WEBVTT
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I'm Belle Walker and I take organizations from friction to function.
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So I use a really simple model, think of organizations as having three main components, the things they're trying to accomplish, the people who need to accomplish them, the structures and processes in the middle.
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I focus entirely on those structures and processes.
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So, some might blithely call that ops, a topic you all are very familiar with, but I come at it from an engineering background.
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So mechanical systems engineering, seeing a lot of overlap between how you effectively design, uh, and build mechanical structures or how you coordinate systems across black boxes.
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That's very applicable when you're looking at an organization, we talk about org structures, we look at different functions, they need to coordinate.
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So I've built the teams directly and I've been consulting for the last five years, and love working across industries.
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And I'm so excited that you are making this Ops or Die podcast because goodness knows I've seen way too many organizations that choose the, Or Die.
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Thank you for that.
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I love it.
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It's so much a joke.
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It's not so much a choice, baby.
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Well, we'll get back to some of those examples because I know you've had quite an illustrious career yourself.
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So we can dig into that.
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But I mean, today we're going to talk about more around, you know, the little hot take of which comes first, process or role.
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And yeah, so what do you think the framing is broken?
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Just give us a little bit of highlights on your views of which you think comes first and what you feel is broken and what not.
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Yeah, I mean, if it's okay with you, I'd actually like to start with a little bit of terminology, because what I found is that when I talk process and other people talk process, we all think we're on the same page.
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And often it's what I refer to as a tricksy word, where we can have different meanings.
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And the same with roles, almost to a larger extent.
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So when I'm talking about process, I'm talking about something that is repeatable and standardizable.
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And that is, can be very vague.
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But this gets into the kind of in the box around the box piece I was talking about with systems engineering.
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So a process may be very, very detailed, almost an SOP of really digging in on how like what buttons do you click what happens in each stage, or it could be something very high level that says, you know, Maria meets a guest, she introduces them to Katie, Katie creates the recording configuration, and then we do the interview, right, that even that is a process because it's repeatable.
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But you know, somebody who's not Maria or Katie might not know how to implement that.
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And so that that's what I mean, my process with roles, I tend to mean the zone of ownership, where, where are that?
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What are the things that you own that are fully in your wheelhouse?
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What are the areas where you're dependent on others?
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What are the areas where others are dependent on you?
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And what are the collaboration touch points?
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So being able to say, Yes, I own that.
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No, I definitely don't.
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Or I'm not sure.
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But being able to open up that conversation and at least have a other side of I'm not sure.
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And so I'd love to pause for a moment and just get your takes on on that terminology as well.
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How well are we aligned even coming into this discussion and where do we vary?
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Yeah, I think we're very aligned, honestly.
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I think when you come from that operations kind of background as far as systems and formulation thereof, you tend to hold the same definitions in your head.
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Now that being said, let me be clear, I totally understand why other people may not feel as aligned because process I think a lot of people have varying definitions of what a process is.
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Anything that takes you from point A to point B is a process and it's like, well, sure.
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But what can you repeat?
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And repeat is something that we deal with a lot in our side because we deal with a lot of automation and integration and it's those pieces that are a lot of the places where you can see that repeatable manual work that we're trying to pull out of the process.
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And then I think as far as roles, I think people get a lot, what I've seen the biggest problem with and I would love to hear Maria's take on this just because we talk about this a lot is titles have nothing to do with roles.
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Especially in startup, especially in the world today, it feels like titles just kind of what title do you want?
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How do you want to be known?
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And they don't align that with what the person is, is DRI for, directly responsible individual.
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Like, what is your role?
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What do you do?
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And so I think roles and titles are not equal.
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They don't equal it on a lot of people's heads.
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They're supposed to, right?
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And that's not a thing.
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So I mean, Maria, what do you think about process and roles?
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Yeah, I mean, so fully aligned, you know, process for me is also that roadmap of how you get a series of tasks done.
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But in order to get a series of tasks done, you really need to clearly define who's responsible for which aspect of that, right.
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And a lot of the time, I think when people talk about specific roles, they think, oh, that person, you know, my favorite, oh, the chief operations officer or the operations managers are just responsible for it all.
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Yeah, they may be the director of the symphony orchestra and assigning what needs to happen and making sure things track.
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But at the end of the day, they they're not responsible for the business function of the role that also has a key part and collaborations is so important in defining the framework.
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So otherwise, it can lead into a big mess.
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I've seen huge conflict happen because a roles were not defined.
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And thank you, Belle, so much for coming up with a definition of what a word means.
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I know you come from a product background as well.
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And I've seen products, product delivery and service delivery on software development gone horribly wrong, because no one in the team responsible for delivering on the requirements of whatever they thought they were building focused on understanding the words and you know, especially if you're dealing with cross functional and cross cultural, cross language teams.
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A word for one group can mean quite different to the word for another one.
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And I have a project and the minute, just some something simple.
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Let's define the words we speak about that that then pulled that put the disaster back and then it took them another month for delivery, but it was just unnecessary delay.
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So roles who does what who's responsible for what who takes the lead and things are so important.
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And you know, I like to frame it around when you look at a sports team.
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And let's let's use soccer, right or football as it's known in the UK and the year and the rest of the world. Unless there's clearly defined roles and positions on the field.
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And what what those responsibilities need.
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I mean, that that team will just be chaos, everyone will run around chasing the ball.
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They won't be able to get to the goalposts.
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So yeah, I'm you started and I think it really starts with okay, what is it that we want to do?
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And then how are we going to frame who's responsible for what?
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That tied in back with soccer slash football back to what Katie was saying about the titles versus the roles.
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Because, you know, you can almost draw a parallel there to the numbers on the jerseys versus the roles and the positions.
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I know in American football, there is, I don't actually remember the exact details, but there is some general guidance around numbers and certain ranges are typically assigned to certain positions or functions or sets of positions.
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So like the offensive line has a certain range of numbers, and there can be real value in that, right?
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It doesn't necessarily need to be one to one, but I do encourage the folks that I work with where possible.
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It doesn't necessarily need to be public facing, but having something internally that does have a little more information in your titles can be super valuable.
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I had a client, I counted at one point, they had five managing directors reporting to each other.
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Right down the door, managing director, managing director, five.
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That causes big conflict and I was part of an organization where that structure was sort of set up and even though a lot of people said this is not going to work and it and quite frankly it didn't caused a lot of conflict.
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Yeah it doesn't work just because they think that investors think that having a title is going to make them invest.
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That's not the that's not the thing.
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Yeah.
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I think that idea of having that kind of set guardrails, if you will, around these titles equal this area, these titles equal this area, and more to what you were talking about, that hierarchy.
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You see a lot of companies going towards more of a flat hierarchy, and that's a choice.
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And I don't have strong feelings on whether that's a good choice or a bad choice.
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But when you are in a hierarchy, what someone is called under someone else, and what the person managing is called over someone else, that does actually inform their role.
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So, it's more of a matrices instead of a straight line of these titles mean this role.
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It's both the up and down titles mean a certain thing, and the across titles mean a certain thing.
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So, you have to be cognizant of how that works, and we all want people to feel good about themselves, but we do need to be accurate about what they're doing in some form or fashion.
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And so, figuring out what that looks like, and actually having a strategy around how you title positions in your company does matter to their roles, and I think not a lot of companies think about that side bit.
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So okay, so now that we've level set on the definitions, I can actually answer Maria's question around which comes first.
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And I think as this discussion is kind of unlocked, big old spoiler alert, this is going to be one of those, it depends.
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And I think most of the interesting conversation is around those dependencies.
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Because I think if you try to go too deep into the roles and the details before you have any processes, you can certainly shoot yourself in the foot.
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And at the same time, if you try to dig too deep into your processes without knowing who has ownership in what area, you can end up with a lot of people stepping on each other's toes or duplication of work or just straight up the wrong person doing something because the process was built around, you know, a lack of knowledge and a lack of structure.
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So I guess a little bit of the framing is potentially a little broken.
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So, so it's like a chicken and egg situation, you know, which at first they kind of have to come together.
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So I think one of the things that can can help to to guide people is you start a business.
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Most people don't start it just with them.
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You're starting it with other people.
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And so a lot of times when we're looking at kind of a greenfield arrangement, when we're talking to companies, clients who who need help with their operations, a lot of times we're looking at, okay, who do you have?
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And then, all right, what do you have to do?
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What do you have to get done on the back end of your business?
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And let's start from those processes and those people that we have and move outwards.
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And I think that's such a perfect framing of what do you have and move outwards, and also what do you need, right?
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This came up because I was in a prospect conversation and there was another, there was a coach in the call who is awesome, and I respect the bajeesus out of the work that he does, and something that he said in that conversation was, I don't know if we need to get into the roles because that's pretty advanced, right?
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Let's get our processes nailed down because that's fairly straightforward.
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And those of you who are not on YouTube, there's some faces happening here that I agree with.
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And I think there can be truth to that.
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The challenge is in this particular case, we were talking to just this amazing COO person.
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I don't know if that's her actual title.
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That's effectively what she's been doing.
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And part of the challenge I have right now is they had to contract their staff.
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She's working, she's covering a lot of roles right now, and she is covering a lot of roles.
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She has all the knowledge to build out these processes, but is that a good use of her time?
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It is really basic work.
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It is really doable.
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And so to spend her time and energy on this basic stuff feels like a total waste for me when you could start spending out these roles with a little more coherence and have them building the processes.
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So the fact that it's arguably more basic in their context is almost a counter argument for why it should come first.
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And as soon as I heard that, I was like, oh, I want to hear what Marie and Katie have to say about this moment.
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It reminds me of, you know, one of the statements that we hear so much from another mutual friend, Kimberly Wepling, who does a lot of work with large organizations around innovation and getting innovation more embedded in the culture.
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And, and she also comes from project management and it says a whole wording around stop, you know, before you start doing anything first stop S stands for stop.
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T things for think.
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O stands for organize and P stands for plan.
