StartupNation Blogs

When the “Shall I do it now or later?” question comes up for a new Centratel staff member, their not-yet-disciplined internal dialogue goes something like this: “What’s the difference if I do this task now or later? I just don’t feel like doing it right now. I’ll do it later because my guess is I [...]

Here’s an excerpt from Sam Carpenter’s book Work The System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less…       

Eight years ago, in the depths of my workplace chaos, I was also dealing with a very sick body and an exhausted mind. I was delirious during the day and couldn’t sleep at night. My doctor had [...]

Several years ago we had our house remodeled. Immediately after, we “flipped” another house. In both cases, numerous subcontractors, both experienced and inexperienced, did the work.�
Linda was the interior designer. I was the general contractor.�
In this world of framers, plumbers, electricians, roofers, and concrete specialists, there is an interesting commonality among inexperienced subcontractors: It is [...]

Here is an evaluation system, albeit waggish. It’s about tipping in restaurants, and I’ll preface things by saying I don’t believe a tip is a diner’s obligation. It’s a tip—something extra that one earns if the service he or she delivers is at least good.�
Linda and I sit down for a meal in a restaurant. [...]

Here’s a remove-the-system-altogether scenario. It’s the ultimate in simplifying things. My staff and I take delight in chucking unnecessary Centratel protocols. System-elimination is great to see in personal life, too.�
The cardio room at the gym where I work out is equipped with dozens of treadmills, step climbers, and stationary bikes. It’s a busy place, so [...]

In my small business, Centratel, each of our half-dozen key management people has had several years of on-the-job experience. Training managers to operate a telephone answering service is a long, drawn-out affair because it is necessary to understand a myriad of technical details and random facts. The introduction of documentation speeds up this training process, but [...]

Sometimes we install a system and it doesn’t do much. We achieve the desired effect by the mere existence of it.

At Centratel, we knew a few of our employees spent time “cruising the net” on company time. It was impossible to track these sleight-of-hand excursions and the closest we could get to managing the problem [...]

For years, a nagging problem in my small business, Centratel, was the time and effort it took to pay the monthly bills. The process did nothing for the bottom line and each month required 10 to 14 hours of my time to process 60-80 payables to various vendors. I wrote the checks, entered the transactions [...]

Not too long ago I participated in Cycle Oregon, a weeklong bicycle tour. Seventeen hundred riders pedaled an average of 75 miles each day through remote eastern Oregon. At night we camped in ad hoc tent cities planted at various locations along the route: rural high school football fields, small town parks, or wheat fields. [...]

It’s Sunday, September 6, and Linda and I are in Philadelphia. We stand in a pouring deluge – the brunt of tropical storm Hanna is upon us – as we wait to enter Independence Hall, located in the city’s Historic District. Drenched despite our umbrellas, 30 of us enter the annex of the building. We [...]