# Four different jobs hiding behind the word production [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-13 updated: 2026-10-13 language: en reading time: 5 min topic: Organization source booklet: [The Three Hats](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/three-hats) A business that only operates and corrects what came out wrong, without touching the machine that produces, finds that the corrections keep growing. The word production covers four different jobs. Two of them concern the machine that produces, and two concern its product. Most small businesses work only on the product, so the amount that needs correcting keeps growing. ## Four products, one word The booklet describes three hats: one drives production, one arranges the flow, and one builds the foundation and maintains it. Those are the Product, Organizing and Establishment Officers. Up to this chapter, production is a single word. Here it splits into four jobs: - Establishing something that produces. - Operating what produces, to obtain a product. - Repairing or correcting what produces. - Repairing or correcting what has been produced. The first and the third concern the **machine**. The second and the fourth concern **its product**. The gap between the first and the third matters too. According to the booklet, building is an event and maintaining is a habit, and whoever builds without maintaining has built something that will crumble. Suppose a business set up well three years ago and untouched since. Its computer is slow, its procedures no longer fit, and no one has had training since. The first product happened and the third did not. The booklet says this sounds abstract until you apply it. Training an employee is the first product. That employee serving a client is the second. Fixing a broken procedure is the third, and redoing an order that went out wrong is the fourth. In a bakery, building an oven and training a baker is the first product. Baking is the second. Repairing the oven is the third, and rebaking a burnt loaf is the fourth. In a design studio, building a working template is the first and designing for a client is the second. Updating the template when it goes stale is the third, and redoing a design the client rejected is the fourth. ## Who is responsible for what The booklet links this to the three hats, and it points out that the source states the link outright and leaves nothing to inference. The Establishment Officer is responsible for the first and the third products: putting the machine in place and repairing it. From his viewpoint, everybody else in the business works on the second and the fourth. They operate the machine and correct what came out of it. So when the Establishment Officer gets pulled into production, he moves from the machine to the product. After that, nobody holds the machine itself. That is why the booklet says the Establishment Officer stays out of the production cycles. It allows one exception: stepping in to learn the work personally, so that he can train others in it properly. Suppose a clinic manager who is supposed to hold training and procedures, and who jumps in to cover reception. The files stop being updated, because nobody is maintaining the thing that produces. And the opposite: a garage owner who gave one day a month to the third product alone, going over what had broken in the procedures. His repeat repairs halved. ## Why the corrections only grow According to the booklet, most small businesses live in the second and the fourth products. They produce, and they fix what came out wrong. Nobody touches the building and maintenance of the machine, so the corrections to the output grow. From this the booklet draws a sharp rule. If your corrections are growing, with repeat fixes, redone work and the same client complaint again and again, the cause is almost always the maintenance of the machine. The corrections are only where it shows. Suppose a freelance consultant who maps her month and finds she spends a day each week fixing rejected quotes. Her quote template has not been updated in two years. Or a restaurant owner who bought a new oven in a rush because the old one burned out during a busy service. With the establishment hat active, the old oven would have gone out before it failed, for less money and without losing an evening. Or a shop owner who finds that all his training happens inside the fourth product. He teaches his staff through their mistakes, and sets up no training in advance. This also explains the feeling the booklet opens with, of running all day while nothing gets easier. When every hour goes into operating and correcting what came out, no hour goes to the machine that produces all of it. ## What the booklet has on this This chapter of the booklet has two exercises, a spot-it exercise and an analysis exercise, and before them a simple way to map your own business onto the four products. After it, the booklet turns to how the hats separate when a sole trader grows into a team. Every correction of something that came out wrong solves today. Only work on the machine itself shrinks what will need correcting tomorrow. - [The Three Hats](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/three-hats): Three names for three jobs, and a diagnosis that tells you which one is missing in your business today. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/four-products-behind-production) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/four-products-behind-production)