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And I think that that's actually a nice framework to think about on when you starting operations is really need to think of what's the why we want to do something.
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Who should be involved?
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What is it that we want to do and how are we going to measure it?
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Because as we know, a process is only effective when it's repeatable and it can improve, right?
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So, and that this conversation reminds me of that.
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But yeah, how are we going to organize around this is one of the key things, which is we're not may not maybe not necessarily the roles, but the responsibilities of who's doing what comes in because also in different roles, you can actually contribute in a process without having to be responsible for that part of the process.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And it's it was my face.
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When you said that.
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I called the the bitter thought face.
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The because I've been in that moment before I've been in this that COO person's position before where someone is saying like, Oh, we'll just do this as well.
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When people when people have looked at me and say, Oh, just add this.
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Why don't we just the just Just should not come into play because operations, I think people sometimes forget outside of operations when your role, I think operations roles are ill defined regularly, because operations kind of is a hat to so many things.
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And that definition, Oh, goodness, let's not even go there.
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That would be the rest of the entire conversation.
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So there, the role is ill defined anyway.
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And so you're carrying a lot of responsibility over certain things.
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And people sometimes outside of those roles see it as this bottomless well of resource.
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Like, well, all these things fall under it.
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So you just have eternity, never ending time to spend on everything and, and stopping like Maria said, using that acronym to really stop and think about and plan.
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Because is it the best use of their time?
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Time is not a free resource.
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And while sometimes there's they, everyone forgets that the time is not free.
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You are paying for time, you are paying for people's time, you are paying for it in loss of time to spend on other pieces, you are paying for time in a number of different metrics that you don't think about.
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And I love that concept of I'm also on the horizon when you think about that organize and plan running with this example let's say that it is we think the best use of this ops leaders time to build out these these processes because that is a basic building block who does she give them to right and what is the Herself! Don't you know?
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like she's writing them so she knows.
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And when you say who does she give them to, what is the future of those roles, right?
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In their particular case, they are entering a period of high growth.
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And I know that's something a lot of your clients and a lot of your listeners are gearing up for.
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Is this, okay, I'm getting the foundation in place.
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I'm either in the middle of, or I'm really hoping for some fast growth coming up.
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And there are plenty of organizations that say, look, we're gonna crush it with 15 people for the foreseeable future.
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So if I'm at 14 people and I know I need one more person and that that role is not likely to change anytime for the next five years, I'm gonna hire someone totally different than if I'm at 14 people and shooting for 50 in the next 12 months.
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And I want this 15th person to be leading eight of those other individuals in a very different place.
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You may end up quote unquote overpaying for that 15th hire in the fast growth scenario for a couple of months while they're doing this rote work when really what's happening is you're giving them ownership of these processes and having them create them and refine them and then teach them and delegate them and manage them.
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In that scenario, now you've wasted extra time because if you're bringing in a leader like that and you had your original ops leader write the darn things, you could have just passed that off, right?
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Versus if you know you're bringing in someone junior, well, yeah, then have your ops leader write those processes so that your junior person can follow them.
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Yeah.
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So it sounds to me like the framing itself is a little broken on how we approach this is what comes first and and it depends is an answer we give constantly.
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Tell us your story and then we'll tell you what we can do.
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And and so that's a it's a fascinating idea to really dig into.
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So let's take a real world example.
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We're focusing on the wrong thing first, created friction, dysfunction, inefficiency, or or business death.
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Yeah, so fortunately the example that springs to mind for me does not go straight to business death.
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It was dysfunction and efficiency friction.
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This was a company I was working with that does staffing, short-term staffing for nurses.
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And so they have incredibly fast, rigorous scheduling that they need to do.
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We had worked on their scheduling process so that we could document it and make it easier for new hires coming in to engage with.
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And it was really fun insight, interesting project.
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And then it was time to look at their recruiting because if you're staffing all of these nurses, you have to have nurses staff, two staff.
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And so we got, I don't know, probably a very, very, very frustrating two or three weeks into looking at this recruiting process before we realized no one actually, sorry, not recruiting, onboarding, the onboarding process where before we realized nobody knew who owned it because the staffing team and the recruiting team, there was something that happens in between when the recruiters give an offer letter and when the staffers can staff them and nobody knew who owned that in between or where the line was.
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And so I was going back and forth for two or three weeks trying to figure out, okay, how do we do this onboarding before we realized, oh, there is a much bigger roles issue here that we need to diagnose that, a little bit of forethought probably could have saved them a ton of time and stress and pain and turnover, which is one of the biggest symptoms I see.
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So that was a process first, whoopsie.
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And how did you resolve that?
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we took a step back and we looked at the roles.
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In their particular case, we ended up looking at their entire operating model for the organization because they had a couple of these clear buckets of ownership.
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They knew who owned the recruiting.
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They knew who owned the staffing.
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There was less clarity around almost everything else in their business.
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Even on the finance side, they had some fuzziness around where the billing and collections and invoicing and payroll and how those pieces all fit together were nominally under finance, but there was heavy dependence on the staffing team for validation and how things were going out.
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So there were a lot of these gray areas that when we took a step back, we realized, oh, there's a ton of opportunity just to give these really talented, excited people some clarity around their boundaries and they can run with it.
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That was a huge unlock.
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So even though we then went back to focusing on onboarding, a whole bunch of other problems in their business started to resolve themselves because they had great people.
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They had great leaders.
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Great leaders just didn't necessarily know where they were empowered to go drive the change that needed to happen.
00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:24.319
Yeah.
00:26:25.859 --> 00:26:30.200
And in a way, it's like trying to figure out where the key friction points are.
00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:57.160
I know I've also had a great example of a business process that was really broken in the mobile industry for one of the carriers I was working at and the impact of, you know, and I think in a way, one of those things of someone telling the other party, oh, just get it done, you know, typically it's IT, just please just get this done.
00:26:57.839 --> 00:27:12.460
And then if everyone is so focused on process, they design this fantastic thing, but then it doesn't really work effectively in the real life because no one bothered to talk to people who has to actually follow the process.
00:27:13.240 --> 00:27:13.819
Yeah.
00:27:14.599 --> 00:27:23.180
And so it caused extremely high drop off rates for signing up contracts in this case.
00:27:23.720 --> 00:27:31.240
And I literally had, I was in charge of the IT team and I literally said, okay, fine, we're all going to go through training.
00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:54.920
We're going to pretend we're in the role of a customer support person who needs to over the phone sign someone up or to go and work in a store and go through the training and literally see how people are dealing with the frustrations of what they think easier process is, but the system clearly doesn't do.
00:27:55.720 --> 00:27:55.720
Yeah.
00:27:56.220 --> 00:28:05.319
And it was actually quite amazing to see when you send people out in the life of standing in the shoes of someone who actually needs to use the process.
00:28:06.539 --> 00:28:29.119
And what came out, they very quickly understood the friction points came back in a month completely redid the whole process, cleaned it up, made it a lot more effective, went from 10 screens on the system down to three screens to sign one up and lo and behold, the minute we turned it on, we had 30% increase in signups.
00:28:31.259 --> 00:28:50.460
So yeah, I think it's just getting insights of who's doing what part of it in the roles where the roles become so key, understanding the stakeholder ecosystem of weird impacts and tapping into the innovation of how they think it should be.
00:28:53.000 --> 00:29:35.000
And we talked about that actually before we started a little bit, we touched on that, that stakeholder, there's so, so many times where the people who actually are living and breathing in the process or in the system or have to be one of those directly responsible individuals and take ownership of pieces or take the handoff piece, take that baton between in the process between one department and the next department that have never been consulted, that have never been asked the question, how does this work for you?
00:29:35.880 --> 00:29:38.740
What would you like to have happen?
00:29:39.579 --> 00:29:57.680
And I'm not saying that every single person has to be involved in creating a process, but there does need to be a conversation between the people who have to use either the information coming out of the process, information going into the process, or where the process meets in the middle.
00:29:58.720 --> 00:30:05.160
Because that handoff of batons, I just think of like people running, you know, relay races, right?
00:30:05.339 --> 00:30:16.039
That's a lot of what processes internally and operations become because information has to go from one place to the next team to the next team to the next team.
00:30:17.039 --> 00:30:31.339
And I just imagine these relay runners just running over batons, rolling around, falling down, because that's what ends up happening in these processes because no one's taking the next part or the the pass isn't happening.
00:30:31.859 --> 00:30:49.799
And so there's just pieces lying all over the field of data of half finished processes, because no one was ever talked to about, oh, so this is the specific place where this piece of information goes to this person.
00:30:50.200 --> 00:30:53.920
And the rest of this list of things to do belongs to them.
00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:08.160
Well, and so then the question I would I would sort of raise then is, do you also have examples of times where focusing on the roles first actually did cause a pain or a gap?
00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:15.920
Because I do have some and I can offer because I feel like we painted this picture now that actually there is an answer, right?
00:31:16.019 --> 00:31:17.160
And it's roles first.
00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:32.940
And to some extent, I would say, yes, and I if you're too early, having general areas is valuable and important, but strict boundaries can cause a lot of pain.
00:31:33.700 --> 00:31:53.750
Because what I have seen is if you try to put really clear, really tight roles early on, you can segue into more of that kind of finger pointing blame game world, then a small team can afford to wrangle with.
00:31:54.609 --> 00:32:01.109
Yeah, so, you know, I'm curious, that's sort of my example is when you get into these, like, well, no, my zone ends here.
00:32:01.309 --> 00:32:05.910
And so, okay, but there are five of us, there's going to be stuff that we all just need to step in and do.
00:32:07.109 --> 00:32:14.849
Even in larger organizations, I've seen it go that way, where you have leaders within, you know, within a team saying, Oh, well, that wasn't my problem.
00:32:14.910 --> 00:32:18.250
So, okay, well, we didn't think about it in enough detail.
00:32:19.869 --> 00:32:32.670
And if we, you know, if we had focused on the process, instead, we would, it might have surfaced some of those areas where we saw those gaps and said, Hey, this is an area that nobody owns right now.
