Life can be very painful at times, especially when legal rights and defences are concerned.  For want of documentary evidence a right or a defence can fail, often with painful monetary consequences.

In the last year I have had to assist several businesses to defend themselves against claims where they had kept insufficient or inadequate documentation to support their argument or position.  It becomes very difficult to construct a defense when the evidence is largely anecdotal and verbal. 

Often the person or organisation prosecuting a case can support their argument with written contracts, meeting notes, correspondence, diary entries etc, and even though the moral ground may strongly be in favour of the defense, their argument can fail through lack of documentary proof.  Procecution lawyers and revenue authorities thrive on these situations.

The fundemental tenet here, and one that business people need to adhere to at all times is "if its not written, its not real". 

Its the same with business systems.  If you want want the people in your organisation to perform key tasks in the same way every time to achieve the same results every time, your systems need to be written down.  Some benefits of written systems are:

1. There can be now doubt about what is required to be done
2. Routine tasks can be dealt with quickly and easily
3. Performance measures can be easily understood by all
4. Performance can be measured against written standards
5. Documented systems form part of position agreements
6. There is transparency about what is required.

There is a moral here.  Next time you don't get the results you expect or have to defend your position in a complaint or action against you, look for the written documentation to support your point of view.  Whereever you find a gap, remedy it, especially if a material consequence could arise from its omission. Without written evidence your life will inevitably become more difficult.