structures instead of processes

"Better structures lead to better work. People who care can magnify their impact by building structures that bring in more people who care."

- from Seth Godin's blog

I'm all about better work, but I tend to think of better work as a result of better processes. I've been a huge fan of identifying processes that lead to greater efficiency, but I'm definitely at fault for not bringing in more people who care. I'm guilty of thinking of myself or my team only, of not branching out or bringing in. When I think of processes, instead of structures, I think of reproducibility or replaceability (if either of those are words). I think of replacing one individual with another, applying the processes to the same situation. But as I listened to Seth Godin's book, Linchpin, I developed a deep philosophical problem with processes that allow for people to be viewed as cogs, easily replaceable with another cog following the same processes. For efficiency sake, maybe it's okay to assess some situations within the realm of processes, considering the best practices to become most efficient. At some point in that spectrum though, there must be a tipping point at which people are no longer the replaceable entity, and the move is made to robots, allowing for the ultimate replacement of the individual. That's a different discussion though, I think.  

So, back to structures instead of processes. It's good to be challenged in my thinking. Scaling up might not be Seth Godin's go-to topic, but it is something that he has written about. Anyway, the second sentence in the top quote, the part about bringing in more people, makes me think of scaling up within a structure. If I can identify a better structure, rather than a process, and bring in people to fill out that structure, allowing for growth, then the impact can be magnified. This is a different way of thinking for me. 

No more thoughts about simple processes that allow for people to be easily replaced. I want to work for better structures that can bring in more people to magnify impact. That's a much more inclusive principal, rather than exclusive. I like that a whole lot better.