The strategic distinction between working IN your business (executing tasks) versus working ON your business (designing systems). Master both types of leverage to transform from operator to architect.
Most founders and product leaders are trapped. They spend 90% of their time working in the business—writing code, answering support tickets, creating content, managing tasks. They become the bottleneck of their own organization.
How well your processes are designed. Improved through Value Stream Mapping, systems thinking, and strategic work.
How much work gets done within your systems. Multiplied through AI agents, automation, and delegation.
The breakthrough insight: you need both. A perfectly designed system with no execution capacity produces nothing. Massive execution capacity within a broken system just creates waste faster. The magic happens when you optimize both simultaneously.
Operational work. The tasks that keep the lights on. Essential, but doesn't scale.
Each feature requires your time
One question at a time
Manual production each time
Synchronous time investment
Strategic work. Designing systems that produce results without you.
Design efficient workflows once
Enable others/AI to execute
Reusable frameworks
Systems that self-correct
Track your time for one week. What percentage is spent ON vs IN?
Value Stream Mapping is the quintessential "working ON the business" activity. When you step back and visualize your entire workflow—from customer need to delivered value—you're not doing the work. You're redesigning how work happens.
Most people are stuck in their corner of the workflow. VSM forces you to see end-to-end, revealing bottlenecks invisible from any single position.
The 8 wastes (waiting, motion, defects, etc.) are only visible from above. You can't eliminate waste you can't see.
Once you see current reality, you can architect an improved future. This is pure "ON the business" work.
A well-designed value stream keeps delivering value long after the mapping session ends.
Teams make random optimizations based on gut feel. No way to know if changes help.
Know exactly where the bottleneck is. Measure before/after. Every improvement compounds.
AI agents represent a paradigm shift in operational leverage. For the first time, you can multiply execution capacity without proportional cost increases. But here's the key insight: AI agents are only as good as the systems they operate within.
Well-defined triggers, contexts, and data. Comes from good system design.
Agents follow your designed workflows, making decisions within defined boundaries.
Consistent results that feed into the next step of your value stream.
AI handles tier-1 support, answers FAQs, routes complex issues to humans.
AI drafts content from templates, follows brand guidelines, prepares for human review.
AI processes interview transcripts, surfaces patterns, generates initial insights.
AI writes boilerplate, implements specs, handles routine coding tasks.
AI agents amplify whatever system they're plugged into. This is why "ON the business" work must come first:
Produces garbage faster. Amplifies waste. Creates new problems at scale.
Multiplies throughput. Maintains quality. Frees humans for creative work.
The real magic happens when you combine strategic leverage (ON) with operational leverage (IN). This is multiplicative, not additive.
| Low Execution (Manual Only) | High Execution (AI Agents) | |
|---|---|---|
| Poor Systems (No VSM) | Struggling Waste everywhere, no capacity | Scaling Chaos AI produces waste faster |
| Good Systems (VSM Optimized) | Efficient but Limited Good systems, capacity constrained | Maximum Leverage Optimized systems + scaled execution |
Track every task for one week. Categorize: is this ON or IN work?
Choose your most painful workflow. Apply Value Stream Mapping.
Pick the highest-leverage point in your mapped value stream. Deploy an AI agent there.
Track the metrics that matter. Continuously improve both system design and AI capabilities.
The shift from operator to architect isn't just about tools or processes. It's a fundamental mindset change in how you approach your work.
Every morning, before diving into execution, spend 15 minutes asking:
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