Build #77 - Disco timesheets: When operations meet human messiness
There's a moment in every founder's journey when their brilliant team of creative humans refuse to follow a painstakingly thought through process. What you imagined would be a game-changer to alleviate stress becomes the operational equivalent of herding cats. Except, the cats are talented professionals who somehow manage to deliver exceptional work while steadfastly ignoring the procedures you've spent weeks documenting.
This tension - the gap between the structures we need to build sustainable businesses, and the beautiful messiness of real humans.
The process paradox
Here's an example of what typically happens: A founder in a service business discovers they have no real idea which projects are profitable. They implement timesheets. Nobody fills them in. The founder gets frustrated. Team members feel micromanaged. Everyone loses.
The problem isn't the timesheet itself – it's that we've forgotten a fundamental truth: processes must exist to serve people, not the other way around.
When I sat down with Helen Bazuaye, fellow Extra Brain, to discuss this tension, she hit on something crucial: "When founders say 'I can't get people to follow processes,' you almost want to step back and ask – how did you birth those processes?"
It's a killer question. Why? Because most processes are born in isolation, created by someone who thinks they know what's best, then imposed on a team who have had little say in their creation.
Why good people hate good processes
Let's stick with timesheets as our example (though this applies to any operational system). When I dig into why people resist them, here's what emerges:
The big brother effect: "It feels like I'm being watched," one creative director told Helen. The fear isn't just about surveillance – it's about judgment. What if a task took longer than expected? What if inspiration didn't strike in the allocated 2 hour window?
The perfectionism trap: Some team members struggle with the binary nature of time tracking. How do you log "thinking time"? What about when a brilliant idea strikes in the shower?
Disconnection: Perhaps most critically, people don't understand why they're being asked to track time. It feels like an administrative burden rather than vital business intelligence. When a founder takes the time to explain the simple connection between time and profitability, healthy customer relationships and pricing, people feel very differently and begin to understand how the process serves the greater good.
Compliance to co-creation
So, how do we build systems that people actually want to use? The answer lies in shifting from compliance to co-creation.
Start with why (but make it human). Instead of "We need timesheets for project profitability analysis," try "Without understanding how long things really take, we might price ourselves out of existence – or worse, burn everyone out by undercharging."
When you explain that time tracking helps ensure the business survives to pay everyone's rent, suddenly it's not about Big Brother – it's about collective survival.
Embrace the resistance. Don't dismiss people's objections as laziness or rebellion. If someone hates a process, they probably have a good reason. Maybe they've spotted a flaw you missed. Maybe they have a better idea.
Helen made it clear: "Processes will be better when they are co-created by lots of different people because then you get lots of different perspectives, and solutions that have broader appeal."
Make it less painful (or even fun). Imagine a team who turned Friday afternoon timesheet session into a celebration. Music, merriment, collective groaning about difficult clients – a ritual to mark the end of the week rather than a chore. Disco Timesheets anyone?
Maybe there are better tools to reduce friction that we could find or make: "Hey computer, I'm starting the Johnson project."
The art of productive messiness
Even with the best processes, you're still dealing with humans. Glorious, chaotic, unpredictable humans.
Take the perfectionist who consistently delivers award-winning work but always blows the budget. Do you force them into your neat process box? Or do you build a system that harnesses their excellence while protecting project profitability?
The answer, as Helen and I discovered, lies in understanding that teams are ecosystems. You need the perfectionist who wins awards AND the pragmatist who ships on time. The key is creating structures that allow both to thrive while serving the collective goal.
Can you design teams that build on each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and then create processes that allow them to work better as a whole?
Building for change, not compliance
Perhaps the most crucial insight from our conversation was this: change is the only constant. The processes that work today might be obsolete tomorrow. The team you have will evolve. Your market will shift. An outdated process might show up in a lack of engagement, or a complete failure in one area of business.
This means building systems with flexibility baked in. Regular reviews. Constant dialogue. The humility to admit when something isn't working.
For founders and leaders, this presents a unique challenge. You need structure to scale, but rigidity kills innovation. You need consistency to deliver quality, but uniformity crushes creativity.
The solution? Trust.
Trust that your team wants the business to succeed, and motivate and incentivise them to care. Trust that they'll tell you when processes aren't working, and really listen. Trust that a lack of compliance signals deeper friction in how we’ve created the process, not just a rebellion from an unruly team.
The invisible process
The best processes are invisible. They support rather than constrain. They clarify rather than control. They evolve rather than calcify.
So yes, you need timesheets (or whatever your equivalent tracking mechanism is). But you need disco timesheets (!) – or at least systems designed with joy, humanity, and collective purpose at their heart.
In most businesses, we're not building factories. We're building communities of talented humans trying to create something valuable together. And that requires a different kind of operational thinking altogether.
The next time you're tempted to impose a new process, ask yourself: Would people choose to do this if they didn't have to? Will they understand the value or rationale? Have I involved them in how we think about this way of working? If the answer is no, you've got more work to do.
This article emerged from a conversation between Jessica Gregson and Helen Bazuaye about the tension between operational efficiency and human complexity. For more perspectives on building better ways of working, subscribe to Extra Brain's Brainwaves on Substack.