How business systemisation first gave me freedom

“When did a system first give you freedom?” — someone at a business club asked me recently. The truth is, this has happened several times in my life. And every time, it was business systemisation and structuring my work that became the turning point.

The first experience: bringing structure into a sales support department

The first time, I was 23. I became the head of a sales support department (oh, that promotion — helpless and ruthless at the same time).

Purely intuitively, after surviving a hellish overload, I started looking for patterns and similarities in tasks, slowly standardising the service of my department. Then I automated, automated, and automated again…

My workload finally levelled out. I even “grew” the department: we doubled the functional scope and split it into two groups — 11 and 5 people.

The second shift: management breakthrough and business systemisation as a skill

The second time came right after the “Operations 1.0” course by Liliya Gavrilenko (they are now running the 9th cohort, and I have long been a curator there). That’s when my whole management paradigm shifted. I suddenly saw very clearly what in my last 20 years of work was actual management, and what was just expert work — and how to build systems that do not depend on the manager personally.

It was a real breakthrough that took me to a new level for good. I radically re-built the department I was responsible for, introduced a clear accounting system, goal-based management and more.

Employee turnover dropped by 46% (compared to the previous three years) — I consider this one of the key success metrics for any leader. That was the first time I truly felt freedom to grow, develop products and build sales — thanks to business systemisation.

The third time: my own business and the impact school

The third time happened when I launched my own business: first the impact school (offline, programming for children aged 5–17), and later a second one — the consulting company ScaleLab.

The school very quickly demanded that I apply everything I knew — and more. It was my own business, funded with my own money, so there was no room for random experiments. Two things were absolutely critical for me:

• to reduce the number of management mistakes (so I wouldn’t burn money for nothing);

• to make sure the school did not swallow all my 24 hours a day.

  
  

Quite a challenge. But from day one I have been following two parallel tracks:

1. We do what is needed right now.

2. We continuously build standard processes — together with the team.

   
   

To be honest, I no longer dive into the school’s operations with my head first. A lot has already been structured, something is still in progress, something we are re-doing for the third time — but it is only thanks to the system that I had the time and energy to launch my second business.

Team, ownership and the knowledge base

I am not “just lucky” with my team — we truly have very engaged and passionate managers and teachers. But there is another side to it: I define ownership points very clearly, work only with plans, and maintain a knowledge base, training the team not to ask each other the same questions a thousand times, but to look for answers in our systems.

This approach really gives me freedom — the freedom not to go back to what we have already figured out, but to build, develop and expand further. Eight months after launch, our team opened the second branch of the school on the island.

Business systemisation as a source of freedom for founders

For me, systemisation — in business, in the calendar, in my thoughts — gives confidence in the result and in achieving the goals.

What business systemisation gives a founder

• Freedom of time — you don’t drown in day-to-day operations.

• Freedom to grow — you can open the second or third project without burning yourself out.

• Freedom to manage — through clear plans, metrics and a knowledge base, not through constant personal heroics.

  
  

This is why I talk so much about business systemisation — as a key milestone of a “grown-up” leader.

Want the same freedom from operations?

If you feel that operations are eating up your day and your business is growing slower than it could, I invite you to an operational diagnostic session with me, Evgeniya Chepkova.

During this session we will:

• unpack your current operating model;

• identify bottlenecks where you lose money, time and energy;

• outline clear next steps for business systemisation tailored to your reality and your team.

Book an operational diagnostic session and I’ll help you feel the same freedom I’m describing in this story.

Operations Discovery Session

30 мин.

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