00:32:32.910 --> 00:32:37.970
So to get digging in on that process first, could have been quite valuable.
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:59.460
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've definitely I've definitely lived in that place with companies where they have a person in charge of finance, and a person in charge of HR, and a person in charge of product.
00:33:00.779 --> 00:33:04.700
And they don't talk.
00:33:06.319 --> 00:33:09.500
They like, I'm the director of finance.
00:33:10.619 --> 00:33:16.180
I don't need to know what product is doing or what HR is doing, because I'm just dealing with the numbers.
00:33:16.380 --> 00:33:24.640
And I was like, but where do you think they magically come from?
00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:28.420
And I'm not saying everyone needs to know everything that's happening in the business.
00:33:28.940 --> 00:33:30.099
But there's so much overlap.
00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:38.220
And how can HR I, I was working with a company and the HR person was recruiting for the engineering team.
00:33:40.019 --> 00:33:45.740
And they they did get the job description from the engineering team.
00:33:46.059 --> 00:33:47.539
But that was it.
00:33:48.259 --> 00:33:50.339
And so they're just out there hiring.
00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:55.200
And I'm like, so when does the engineering team get to like interview this person?
00:33:55.339 --> 00:33:58.880
And they're like, no, I just I just pick a person and then I put them on the team.
00:33:58.980 --> 00:34:02.779
And I was like, whoa.
00:34:02.940 --> 00:34:03.640
Wow.
00:34:04.380 --> 00:34:08.199
Yeah, process, process discussion there would have been really helpful.
00:34:08.460 --> 00:34:14.659
Yeah, like, um, So, so they don't get to know who's they don't care.
00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:16.280
They just sit and cope.
00:34:16.820 --> 00:34:19.119
And I was like, I don't think that's how it works.
00:34:23.219 --> 00:34:26.480
So role roles can definitely be the problem children.
00:34:27.099 --> 00:34:35.460
If people think like this is my role and this is what I do and I don't do anything but these things like it's, it's difficult.
00:34:35.739 --> 00:34:50.159
So let's talk about the red flags, I think is a good one to maybe add in here of, okay, when you hear these words, like for me, as I say, the one that picks my ear up immediately is like, I don't care how it works, I just need to get it done.
00:34:51.699 --> 00:34:56.199
Okay, maybe we need to dig a bit deeper, right?
00:34:57.219 --> 00:35:20.960
And then I mean, I've seen cases where that type of view causes such conflict, where then the big gap is then there's strategic misalignment in the organization and when there's strategic misalignment in the organization, no process you throw at it is going to cure the problem.
00:35:21.780 --> 00:35:27.440
It's like putting a bandaid on it and then a bandaid that's going to likely cause more frustration as well.
00:35:28.500 --> 00:35:36.179
So I mean, that for me is one of the red flags, but what's some of the other red flags that you've seen in conversation or heard?
00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:39.639
Ooh, that's a good question.
00:35:39.940 --> 00:36:02.840
I think for me, some of the biggest red flags, I've seen, I already kind of gave one, it's the, oh, well, the processes are more basic, right in this notion that we're gonna start with what's easy as opposed to what's important, or starting with what's easy instead of what's the biggest leverage point or the biggest source of pain.
00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:12.239
And, you know, anyone who's a to-do list person has put, you know, shower on their to-do list just to have something easy to check off, right?
00:36:12.300 --> 00:36:18.760
Like I'm not against that notion, you know, or putting the thing on that you already did, to have that moment.
00:36:19.079 --> 00:36:20.980
There's value in small wins.
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:22.739
There's momentum that comes from it.
00:36:23.159 --> 00:36:33.699
And if that is how you're planning your big efforts is around, well, at least it feels easy, that's a big red flag for me.
00:36:33.880 --> 00:36:39.380
Is that really the decision criteria your organization needs right now?
00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:41.300
get out.
00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:48.099
Yeah, and for me, I would agree with that red flag.
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:54.460
That red flag scares me a lot of easy.
00:36:55.719 --> 00:36:58.400
Maybe it's easy because it doesn't have value, right?
00:36:59.260 --> 00:37:03.619
Maybe this isn't the ROI you're looking for.
00:37:03.860 --> 00:37:06.860
These are not the ROIs you're looking for.
00:37:07.539 --> 00:37:14.739
So, you know, and I think it is...
00:37:16.199 --> 00:37:20.820
I even get distracted by like, I just want something to be done.
00:37:21.579 --> 00:37:25.619
It's not where I need my focus to be, but I just want to have that checkup.
00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:32.900
I just want something that I can just do and be like, oh man, that's great.
00:37:34.480 --> 00:37:42.539
But there's other ways to get there than by not focusing on the thing.
00:37:44.219 --> 00:37:48.579
So yeah, that red flag, I mean, there's so many red flags.
00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:58.760
And the "just" word, obviously I've already mentioned, is a red flag for me. "Just" should not come into a conversation.
00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:12.260
I actually kind of love when it does because it's such an easy, like, I feel like I have a little like sub process always running in my brain so that whenever I hear the word "just" it's like, wait, wait, that's time to stop pause.
00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:17.300
Somebody said "just" time to go back and check all our assumptions.
00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:19.300
Right.
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:21.380
Valid, valid.
00:38:21.380 --> 00:38:22.699
The assumption thing, yeah.
00:38:23.380 --> 00:38:30.539
And I think from that perspective as well, when we look at once you've spotted the gap, right.
00:38:31.519 --> 00:39:00.260
So let's first talk about, so if you have a founder up there, what advice who's looking, who's listening and they've diagnosed, how do they diagnose, first of all, whether it's a role problem they have or a process problem that they have where there's lack of clarity, how do you advise them to go about, oh, I think this is the problem we're trying to solve.
00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:15.739
Yeah, I mean, I think STOP is, is it such a great tool in this context and that sort of think really digging deeper into why are you, what are you trying to solve?
00:39:16.099 --> 00:39:18.179
What are your key pain points your root causes?
00:39:18.599 --> 00:39:22.320
Is this an area where we know who owns all the pieces?
00:39:22.820 --> 00:39:38.519
What we need is clarity around the exact handoff points in the process where we need to understand how this gets done repeatedly, where we're having quality issues in our execution, and we really want to zero in on what, where are the triggers?
00:39:39.820 --> 00:39:51.420
Or are we having people issues, I'm trying to put in big quotes around our processes, because that for me is one of those, well, you know, we're having a, folks can't get along.
00:39:51.579 --> 00:39:54.880
So if we can just streamline our processes, it'll work better.
00:39:55.480 --> 00:40:01.360
That for me is a big roles issue or we know we're not totally sure who does that.
00:40:01.480 --> 00:40:05.380
But if we only detail the process, it'll be clear who does that.
00:40:05.519 --> 00:40:06.380
My chance is really good.
00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:08.219
No, that's not true.
00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:11.960
You want to take a step back and think, but it is iterative, right?
00:40:12.099 --> 00:40:15.719
It just like the chicken and the egg, you don't get a clean answer.
00:40:15.980 --> 00:40:30.280
You don't get to say it's definitely roles or it's definitely processes, you get to do one, and then think about the other, and then circle back and say, hey, how does this new definition of my roles refine my understanding of the process?
00:40:30.460 --> 00:40:35.219
And how does this refinement of the process inform my understanding of the roles?
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:40.659
Yeah, I like that way of looking at it because it is very iterative.
00:40:41.059 --> 00:40:47.760
And and I think, from my experience, it's always a both problem.
00:40:48.539 --> 00:40:50.039
Yeah, to a certain extent.
00:40:50.300 --> 00:41:00.480
I mean, yes, there's there's definitely maybe causation, or we can start with there's a clear starting place.
00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:08.639
But I have rarely seen it be just a process problem, or just a roles problem.
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:15.840
Every time that we're working with client or talking about it, it's a both and.
00:41:16.719 --> 00:41:16.739
Yes.
00:41:18.139 --> 00:41:20.420
Yes, it's a process problem.
00:41:20.840 --> 00:41:22.340
And it's a roles problem.
00:41:22.340 --> 00:41:23.199
But we'll get to that.
00:41:24.159 --> 00:41:39.599
So I think that that iteration that flywheel of how you deal with these situations is really important, because you have to deal with the process, you have to deal with the roles, and you have to assign the process.
00:41:40.260 --> 00:42:00.260
And you have to look and see if that still reflects the role, like, and it just goes back and then you have these incoming shoots of like, new people, new technology, new people, new technology, and that just keeps the wheel spinning, right?
00:42:00.820 --> 00:42:04.019
Because nothing it's business is not static.
00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:15.179
And and so thinking of it in that whole circle way is really helpful to people because it's always yes and Yeah.
00:42:17.119 --> 00:42:28.739
Yeah, I think that's coming back to the original framing, one piece that is not broken, but kind of hiding is the which comes first, not which is the only thing you need to do.
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:31.219
Yes, yes.
00:42:32.519 --> 00:42:45.400
And I think when people look to diagnose, I think that don't error to the side of once you make a diagnosis of where you're starting, that that's the that's what you fix.
00:42:46.920 --> 00:42:57.639
I think is is key is an underscoring of what you've said, Belle, is is, you know, what you start with is not the end point?
00:42:58.559 --> 00:42:58.760
Yeah.
00:42:59.599 --> 00:43:01.539
Yeah, very important, very important.
00:43:02.360 --> 00:43:11.619
So, so since it's a "Yes, and," and you're diagnosing an iterative process and just diagnosing where you're starting.
00:43:12.179 --> 00:43:22.219
And going through that, once you've spotted the gap, like, what that looks like, where where you're starting, where that gap really is.
00:43:23.900 --> 00:43:26.480
How do you take your first steps?
00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:42.559
Because this all involves people because people are part of business without blowing up people's morale or momentum like it's when you're dealing with these big processes and roles.
00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:44.820
How do you do that?
00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:50.860
So I'm a big fan of transparency, right?
