When things feel messy inside a business, the first instinct is often to hand it over to the operations manager. After all, they know your business better than anyone, right? So it makes sense that they’d also be the one to streamline how things work.
But here’s the problem, when the person building the systems is buried inside those same systems every day, they often can’t see the inefficiencies and unnecessary complexities that have built up over time.
Why Inside Perspective Has Blind Spots
Your operations manager understands your people, your customers, and your workflow. That’s their strength. But that daily closeness also creates blind spots. They’ve learned to work around problems rather than question them. Over time, those small workarounds become accepted as “the way we do it here,” even if they’re adding friction and slowing everything down.
When an insider writes your processes, they’re usually documenting how things currently run—not how they should run. The result is a binder full of instructions that keep everyone busy but don’t actually make the business run smoother or more profitably.
What an Outside Expert Sees That Insiders Miss
An outside expert approaches your business with fresh eyes. They can quickly spot patterns of confusion, overlapping roles, and unclear accountability—things your internal team may not even notice anymore. They’re also skilled at designing systems that reduce noise and hand-holding, so everyone knows exactly what success looks like in their role.
Instead of building more complexity, they uncover and remove it.
The Benefit of Pairing Internal Knowledge with Outside Clarity
The best systems come from collaboration. Your ops manager’s deep understanding of how things have been done is valuable—but it works best when paired with an outsider’s ability to question assumptions and simplify. Together, they can build a structure that truly supports growth instead of just documenting chaos.
The Takeaway
If you want your business to run more smoothly, don’t ask your ops manager to tackle it all alone. Give them the support and perspective they need to see what’s really holding the business back.
Want help uncovering the hidden bottlenecks in your systems? I’ll be launchign my hybrid coaching program soon. It takes the best of my framework that helps to compress time, increase productivity, and increase profitability, moving at your speed while also having access to the team at GBC to move keep moving you forward.
Send an email if this is something you want more information on.
Stephanie German is a business coach for small businesses focused on strategy and impact who are ready to take action with scalable guidance without the non-sense. She directly works with owners, founders, and leaders through a specific framework to compress time, increase income, and boost productivity. Find out ways to work together here.