Book Review: Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself

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Book Review: Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself
(Last Updated On: July 24, 2021)

This is the second book I have read that Mike Michalowicz has written. The first book was Profit First. I have become a huge fan of his writing and ideas. As part of the Modern Mrs. Darcy Read Challenge, I plan to read the rest of his books this year. Sometimes, you have to take a deep dive into an author’s work.

This book, Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself, focuses on the systems and processes necessary to get the maximum performance out of a company. It is about identifying the right things to do in your business and optimizing around them.


Clockwork is 254 pages spread over an introduction, closing, and ten chapters. Here is a list of those chapters:

  • Why your business is (still) stuck
  • Analyze your company’s time
  • Declare your company’s Queen Bee Role
  • Protect and serve the QBR
  • Capture systems
  • Balance the team
  • Know who you are serving
  • Keep an eye on your business
  • Pushback (and what to do about it)
  • The four-week vacation

If one does not have the right systems in place in a business, organization, or department, it is easy to become overwhelmed. When I started as the director for technology-enhanced instruction, the team in place was overwhelmed and worn out. Over the course of a year, we systemized operations. The operation now runs smoothly even when someone is out for an extended period of time. The last chapter of Clockwork is intentional. Michalowicz wants business owners to be able to take a four-week vacation without checking in. Businesses should be able to operate with no issues.

Michalowicz immediately stressed the importance of having systems in place to do the right things at the right time. We need to create systems that can be handed off to others as appropriate. By having systems in place, you can get more time in your schedule. This is how it worked for my department. The goal is to improve efficiency.

“Organizational efficiency is where you are accessing the best talents of your team (even a team of one) to do the most important work” (Michalowicz, 2018, p. 7).

In order to improve efficiency, Michalowicz shared that we must focus on doing the important things rather than running ragged doing the urgent things. From my experience, this required a gradual shift of putting out fires to creating an environment where we were more proactive.

The Clockwork system is based on a seven-step process:

  1. Analyze your 4D mix. This means capturing the levels of Doing, Deciding, Delegating, and Designing. Ideally, the business owner should be doing more designing than doing. Michalowicz has outlined a ratio. Each employee should analyze their own 4D ratio and the entire team should be analyzed. This will help to determine where to make improvements to your systems.
  2. The organization must identify the Queen Bee Role. This is the single most important function of the organization. This is central to the organization’s performance.
  3. Protect and serve the Queen Bee Role. Once the role has been identified, the rest of the organization works to maximize QBR’s efficiency and productivity.
  4. Document systems. By having a documented set of processes, you can then work to improve efficiency as well as delegate tasks to other individuals. You should be able to hand off a process to someone else with little training.
  5. Balance the team to get the right people doing the right processes at the right time. You are getting the right people in different doing, deciding, delegating, and designing functions.
  6. Commitment is about honing in on the right customers and making a commitment to standardized operations. If you want to become an exceptional company, you have to reduce exceptions.
  7. Become a Clockwork business. Once you have your system in place, it is now a matter of making small improvements to stay on track and reducing bottlenecks.

Michalowicz incorporated a lot of storytelling to help illustrate each of his messages. He used real-world examples from either his business or clients he had worked with.
Throughout the book, Michalowicz included practical exercises to help work through each step. Some of these tools included a time analysis worksheet, job traits analysis, and cringe/crush analysis. He walked one through each of the strategies he was explaining. All the worksheets and supporting video tutorials can be found on the website shared in the book. It will be great to be able to download these tools to be used with my team.

Most the ideas and principles that Michalowcz laid out, I had heard before. What was new was this idea of the Queen Bee Role. I liked the exercise he shared as a way to narrow down the role. This will be something I do with my team.

Because of implementing processes into my department, I am not afraid to leave for an extended period of time. It was impossible to do in the first year but now I can.

I keep hunting out books like this so that I can keep improving the systems we are using. I took away a number of interesting exercises. If you own a business regardless of the size, I would definitely encourage you to pick up a copy of Clockwork. I was certainly not disappointed.

Additional Reading

In the spirit of full disclosure, this is an affiliate link, which means that if you purchase this item through my link I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. I only recommend products & systems that I use and love myself, so I know you’ll be in good hands.
Plus, when you order through my link, it helps me to continue to offer you lots of free stuff. 🙂 Thank you, in advance for your support!

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