00:43:51.119 --> 00:44:03.420
My experience has been that for the kinds of pains that lead to these role conversations, that lead to these process conversations, the senior leaders are the last to know.
00:44:03.960 --> 00:44:17.360
And I say that with great love, but chances are really good that people doing the work every day are already very aware that something needs some attention and needs some love.
00:44:17.619 --> 00:44:22.780
And so being able to articulate everything we just said, we are starting here.
00:44:23.400 --> 00:44:30.860
We're also going to, you know, if we're starting with the roles, we're gonna start here and we're gonna take a look at the processes because there's probably been some pain in the processes.
00:44:31.199 --> 00:44:35.000
We're starting with the processes and we know that there may be some confusion with the roles.
00:44:35.139 --> 00:44:38.059
Don't worry, we're going to look at that.
00:44:38.579 --> 00:44:42.000
I'm coming back to something at another conversation we were having slightly before we started recording.
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:56.619
It is so much about that, bringing the stakeholders in early, explaining the "what's in it" for your team members so that they know they can get a little excited that there's an end in sight.
00:44:57.960 --> 00:45:07.539
And I know that that's not necessarily everyone's cup of tea, so I'm curious what other approaches you all take, if any, to getting this first step going.
00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:11.059
Yeah, I think part of that, right.
00:45:11.760 --> 00:45:17.400
And this also comes from as the company grows and scales, right.
00:45:17.940 --> 00:45:35.619
So the growth point you were at here, and the processes that work here, doesn't necessarily now work properly when you're sitting at maybe four times the growth rate where you started off.
00:45:36.539 --> 00:45:41.519
Obviously for smaller teams, everyone talks all the time.
00:45:42.679 --> 00:45:50.119
But now when you start getting to 20, 50, 100 people, that doesn't always necessarily work.
00:45:51.239 --> 00:45:54.880
And transparency there is just such an important thing.
00:45:55.099 --> 00:46:02.500
I mean, you will quickly see where there's friction, because where there's friction in a process, there's a slowdown in something.
00:46:02.980 --> 00:46:10.039
Whether it's ability to deliver or whether it's you physically see it in revenue slowing down, right.
00:46:12.179 --> 00:46:25.440
And from that perspective, it might be good to every, and I read some articles, you know, I also follow a person that's a VC plus also serial founder.
00:46:26.159 --> 00:46:41.900
Brett Fox, and I like the approach we said every six months, or at least once a year, you've got to say, okay, take a stab of is the team I still have in place fit for size if I double the revenue.
00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:43.099
So I if I grow from one million to 5 million revenue. And do the people have the abilities that they can work at that scale or manage other people at that scale. And a lot of the time that will start showing the gaps and things. And that's a good time to say, okay, Other processes also isn't because the process is an iterative aspect, right. And it also needs to adapt to where the growth is happening. And sometimes you just need to replace the systems and replace or move people in different roles.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:18.619
have Or upskill.
00:47:19.219 --> 00:47:21.139
Start that training if you see it coming early.
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:33.059
Yeah, started early and that's a good checkpoint for me on constantly reviewing, okay, is there a critical gap that's now starting to appear?
00:47:33.199 --> 00:47:46.139
And as I say, the little red flags are there, sometimes we're just to ignore them, but when they start popping up, is really to do that stop and think, organize and plan approach and then do the changes.
00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:48.239
Yeah, yeah.
00:47:48.940 --> 00:48:04.820
I mean, I'm a big fan of starting with the stakeholders as well, you know, it's, you have to know who's gonna have to use it to make it the right option, I think.
00:48:05.219 --> 00:48:12.380
And so, but where I always like to start is I like to analyze what's happening in the moment.
00:48:12.760 --> 00:48:14.539
I don't wanna talk to anyone first.
00:48:14.539 --> 00:48:28.940
I wanna see, I wanna, let me be a fly on the wall for a hot second and see, and just look, look over someone's shoulder, look at, you know, how many- Good old fashioned get go walk?
00:48:29.239 --> 00:48:30.199
Yeah, yeah.
00:48:30.920 --> 00:48:43.519
I just, I want to objectively observe and analyze and then talk to the people.
00:48:44.539 --> 00:48:53.860
And bring them into, okay, what, you know, because a lot of times when we're talking to our clients, we're hearing from them where their pain point is.
00:48:54.400 --> 00:49:02.260
And I will say where you feel the pain is very rarely where it's being caused is something we generally find.
00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:11.079
And so we're very much about like, okay, let's analyze what's happening right now without input.
00:49:11.659 --> 00:49:20.500
Because you've told us where your pain is, we're gonna look at what's in the system, we're gonna make our own diagnosis, then we're gonna talk to people actually in it, right?
00:49:20.780 --> 00:49:25.539
And then say, oh, okay, this is the pain that you're feeling because of this.
00:49:25.940 --> 00:49:30.800
This is pain because objectively we would already analyze like what this looks like.
00:49:31.179 --> 00:49:35.400
So I like that forest perspective first.
00:49:36.159 --> 00:49:42.760
And then to say, oh, okay, well, the path is washed out over here and there's 32 trees down over there.
00:49:42.760 --> 00:49:44.059
So that's the problem, right?
00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:48.360
You're stuck in the middle, of course you can't see those things.
00:49:49.039 --> 00:50:00.539
So like that overview, that 100 foot, thousand foot view first really I think helps me the way I like to kind of dig into the problem.
00:50:01.099 --> 00:50:04.659
And then I will say, I love the people aspect.
00:50:04.980 --> 00:50:09.760
I, that's a great part, but and tell me how you feel about this.
00:50:09.760 --> 00:50:18.159
People bring a lot of emotions into their work, which they should, it's where you spend a ton of your time.
00:50:19.039 --> 00:50:31.280
And so, but in doing that, sometimes you get a skewed response to some process oriented questions or role oriented questions.
00:50:31.280 --> 00:50:36.539
And it's less about what their role is or what the process is.
00:50:36.539 --> 00:50:49.019
And it's more about how they feel about those things or how they've been treated or how they've been perceiving the treatment that they've received based on those things.
00:50:49.239 --> 00:50:58.239
And so that stepping back a little and then it gives me, it helps me to see past some of those biases.
00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:02.760
Well, and that reminds me very much of how I like to talk about systems engineering.
00:51:03.039 --> 00:51:08.840
Systems engineering is being able to hold both the forest and the trees, right?
00:51:08.920 --> 00:51:11.800
That example you gave of there's 30 trees down over there.
00:51:12.239 --> 00:51:14.679
What I was thinking about is where are your monsters, right?
00:51:14.739 --> 00:51:18.300
When they fall over, they're going to take out 15 other trees.
00:51:18.539 --> 00:51:23.500
You can look at these aerial views of forests and you see these glades, these clearings, where did they come from?
00:51:23.539 --> 00:51:27.420
A lot of them came from one big tree, came down and took out a whole bunch of others.
00:51:27.880 --> 00:51:30.360
You need to be able to see both.
00:51:30.619 --> 00:51:37.239
And in many ways, I feel like some of those, those feelings you're talking about in those responses can be your monsters, right?
00:51:37.380 --> 00:51:44.440
Like that tree has the potential to take out a lot of other trees around it.
00:51:45.099 --> 00:51:50.400
And it may be that actually what you have is a communication of perception.
00:51:50.619 --> 00:51:51.880
Maybe your roles are well-defined.
00:51:52.039 --> 00:51:53.820
Maybe your processes are working pretty well.
00:51:53.820 --> 00:52:04.280
And what's happening is something a little fuzzier where the person in this role who is guiding this process is doing it by running around screaming at people.
00:52:04.820 --> 00:52:07.320
Now I will say that is not my zone.
00:52:07.539 --> 00:52:11.039
Like I'm not fixing that problem, but that could be what's it.
00:52:11.099 --> 00:52:18.219
You know, so you do also need to, I see the, those feelings and those biases as more data, right?
00:52:18.340 --> 00:52:21.800
If someone, four people come in and tell me this process is super broken.
00:52:21.800 --> 00:52:32.699
And I don't necessarily know from that, that the process is super broken, but I sure as heck know that at least four people feel like that process is broken and whatever we do, we have to fix that feeling.
00:52:33.119 --> 00:52:33.519
Yeah.
00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:35.179
Yeah, definitely agree.
00:52:35.500 --> 00:52:39.800
And for full transparency, sometimes I've been that person running around screaming at people.
00:52:40.320 --> 00:52:43.079
So, totally felt and heard.
00:52:47.280 --> 00:52:50.820
But I'm not saying, I agree, Belle, totally.
00:52:51.639 --> 00:52:54.239
Sometimes those perspectives are very necessary.
00:52:55.679 --> 00:52:59.179
Hugely necessary to diagnosing what's going on.
00:52:59.699 --> 00:53:02.960
But I do like to step back a little, right?
00:53:02.960 --> 00:53:04.199
Yes, definitely.
00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:08.820
You can't just do those four interviews and say, aha, I know.
00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:11.900
I got it.
00:53:12.159 --> 00:53:21.719
It boils back down to I think the transparency and having the conversations, you know, it's like a wound, you can see there's bleeding, but you don't know what's the cause of it.
00:53:22.019 --> 00:53:31.400
And cause of it only comes through diagnosis and understanding and hearing and listening to people of where the pain lies.
00:53:32.880 --> 00:53:47.179
And so that, as I say, sometimes we'll point to, oops, we really have a people structure problem here or role problem, or no, it's just something that's very ineffective.
00:53:47.659 --> 00:53:59.599
But I think the other part that's also quite key, I think, before we wrap up, but I've noticed sometimes you have a process in place of something that's serving that process.
00:54:00.139 --> 00:54:09.159
10 years down the line, as staff have turned, know if people who designed it originally wasn't there and then suddenly that thing breaks.
00:54:10.579 --> 00:54:19.139
And all the documentation around that specific aspect of the process are now long gone.
00:54:21.519 --> 00:54:27.559
So there is that lot to be said about part of it is the documentation aspect.
