:1s that help people adopt the system, and quality checks the team runs without the owner. A performance dashboard that measures what matters, and a taskboard with each person’s priorities.
And the technology. It supports the process; it doesn’t drive it. Tools accelerate a process. They don’t replace its design.
It’s close to the people, process, technology framework. Here, tools means the cadence and the dashboards as well as the technology.
The AI tool and the software serve the process that serves the person, and not the other way around.
AI is a tool to optimize a process, not the base of a system. It goes in after the base system runs.
People move toward what they’re paid for. So every system has one owner and one KPI, connected to your P&L, and the people in it are paid toward that KPI. Your team reviews it every week on one dashboard, and you change it quarterly if needed. Every document, meeting and tool has to move that number.
Leadership dashboard
Company-wide systems, work across departments and organization design. Where accountability for revenue and EBITDA lives.
Mid-manager dashboard
Improvements, bottlenecks, each person’s performance and the skills the team needs.
Individual taskboard
Daily focus, priorities and next actions, for each person in the system.
The three questions of the weekly review, for people, process and tools
Good enough first. Documentation comes fifth, not first. AI and efficiency come last.
What gets you “there”: the main KPI. Its single owner. The people, their job descriptions, incentives and KPI-driven reports. A draft process and good-enough tools.
The new incentives and organizational moves: roles, job descriptions, reporting lines. The process and tools, the taskboard, the performance dashboard and the cadence. Training sessions.
The team cadence, dashboard and taskboard go live. 1:1s help each person adopt it. The whole company learns who owns the system.
Green light: the system gets you there.
SOPs and videos, added to your company’s library of systems.
This is where AI and software speed up the process.
Why so many software projects fail: people are the engine. They need a clear why, training and support in the first 90 days, incentives that match the behavior you want, and feedback loops. That’s what the cadence is for.
Before
“Why didn’t you hit the number? Push harder. We need more sales. Focus on the results.”
After
“Why can’t we sell more? What’s blocking us? Is it the process, tools, skills or incentives? Where’s the bottleneck? Let’s fix this piece of the system.”
When revenue or EBITDA falls short, leaders don’t say “sell more” or “we need more people”. They diagnose the root cause in people, process and tools before asking for resources. Then they fix it. Leaders are system enablers: they coach, they assess people, process and tools, and they improve the system every week from the dashboard.
Don’t break the ownership line. If someone owns a KPI and a team, no one else asks that team about it. Delegate ownership, pay people to do their job, give them the resources, do your 1:1s with the owner, and trust.
The checklist I use. AI comes in after every box is ticked.
We’ll look at which system your company needs first.
I ran this working session with the leadership team at Digital Smile Design. With the same approach, I built a new business unit there as a fractional executive: a new service offer, a new team, positioning, pitch and sales process, built as systems of people, process and tools.
It went from $0 to $200K in sales in one quarter.
Jose M Bermejo
Strategic growth partner for B2B owners, CEOs and founders
I run every workshop myself.
A working session where your leadership team learns how to build the systems that grow revenue, scale the company and increase EBITDA: people, process and tools, one owner and one KPI per system, the incentives, the cadence and dashboards that run it, and where AI fits.
People, process and tools that run the same way every time and take you to one KPI. Each system has a single owner, people paid toward that KPI, a weekly cadence and a dashboard. A library of SOPs or documents, a custom GPT, an isolated meeting, a person, a department or a piece of software is not a system. It’s close to the people, process, technology framework: here, tools means the cadence and the dashboards as well as the technology.
Start with the system your company needs first, “good enough”: one KPI, a single owner, people paid toward that KPI, a draft process and good-enough tools. Communicate and train, then launch it with a weekly cadence. At 70 to 80% adoption, it gets the green light. It’s done when it passes the 12-point checklist, including running without its owner’s daily intervention and delivering results for 2 consecutive quarters. Delegate ownership of each system, pay people to do their job, and do your 1:1s with its owner.
AI is a tool to optimize a process, not the base of a system. It goes in after the base system is in place: when every box of the “done” checklist is ticked. The AI tool and the software serve the process that serves the person, not the other way around.
Not first. AI without a system raises activity and output, not revenue, performance or EBITDA. Build the base system first (one owner, one KPI tied to your P&L, people paid toward it, a weekly review) and get it to done: every box of the 12-point checklist ticked. Then look inside the process for where AI or software can improve it. The AI tool serves the process that serves the person.
Give every document a job. When no one can say what a document is for, or which KPI it moves, it’s noise. One owner and one KPI per system, reviewed every week, with people paid toward that KPI, tells everyone what each document, meeting and tool is for.
Because people move toward what they’re paid for. One KPI, owned by one person, tied to your P&L and reviewed every week, tells everyone what each document, meeting and tool is for. You change it quarterly if needed.
Diagnose before you push. Is it the process, the tools, the skills or the incentives? Where’s the bottleneck? Give each system one owner and one KPI, pay people toward it, and review it every week. Don’t break the ownership line: if someone owns a KPI and a team, no one else asks that team about it.
The weekly dashboard review: the most important meeting a leader has each week. Across people, process and tools, ask: What’s working? What do we do more of? What’s not working? What do we do less of? What needs to change to get to the KPI? The cadence also includes 1:1s that help people adopt the system and a quality check the team runs without the owner.
When it has a single owner and a #1 KPI, people paid toward that KPI, team and individual cadence, a team dashboard and individual taskboards, more than 70% of the team using it as designed, one communication channel and written workflows; when it runs the same way every time without the owner’s daily intervention; and when it delivers results tied to business goals for two consecutive quarters.
No. It isn’t another operating system. It builds your own systems from your strategy: one owner and one KPI per system tied to the P&L, the incentives, the weekly cadence and the dashboards. If you already run EOS or Scaling Up, these revenue systems run inside it.
The owner or CEO and the leaders who own a result in the company. Systems cascade down from the company strategy, so the people who set it need to be in the room.
It depends on your team and on how many systems you build. We agree on the format and the price on a 25-minute exploratory chat.
Book a 25-minute exploratory chat, no pitch and no strings attached, to see if a business systems workshop is the right way to grow revenue and EBITDA in your company.
What the session covers
If I’m not the right help, I’ll tell you on the call.
Launching a product or entering a market? That’s a go-to-market workshop.