A business process is a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output that is of value to the customer. A business process has a goal and is affected by events occurring in the external world or in other processes.

EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect.

It is characteristic of executive roles that they are specialized for the handling of situations which call for something more than routine action. When business executives are asked what is the essential content of their roles, they characteristically say, 'We make decisions.' This emphasis on decision-making is symptomatic of a specialized concern of executives with situations in which there is significant uncertainty as to the results of proper courses of action. (One does not make a 'decision' when there is a predictable, correct outcome, as in getting the sum of a column of figures.)

A process is a formal, well-structured communication vehicle. It can be a heavily engineered Six Sigma process or it can be a well-structured regular meeting. The size of the process should be scaled up or down to meet the needs of the communication challenge that it facilitates. When communication in an organization spans across organizational boundaries, processes will help ensure that the communication happens and that it happens with quality.

More than the topography and cartography of organization would be necessary to understand the executive functions; a knowledge of the kinds and qualities of the forces at work and the manner of their operation would also be needed.

The purpose of process is communication. If there are five people in your company, you don’t need process, because you can just talk to each other.

The inculcation of belief in the real existence of a common purpose is an essential executive function.

The executive is primarily concerned with decisions which facilitate or hinder other decisions.

In definitional terms, a process is simply a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus’s emphasis on what. A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action.

It is essentially to the very idea and concept of organization that we there must be a process, formal in character, through which the supreme co-ordinating authority operates throughout the whole structure of the organized body. This process is not an abstraction; it is a tangible reality observable in every organization. It appears in a form so distinct and characteristic that it practically names itself, — hence the term Scalar Process.

If the executive lets the flow of events determine what he does, what he works on, and what he takes seriously, he will fritter himself away “operating.” He may be an excellent man. But he is certain to waste his knowledge and ability and to throw away what little effectiveness he might have achieved. What the executive needs are criteria which enable him to work on the truly important, that is, on contributions and results, even though the criteria are not found in the flow of events.

The purpose of process is communication.

Management is not a matter of pressing a button, pulling a lever, issuing orders, scanning profit and loss statements, promulgating rules and regulations. Rather, management is the power to determine what shall happen to the personalities and to the happiness of entire peoples, the power to shape the destiny of a nation and of all the nations which make up the world. Executive work, therefore, is statesmanship and the techniques which the executive employs are only incidental to the forces which he sets in motion and helps to direct. It is no exaggeration, therefore, to say that the management of the nation's large institutions, both in business and in government, determines the fate of millions of individual lives as well as the lives of generations unborn.

The task of an executive is not to change human beings. Rather, as the Bible tells us in the parable of the Talents, the task is to multiply performance capacity of the whole by putting to use whatever strength, whatever health, whatever aspiration there is in individuals.