00:54:27.860 --> 00:54:38.679
And at least these days we're having better tools, I think, with AI to keep that IP there, that when that happens, that people can dig back.
00:54:39.280 --> 00:54:43.179
And don't necessarily think that something is broken.
00:54:43.639 --> 00:54:46.480
As you say, the process may not be, there may be other recourses.
00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:49.380
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
00:54:50.840 --> 00:55:02.300
Well, before we wrap up, Belle, is there anything you want to highlight, key takeaways, last minute takeaways, and then where people can find you?
00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:20.440
Yeah, I think that the key takeaways I'm going to come back to that just reiterating we framed it as which comes first the processor the roles and I would prefer to just highlight the first in that sentence, you're going to have to do that question you're going to have to do both.
00:55:20.980 --> 00:55:22.739
You're going to have to iterate.
00:55:22.900 --> 00:55:30.300
And so it's really about where do you start to get the most leverage and then making sure you, you remember to do both before you're done.
00:55:31.559 --> 00:55:33.619
And then keep going because you're never really done.
00:55:34.400 --> 00:55:43.860
And so you can find me on my website is Belleview consulting.com it's B E L L E V I E W so my view of the world.
00:55:44.699 --> 00:55:47.280
Belleview consulting.com and I'm on LinkedIn Belle Walker.
00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:48.539
and love it.
00:55:48.820 --> 00:55:49.239
I love it.
00:55:49.760 --> 00:55:52.500
Thank you so much for coming to our podcast.
00:55:53.539 --> 00:56:00.280
For all of our audience members, like, subscribe, follow, whatever, we're everywhere.
00:56:00.780 --> 00:56:03.239
You can find podcasts, Ops, o r Die.
00:56:04.139 --> 00:56:05.119
Those are your options.
00:56:07.179 --> 00:56:09.059
And we've had so much fun today.
00:56:09.980 --> 00:56:16.079
This is Katie, and signing off, and we will see you next time.
00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:26.480
Thanks for listening to Ops or Die, the podcast for all things business operations.
00:56:27.059 --> 00:56:38.000
With your hosts, Maria Pienaar and Katie Whitcraft, our theme music composed by Min Tran and editing services provided by Troubleshoot Productions.
00:56:39.179 --> 00:56:48.539
For more information on how to make your operations smart ops, visit www.scalespark.ai.
00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.660
I'm Belle Walker and I take organizations from friction to function.
00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:32.560
So I use a really simple model, think of organizations as having three main components, the things they're trying to accomplish, the people who need to accomplish them, the structures and processes in the middle.
00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:35.719
I focus entirely on those structures and processes.
00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:44.520
So, some might blithely call that ops, a topic you all are very familiar with, but I come at it from an engineering background.
00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:56.600
So mechanical systems engineering, seeing a lot of overlap between how you effectively design, uh, and build mechanical structures or how you coordinate systems across black boxes.
00:00:57.060 --> 00:01:04.719
That's very applicable when you're looking at an organization, we talk about org structures, we look at different functions, they need to coordinate.
00:01:05.219 --> 00:01:11.959
So I've built the teams directly and I've been consulting for the last five years, and love working across industries.
00:01:11.959 --> 00:01:20.959
And I'm so excited that you are making this Ops or Die podcast because goodness knows I've seen way too many organizations that choose the, Or Die.
00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:24.480
Thank you for that.
00:01:24.739 --> 00:01:25.000
I love it.
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It's so much a joke.
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It's not so much a choice, baby.
00:01:29.260 --> 00:01:35.379
Well, we'll get back to some of those examples because I know you've had quite an illustrious career yourself.
00:01:37.219 --> 00:01:38.260
So we can dig into that.
00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:46.560
But I mean, today we're going to talk about more around, you know, the little hot take of which comes first, process or role.
00:01:48.900 --> 00:01:52.739
And yeah, so what do you think the framing is broken?
00:01:53.579 --> 00:02:00.159
Just give us a little bit of highlights on your views of which you think comes first and what you feel is broken and what not.
00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:13.120
Yeah, I mean, if it's okay with you, I'd actually like to start with a little bit of terminology, because what I found is that when I talk process and other people talk process, we all think we're on the same page.
00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:19.360
And often it's what I refer to as a tricksy word, where we can have different meanings.
00:02:19.460 --> 00:02:23.039
And the same with roles, almost to a larger extent.
00:02:23.599 --> 00:02:30.159
So when I'm talking about process, I'm talking about something that is repeatable and standardizable.
00:02:31.099 --> 00:02:34.400
And that is, can be very vague.
00:02:34.900 --> 00:02:41.099
But this gets into the kind of in the box around the box piece I was talking about with systems engineering.
00:02:41.599 --> 00:03:11.500
So a process may be very, very detailed, almost an SOP of really digging in on how like what buttons do you click what happens in each stage, or it could be something very high level that says, you know, Maria meets a guest, she introduces them to Katie, Katie creates the recording configuration, and then we do the interview, right, that even that is a process because it's repeatable.
00:03:11.759 --> 00:03:16.580
But you know, somebody who's not Maria or Katie might not know how to implement that.
00:03:17.300 --> 00:03:26.020
And so that that's what I mean, my process with roles, I tend to mean the zone of ownership, where, where are that?
00:03:26.039 --> 00:03:29.819
What are the things that you own that are fully in your wheelhouse?
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What are the areas where you're dependent on others?
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What are the areas where others are dependent on you?
00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:37.740
And what are the collaboration touch points?
00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:41.599
So being able to say, Yes, I own that.
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No, I definitely don't.
00:03:43.919 --> 00:03:45.780
Or I'm not sure.
00:03:46.159 --> 00:03:53.020
But being able to open up that conversation and at least have a other side of I'm not sure.
00:03:54.020 --> 00:03:57.800
And so I'd love to pause for a moment and just get your takes on on that terminology as well.
00:03:57.960 --> 00:04:01.819
How well are we aligned even coming into this discussion and where do we vary?
00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:07.860
Yeah, I think we're very aligned, honestly.
00:04:08.740 --> 00:04:21.720
I think when you come from that operations kind of background as far as systems and formulation thereof, you tend to hold the same definitions in your head.
00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:38.560
Now that being said, let me be clear, I totally understand why other people may not feel as aligned because process I think a lot of people have varying definitions of what a process is.
00:04:38.939 --> 00:04:44.579
Anything that takes you from point A to point B is a process and it's like, well, sure.
00:04:47.899 --> 00:04:50.720
But what can you repeat?
00:04:51.120 --> 00:05:13.519
And repeat is something that we deal with a lot in our side because we deal with a lot of automation and integration and it's those pieces that are a lot of the places where you can see that repeatable manual work that we're trying to pull out of the process.
00:05:15.459 --> 00:05:34.660
And then I think as far as roles, I think people get a lot, what I've seen the biggest problem with and I would love to hear Maria's take on this just because we talk about this a lot is titles have nothing to do with roles.
00:05:37.079 --> 00:05:45.540
Especially in startup, especially in the world today, it feels like titles just kind of what title do you want?
00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:47.000
How do you want to be known?
00:05:47.319 --> 00:05:57.120
And they don't align that with what the person is, is DRI for, directly responsible individual.
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Like, what is your role?
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What do you do?
00:06:01.899 --> 00:06:06.240
And so I think roles and titles are not equal.
00:06:07.759 --> 00:06:10.500
They don't equal it on a lot of people's heads.
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They're supposed to, right?
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And that's not a thing.
00:06:15.899 --> 00:06:19.379
So I mean, Maria, what do you think about process and roles?
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Yeah, I mean, so fully aligned, you know, process for me is also that roadmap of how you get a series of tasks done.
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But in order to get a series of tasks done, you really need to clearly define who's responsible for which aspect of that, right.
00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:52.920
And a lot of the time, I think when people talk about specific roles, they think, oh, that person, you know, my favorite, oh, the chief operations officer or the operations managers are just responsible for it all.
00:06:54.300 --> 00:07:02.699
Yeah, they may be the director of the symphony orchestra and assigning what needs to happen and making sure things track.
00:07:03.500 --> 00:07:15.379
But at the end of the day, they they're not responsible for the business function of the role that also has a key part and collaborations is so important in defining the framework.
00:07:15.639 --> 00:07:19.220
So otherwise, it can lead into a big mess.
00:07:19.439 --> 00:07:23.620
I've seen huge conflict happen because a roles were not defined.
00:07:23.860 --> 00:07:28.540
And thank you, Belle, so much for coming up with a definition of what a word means.
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I know you come from a product background as well.
00:07:33.759 --> 00:08:00.240
And I've seen products, product delivery and service delivery on software development gone horribly wrong, because no one in the team responsible for delivering on the requirements of whatever they thought they were building focused on understanding the words and you know, especially if you're dealing with cross functional and cross cultural, cross language teams.
00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:06.620
A word for one group can mean quite different to the word for another one.
00:08:09.459 --> 00:08:14.220
And I have a project and the minute, just some something simple.
00:08:14.360 --> 00:08:26.339
Let's define the words we speak about that that then pulled that put the disaster back and then it took them another month for delivery, but it was just unnecessary delay.
00:08:26.839 --> 00:08:32.440
So roles who does what who's responsible for what who takes the lead and things are so important.
00:08:32.678 --> 00:08:40.658
And you know, I like to frame it around when you look at a sports team.
00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:55.139
And let's let's use soccer, right or football as it's known in the UK and the year and the rest of the world. Unless there's clearly defined roles and positions on the field.
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And what what those responsibilities need.
00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:03.259
I mean, that that team will just be chaos, everyone will run around chasing the ball.
00:09:04.179 --> 00:09:06.240
They won't be able to get to the goalposts.
00:09:06.799 --> 00:09:14.419
So yeah, I'm you started and I think it really starts with okay, what is it that we want to do?
00:09:14.419 --> 00:09:18.340
And then how are we going to frame who's responsible for what?
00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:27.019
That tied in back with soccer slash football back to what Katie was saying about the titles versus the roles.
00:09:27.679 --> 00:09:34.620
Because, you know, you can almost draw a parallel there to the numbers on the jerseys versus the roles and the positions.
00:09:35.379 --> 00:09:47.519
I know in American football, there is, I don't actually remember the exact details, but there is some general guidance around numbers and certain ranges are typically assigned to certain positions or functions or sets of positions.
00:09:47.700 --> 00:09:53.279
So like the offensive line has a certain range of numbers, and there can be real value in that, right?
00:09:53.320 --> 00:09:59.779
It doesn't necessarily need to be one to one, but I do encourage the folks that I work with where possible.
00:09:59.919 --> 00:10:10.039
It doesn't necessarily need to be public facing, but having something internally that does have a little more information in your titles can be super valuable.
00:10:10.600 --> 00:10:17.399
I had a client, I counted at one point, they had five managing directors reporting to each other.
00:10:18.460 --> 00:10:21.220
Right down the door, managing director, managing director, five.
00:10:22.539 --> 00:10:39.179
That causes big conflict and I was part of an organization where that structure was sort of set up and even though a lot of people said this is not going to work and it and quite frankly it didn't caused a lot of conflict.
00:10:40.659 --> 00:10:49.759
Yeah it doesn't work just because they think that investors think that having a title is going to make them invest.
00:10:50.120 --> 00:10:52.720
That's not the that's not the thing.
00:10:53.159 --> 00:10:53.419
Yeah.
00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:12.519
I think that idea of having that kind of set guardrails, if you will, around these titles equal this area, these titles equal this area, and more to what you were talking about, that hierarchy.
00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:19.279
You see a lot of companies going towards more of a flat hierarchy, and that's a choice.
00:11:19.279 --> 00:11:24.679
And I don't have strong feelings on whether that's a good choice or a bad choice.
00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:40.019
But when you are in a hierarchy, what someone is called under someone else, and what the person managing is called over someone else, that does actually inform their role.
00:11:40.019 --> 00:11:51.500
So, it's more of a matrices instead of a straight line of these titles mean this role.
00:11:52.340 --> 00:11:58.820
It's both the up and down titles mean a certain thing, and the across titles mean a certain thing.
00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:12.039
So, you have to be cognizant of how that works, and we all want people to feel good about themselves, but we do need to be accurate about what they're doing in some form or fashion.
00:12:13.340 --> 00:12:27.700
And so, figuring out what that looks like, and actually having a strategy around how you title positions in your company does matter to their roles, and I think not a lot of companies think about that side bit.
00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:38.139
So okay, so now that we've level set on the definitions, I can actually answer Maria's question around which comes first.
00:12:38.399 --> 00:12:44.980
And I think as this discussion is kind of unlocked, big old spoiler alert, this is going to be one of those, it depends.
00:12:45.299 --> 00:12:49.059
And I think most of the interesting conversation is around those dependencies.
00:12:49.940 --> 00:13:01.860
Because I think if you try to go too deep into the roles and the details before you have any processes, you can certainly shoot yourself in the foot.
00:13:02.179 --> 00:13:27.279
And at the same time, if you try to dig too deep into your processes without knowing who has ownership in what area, you can end up with a lot of people stepping on each other's toes or duplication of work or just straight up the wrong person doing something because the process was built around, you know, a lack of knowledge and a lack of structure.
00:13:28.840 --> 00:13:32.659
So I guess a little bit of the framing is potentially a little broken.
00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:40.899
So, so it's like a chicken and egg situation, you know, which at first they kind of have to come together.
00:13:41.419 --> 00:13:48.980
So I think one of the things that can can help to to guide people is you start a business.
00:13:49.580 --> 00:13:52.320
Most people don't start it just with them.
00:13:53.340 --> 00:13:55.539
You're starting it with other people.
00:13:55.840 --> 00:14:09.720
And so a lot of times when we're looking at kind of a greenfield arrangement, when we're talking to companies, clients who who need help with their operations, a lot of times we're looking at, okay, who do you have?
00:14:10.259 --> 00:14:13.940
And then, all right, what do you have to do?
00:14:14.340 --> 00:14:17.139
What do you have to get done on the back end of your business?
00:14:17.659 --> 00:14:24.679
And let's start from those processes and those people that we have and move outwards.
00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:35.259
And I think that's such a perfect framing of what do you have and move outwards, and also what do you need, right?
00:14:35.480 --> 00:15:01.159
This came up because I was in a prospect conversation and there was another, there was a coach in the call who is awesome, and I respect the bajeesus out of the work that he does, and something that he said in that conversation was, I don't know if we need to get into the roles because that's pretty advanced, right?
00:15:01.220 --> 00:15:04.919
Let's get our processes nailed down because that's fairly straightforward.
00:15:07.419 --> 00:15:13.200
And those of you who are not on YouTube, there's some faces happening here that I agree with.
00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:17.279
And I think there can be truth to that.
00:15:18.460 --> 00:15:25.919
The challenge is in this particular case, we were talking to just this amazing COO person.
00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:26.980
I don't know if that's her actual title.
00:15:27.039 --> 00:15:29.340
That's effectively what she's been doing.
00:15:29.960 --> 00:15:33.419
And part of the challenge I have right now is they had to contract their staff.
00:15:33.779 --> 00:15:40.320
She's working, she's covering a lot of roles right now, and she is covering a lot of roles.
00:15:40.580 --> 00:15:45.440
She has all the knowledge to build out these processes, but is that a good use of her time?
00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:47.720
It is really basic work.
00:15:48.539 --> 00:15:49.720
It is really doable.
00:15:50.039 --> 00:16:02.860
And so to spend her time and energy on this basic stuff feels like a total waste for me when you could start spending out these roles with a little more coherence and have them building the processes.
00:16:03.159 --> 00:16:10.240
So the fact that it's arguably more basic in their context is almost a counter argument for why it should come first.
00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:15.059
And as soon as I heard that, I was like, oh, I want to hear what Marie and Katie have to say about this moment.
00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:38.460
It reminds me of, you know, one of the statements that we hear so much from another mutual friend, Kimberly Wepling, who does a lot of work with large organizations around innovation and getting innovation more embedded in the culture.
00:16:39.279 --> 00:16:49.500
And, and she also comes from project management and it says a whole wording around stop, you know, before you start doing anything first stop S stands for stop.
00:16:50.759 --> 00:16:52.220
T things for think.
00:16:53.080 --> 00:16:55.639
O stands for organize and P stands for plan.
00:16:56.779 --> 00:17:11.400
And I think that that's actually a nice framework to think about on when you starting operations is really need to think of what's the why we want to do something.
00:17:12.700 --> 00:17:14.200
Who should be involved?
00:17:14.358 --> 00:17:17.420
What is it that we want to do and how are we going to measure it?
00:17:17.460 --> 00:17:23.059
Because as we know, a process is only effective when it's repeatable and it can improve, right?
00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:29.140
So, and that this conversation reminds me of that.
00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:51.339
But yeah, how are we going to organize around this is one of the key things, which is we're not may not maybe not necessarily the roles, but the responsibilities of who's doing what comes in because also in different roles, you can actually contribute in a process without having to be responsible for that part of the process.
00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:52.299
Yeah.
00:17:53.079 --> 00:17:53.359
Yeah.
00:17:53.779 --> 00:17:57.400
And it's it was my face.
00:17:58.539 --> 00:18:00.099
When you said that.
00:18:01.019 --> 00:18:03.640
I called the the bitter thought face.
00:18:05.339 --> 00:18:20.259
The because I've been in that moment before I've been in this that COO person's position before where someone is saying like, Oh, we'll just do this as well.
00:18:21.460 --> 00:18:26.140
When people when people have looked at me and say, Oh, just add this.
00:18:26.660 --> 00:18:50.759
Why don't we just the just Just should not come into play because operations, I think people sometimes forget outside of operations when your role, I think operations roles are ill defined regularly, because operations kind of is a hat to so many things.
00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:55.160
And that definition, Oh, goodness, let's not even go there.
00:18:55.180 --> 00:18:57.400
That would be the rest of the entire conversation.
00:18:58.660 --> 00:19:02.180
So there, the role is ill defined anyway.
00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:10.539
And so you're carrying a lot of responsibility over certain things.
00:19:11.500 --> 00:19:18.660
And people sometimes outside of those roles see it as this bottomless well of resource.
00:19:19.900 --> 00:19:21.539
Like, well, all these things fall under it.
00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:38.880
So you just have eternity, never ending time to spend on everything and, and stopping like Maria said, using that acronym to really stop and think about and plan.
00:19:39.839 --> 00:19:41.759
Because is it the best use of their time?
00:19:41.900 --> 00:19:43.859
Time is not a free resource.
00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:50.259
And while sometimes there's they, everyone forgets that the time is not free.
00:19:51.079 --> 00:20:06.819
You are paying for time, you are paying for people's time, you are paying for it in loss of time to spend on other pieces, you are paying for time in a number of different metrics that you don't think about.
00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:32.180
And I love that concept of I'm also on the horizon when you think about that organize and plan running with this example let's say that it is we think the best use of this ops leaders time to build out these these processes because that is a basic building block who does she give them to right and what is the Herself! Don't you know?
00:20:32.500 --> 00:20:35.019
like she's writing them so she knows.
00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:45.740
And when you say who does she give them to, what is the future of those roles, right?
00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:49.019
In their particular case, they are entering a period of high growth.
00:20:49.140 --> 00:20:54.220
And I know that's something a lot of your clients and a lot of your listeners are gearing up for.
00:20:54.339 --> 00:20:57.400
Is this, okay, I'm getting the foundation in place.
00:20:57.400 --> 00:21:02.819
I'm either in the middle of, or I'm really hoping for some fast growth coming up.
00:21:02.940 --> 00:21:11.019
And there are plenty of organizations that say, look, we're gonna crush it with 15 people for the foreseeable future.
00:21:11.980 --> 00:21:27.200
So if I'm at 14 people and I know I need one more person and that that role is not likely to change anytime for the next five years, I'm gonna hire someone totally different than if I'm at 14 people and shooting for 50 in the next 12 months.
00:21:27.440 --> 00:21:33.859
And I want this 15th person to be leading eight of those other individuals in a very different place.
00:21:34.099 --> 00:21:57.019
You may end up quote unquote overpaying for that 15th hire in the fast growth scenario for a couple of months while they're doing this rote work when really what's happening is you're giving them ownership of these processes and having them create them and refine them and then teach them and delegate them and manage them.
00:21:58.279 --> 00:22:09.940
In that scenario, now you've wasted extra time because if you're bringing in a leader like that and you had your original ops leader write the darn things, you could have just passed that off, right?
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:18.059
Versus if you know you're bringing in someone junior, well, yeah, then have your ops leader write those processes so that your junior person can follow them.
00:22:18.380 --> 00:22:18.700
Yeah.
00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:38.019
So it sounds to me like the framing itself is a little broken on how we approach this is what comes first and and it depends is an answer we give constantly.
00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:42.900
Tell us your story and then we'll tell you what we can do.
00:22:44.779 --> 00:22:50.519
And and so that's a it's a fascinating idea to really dig into.
00:22:50.759 --> 00:22:55.279
So let's take a real world example.
00:22:56.079 --> 00:23:07.240
We're focusing on the wrong thing first, created friction, dysfunction, inefficiency, or or business death.
00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:12.900
Yeah, so fortunately the example that springs to mind for me does not go straight to business death.
00:23:13.180 --> 00:23:16.299
It was dysfunction and efficiency friction.
00:23:17.319 --> 00:23:24.700
This was a company I was working with that does staffing, short-term staffing for nurses.
00:23:25.619 --> 00:23:32.259
And so they have incredibly fast, rigorous scheduling that they need to do.
00:23:32.420 --> 00:23:39.740
We had worked on their scheduling process so that we could document it and make it easier for new hires coming in to engage with.
00:23:39.859 --> 00:23:43.599
And it was really fun insight, interesting project.
00:23:44.440 --> 00:23:50.680
And then it was time to look at their recruiting because if you're staffing all of these nurses, you have to have nurses staff, two staff.
00:23:51.799 --> 00:24:25.619
And so we got, I don't know, probably a very, very, very frustrating two or three weeks into looking at this recruiting process before we realized no one actually, sorry, not recruiting, onboarding, the onboarding process where before we realized nobody knew who owned it because the staffing team and the recruiting team, there was something that happens in between when the recruiters give an offer letter and when the staffers can staff them and nobody knew who owned that in between or where the line was.
00:24:25.799 --> 00:24:50.119
And so I was going back and forth for two or three weeks trying to figure out, okay, how do we do this onboarding before we realized, oh, there is a much bigger roles issue here that we need to diagnose that, a little bit of forethought probably could have saved them a ton of time and stress and pain and turnover, which is one of the biggest symptoms I see.
00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:53.980
So that was a process first, whoopsie.
00:24:57.000 --> 00:24:58.420
And how did you resolve that?
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:01.920
we took a step back and we looked at the roles.
00:25:02.859 --> 00:25:12.500
In their particular case, we ended up looking at their entire operating model for the organization because they had a couple of these clear buckets of ownership.
00:25:13.220 --> 00:25:15.079
They knew who owned the recruiting.
00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:16.619
They knew who owned the staffing.
00:25:17.759 --> 00:25:21.960
There was less clarity around almost everything else in their business.
00:25:22.359 --> 00:25:43.539
Even on the finance side, they had some fuzziness around where the billing and collections and invoicing and payroll and how those pieces all fit together were nominally under finance, but there was heavy dependence on the staffing team for validation and how things were going out.
00:25:43.759 --> 00:25:58.839
So there were a lot of these gray areas that when we took a step back, we realized, oh, there's a ton of opportunity just to give these really talented, excited people some clarity around their boundaries and they can run with it.
00:25:59.759 --> 00:26:02.460
That was a huge unlock.
00:26:02.779 --> 00:26:15.420
So even though we then went back to focusing on onboarding, a whole bunch of other problems in their business started to resolve themselves because they had great people.
00:26:15.660 --> 00:26:16.460
They had great leaders.
00:26:16.819 --> 00:26:23.259
Great leaders just didn't necessarily know where they were empowered to go drive the change that needed to happen.
00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:24.319
Yeah.
00:26:25.859 --> 00:26:30.200
And in a way, it's like trying to figure out where the key friction points are.
00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:57.160
I know I've also had a great example of a business process that was really broken in the mobile industry for one of the carriers I was working at and the impact of, you know, and I think in a way, one of those things of someone telling the other party, oh, just get it done, you know, typically it's IT, just please just get this done.
00:26:57.839 --> 00:27:12.460
And then if everyone is so focused on process, they design this fantastic thing, but then it doesn't really work effectively in the real life because no one bothered to talk to people who has to actually follow the process.
00:27:13.240 --> 00:27:13.819
Yeah.
00:27:14.599 --> 00:27:23.180
And so it caused extremely high drop off rates for signing up contracts in this case.
00:27:23.720 --> 00:27:31.240
And I literally had, I was in charge of the IT team and I literally said, okay, fine, we're all going to go through training.
00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:54.920
We're going to pretend we're in the role of a customer support person who needs to over the phone sign someone up or to go and work in a store and go through the training and literally see how people are dealing with the frustrations of what they think easier process is, but the system clearly doesn't do.
00:27:55.720 --> 00:27:55.720
Yeah.
00:27:56.220 --> 00:28:05.319
And it was actually quite amazing to see when you send people out in the life of standing in the shoes of someone who actually needs to use the process.
00:28:06.539 --> 00:28:29.119
And what came out, they very quickly understood the friction points came back in a month completely redid the whole process, cleaned it up, made it a lot more effective, went from 10 screens on the system down to three screens to sign one up and lo and behold, the minute we turned it on, we had 30% increase in signups.
00:28:31.259 --> 00:28:50.460
So yeah, I think it's just getting insights of who's doing what part of it in the roles where the roles become so key, understanding the stakeholder ecosystem of weird impacts and tapping into the innovation of how they think it should be.
00:28:53.000 --> 00:29:35.000
And we talked about that actually before we started a little bit, we touched on that, that stakeholder, there's so, so many times where the people who actually are living and breathing in the process or in the system or have to be one of those directly responsible individuals and take ownership of pieces or take the handoff piece, take that baton between in the process between one department and the next department that have never been consulted, that have never been asked the question, how does this work for you?
00:29:35.880 --> 00:29:38.740
What would you like to have happen?
00:29:39.579 --> 00:29:57.680
And I'm not saying that every single person has to be involved in creating a process, but there does need to be a conversation between the people who have to use either the information coming out of the process, information going into the process, or where the process meets in the middle.
00:29:58.720 --> 00:30:05.160
Because that handoff of batons, I just think of like people running, you know, relay races, right?
00:30:05.339 --> 00:30:16.039
That's a lot of what processes internally and operations become because information has to go from one place to the next team to the next team to the next team.
00:30:17.039 --> 00:30:31.339
And I just imagine these relay runners just running over batons, rolling around, falling down, because that's what ends up happening in these processes because no one's taking the next part or the the pass isn't happening.
00:30:31.859 --> 00:30:49.799
And so there's just pieces lying all over the field of data of half finished processes, because no one was ever talked to about, oh, so this is the specific place where this piece of information goes to this person.
00:30:50.200 --> 00:30:53.920
And the rest of this list of things to do belongs to them.
00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:08.160
Well, and so then the question I would I would sort of raise then is, do you also have examples of times where focusing on the roles first actually did cause a pain or a gap?
00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:15.920
Because I do have some and I can offer because I feel like we painted this picture now that actually there is an answer, right?
00:31:16.019 --> 00:31:17.160
And it's roles first.
00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:32.940
And to some extent, I would say, yes, and I if you're too early, having general areas is valuable and important, but strict boundaries can cause a lot of pain.
00:31:33.700 --> 00:31:53.750
Because what I have seen is if you try to put really clear, really tight roles early on, you can segue into more of that kind of finger pointing blame game world, then a small team can afford to wrangle with.
00:31:54.609 --> 00:32:01.109
Yeah, so, you know, I'm curious, that's sort of my example is when you get into these, like, well, no, my zone ends here.
00:32:01.309 --> 00:32:05.910
And so, okay, but there are five of us, there's going to be stuff that we all just need to step in and do.
00:32:07.109 --> 00:32:14.849
Even in larger organizations, I've seen it go that way, where you have leaders within, you know, within a team saying, Oh, well, that wasn't my problem.
00:32:14.910 --> 00:32:18.250
So, okay, well, we didn't think about it in enough detail.
00:32:19.869 --> 00:32:32.670
And if we, you know, if we had focused on the process, instead, we would, it might have surfaced some of those areas where we saw those gaps and said, Hey, this is an area that nobody owns right now.
00:32:32.910 --> 00:32:37.970
So to get digging in on that process first, could have been quite valuable.
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:59.460
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've definitely I've definitely lived in that place with companies where they have a person in charge of finance, and a person in charge of HR, and a person in charge of product.
00:33:00.779 --> 00:33:04.700
And they don't talk.
00:33:06.319 --> 00:33:09.500
They like, I'm the director of finance.
00:33:10.619 --> 00:33:16.180
I don't need to know what product is doing or what HR is doing, because I'm just dealing with the numbers.
00:33:16.380 --> 00:33:24.640
And I was like, but where do you think they magically come from?
00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:28.420
And I'm not saying everyone needs to know everything that's happening in the business.
00:33:28.940 --> 00:33:30.099
But there's so much overlap.
00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:38.220
And how can HR I, I was working with a company and the HR person was recruiting for the engineering team.
00:33:40.019 --> 00:33:45.740
And they they did get the job description from the engineering team.
00:33:46.059 --> 00:33:47.539
But that was it.
00:33:48.259 --> 00:33:50.339
And so they're just out there hiring.
00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:55.200
And I'm like, so when does the engineering team get to like interview this person?
00:33:55.339 --> 00:33:58.880
And they're like, no, I just I just pick a person and then I put them on the team.
00:33:58.980 --> 00:34:02.779
And I was like, whoa.
00:34:02.940 --> 00:34:03.640
Wow.
00:34:04.380 --> 00:34:08.199
Yeah, process, process discussion there would have been really helpful.
00:34:08.460 --> 00:34:14.659
Yeah, like, um, So, so they don't get to know who's they don't care.
00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:16.280
They just sit and cope.
00:34:16.820 --> 00:34:19.119
And I was like, I don't think that's how it works.
00:34:23.219 --> 00:34:26.480
So role roles can definitely be the problem children.
00:34:27.099 --> 00:34:35.460
If people think like this is my role and this is what I do and I don't do anything but these things like it's, it's difficult.
00:34:35.739 --> 00:34:50.159
So let's talk about the red flags, I think is a good one to maybe add in here of, okay, when you hear these words, like for me, as I say, the one that picks my ear up immediately is like, I don't care how it works, I just need to get it done.
00:34:51.699 --> 00:34:56.199
Okay, maybe we need to dig a bit deeper, right?
00:34:57.219 --> 00:35:20.960
And then I mean, I've seen cases where that type of view causes such conflict, where then the big gap is then there's strategic misalignment in the organization and when there's strategic misalignment in the organization, no process you throw at it is going to cure the problem.
00:35:21.780 --> 00:35:27.440
It's like putting a bandaid on it and then a bandaid that's going to likely cause more frustration as well.
00:35:28.500 --> 00:35:36.179
So I mean, that for me is one of the red flags, but what's some of the other red flags that you've seen in conversation or heard?
00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:39.639
Ooh, that's a good question.
00:35:39.940 --> 00:36:02.840
I think for me, some of the biggest red flags, I've seen, I already kind of gave one, it's the, oh, well, the processes are more basic, right in this notion that we're gonna start with what's easy as opposed to what's important, or starting with what's easy instead of what's the biggest leverage point or the biggest source of pain.
00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:12.239
And, you know, anyone who's a to-do list person has put, you know, shower on their to-do list just to have something easy to check off, right?
00:36:12.300 --> 00:36:18.760
Like I'm not against that notion, you know, or putting the thing on that you already did, to have that moment.
00:36:19.079 --> 00:36:20.980
There's value in small wins.
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:22.739
There's momentum that comes from it.
00:36:23.159 --> 00:36:33.699
And if that is how you're planning your big efforts is around, well, at least it feels easy, that's a big red flag for me.
00:36:33.880 --> 00:36:39.380
Is that really the decision criteria your organization needs right now?
00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:41.300
get out.
00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:48.099
Yeah, and for me, I would agree with that red flag.
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:54.460
That red flag scares me a lot of easy.
00:36:55.719 --> 00:36:58.400
Maybe it's easy because it doesn't have value, right?
00:36:59.260 --> 00:37:03.619
Maybe this isn't the ROI you're looking for.
00:37:03.860 --> 00:37:06.860
These are not the ROIs you're looking for.
00:37:07.539 --> 00:37:14.739
So, you know, and I think it is...
00:37:16.199 --> 00:37:20.820
I even get distracted by like, I just want something to be done.
00:37:21.579 --> 00:37:25.619
It's not where I need my focus to be, but I just want to have that checkup.
00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:32.900
I just want something that I can just do and be like, oh man, that's great.
00:37:34.480 --> 00:37:42.539
But there's other ways to get there than by not focusing on the thing.
00:37:44.219 --> 00:37:48.579
So yeah, that red flag, I mean, there's so many red flags.
00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:58.760
And the "just" word, obviously I've already mentioned, is a red flag for me. "Just" should not come into a conversation.
00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:12.260
I actually kind of love when it does because it's such an easy, like, I feel like I have a little like sub process always running in my brain so that whenever I hear the word "just" it's like, wait, wait, that's time to stop pause.
00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:17.300
Somebody said "just" time to go back and check all our assumptions.
00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:19.300
Right.
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:21.380
Valid, valid.
00:38:21.380 --> 00:38:22.699
The assumption thing, yeah.
00:38:23.380 --> 00:38:30.539
And I think from that perspective as well, when we look at once you've spotted the gap, right.
00:38:31.519 --> 00:39:00.260
So let's first talk about, so if you have a founder up there, what advice who's looking, who's listening and they've diagnosed, how do they diagnose, first of all, whether it's a role problem they have or a process problem that they have where there's lack of clarity, how do you advise them to go about, oh, I think this is the problem we're trying to solve.
00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:15.739
Yeah, I mean, I think STOP is, is it such a great tool in this context and that sort of think really digging deeper into why are you, what are you trying to solve?
00:39:16.099 --> 00:39:18.179
What are your key pain points your root causes?
00:39:18.599 --> 00:39:22.320
Is this an area where we know who owns all the pieces?
00:39:22.820 --> 00:39:38.519
What we need is clarity around the exact handoff points in the process where we need to understand how this gets done repeatedly, where we're having quality issues in our execution, and we really want to zero in on what, where are the triggers?
00:39:39.820 --> 00:39:51.420
Or are we having people issues, I'm trying to put in big quotes around our processes, because that for me is one of those, well, you know, we're having a, folks can't get along.
00:39:51.579 --> 00:39:54.880
So if we can just streamline our processes, it'll work better.
00:39:55.480 --> 00:40:01.360
That for me is a big roles issue or we know we're not totally sure who does that.
00:40:01.480 --> 00:40:05.380
But if we only detail the process, it'll be clear who does that.
00:40:05.519 --> 00:40:06.380
My chance is really good.
00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:08.219
No, that's not true.
00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:11.960
You want to take a step back and think, but it is iterative, right?
00:40:12.099 --> 00:40:15.719
It just like the chicken and the egg, you don't get a clean answer.
00:40:15.980 --> 00:40:30.280
You don't get to say it's definitely roles or it's definitely processes, you get to do one, and then think about the other, and then circle back and say, hey, how does this new definition of my roles refine my understanding of the process?
00:40:30.460 --> 00:40:35.219
And how does this refinement of the process inform my understanding of the roles?
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:40.659
Yeah, I like that way of looking at it because it is very iterative.
00:40:41.059 --> 00:40:47.760
And and I think, from my experience, it's always a both problem.
00:40:48.539 --> 00:40:50.039
Yeah, to a certain extent.
00:40:50.300 --> 00:41:00.480
I mean, yes, there's there's definitely maybe causation, or we can start with there's a clear starting place.
00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:08.639
But I have rarely seen it be just a process problem, or just a roles problem.
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:15.840
Every time that we're working with client or talking about it, it's a both and.
00:41:16.719 --> 00:41:16.739
Yes.
00:41:18.139 --> 00:41:20.420
Yes, it's a process problem.
00:41:20.840 --> 00:41:22.340
And it's a roles problem.
00:41:22.340 --> 00:41:23.199
But we'll get to that.
00:41:24.159 --> 00:41:39.599
So I think that that iteration that flywheel of how you deal with these situations is really important, because you have to deal with the process, you have to deal with the roles, and you have to assign the process.
00:41:40.260 --> 00:42:00.260
And you have to look and see if that still reflects the role, like, and it just goes back and then you have these incoming shoots of like, new people, new technology, new people, new technology, and that just keeps the wheel spinning, right?
00:42:00.820 --> 00:42:04.019
Because nothing it's business is not static.
00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:15.179
And and so thinking of it in that whole circle way is really helpful to people because it's always yes and Yeah.
00:42:17.119 --> 00:42:28.739
Yeah, I think that's coming back to the original framing, one piece that is not broken, but kind of hiding is the which comes first, not which is the only thing you need to do.
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:31.219
Yes, yes.
00:42:32.519 --> 00:42:45.400
And I think when people look to diagnose, I think that don't error to the side of once you make a diagnosis of where you're starting, that that's the that's what you fix.
00:42:46.920 --> 00:42:57.639
I think is is key is an underscoring of what you've said, Belle, is is, you know, what you start with is not the end point?
00:42:58.559 --> 00:42:58.760
Yeah.
00:42:59.599 --> 00:43:01.539
Yeah, very important, very important.
00:43:02.360 --> 00:43:11.619
So, so since it's a "Yes, and," and you're diagnosing an iterative process and just diagnosing where you're starting.
00:43:12.179 --> 00:43:22.219
And going through that, once you've spotted the gap, like, what that looks like, where where you're starting, where that gap really is.
00:43:23.900 --> 00:43:26.480
How do you take your first steps?
00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:42.559
Because this all involves people because people are part of business without blowing up people's morale or momentum like it's when you're dealing with these big processes and roles.
00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:44.820
How do you do that?
00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:50.860
So I'm a big fan of transparency, right?
00:43:51.119 --> 00:44:03.420
My experience has been that for the kinds of pains that lead to these role conversations, that lead to these process conversations, the senior leaders are the last to know.
00:44:03.960 --> 00:44:17.360
And I say that with great love, but chances are really good that people doing the work every day are already very aware that something needs some attention and needs some love.
00:44:17.619 --> 00:44:22.780
And so being able to articulate everything we just said, we are starting here.
00:44:23.400 --> 00:44:30.860
We're also going to, you know, if we're starting with the roles, we're gonna start here and we're gonna take a look at the processes because there's probably been some pain in the processes.
00:44:31.199 --> 00:44:35.000
We're starting with the processes and we know that there may be some confusion with the roles.
00:44:35.139 --> 00:44:38.059
Don't worry, we're going to look at that.
00:44:38.579 --> 00:44:42.000
I'm coming back to something at another conversation we were having slightly before we started recording.
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:56.619
It is so much about that, bringing the stakeholders in early, explaining the "what's in it" for your team members so that they know they can get a little excited that there's an end in sight.
00:44:57.960 --> 00:45:07.539
And I know that that's not necessarily everyone's cup of tea, so I'm curious what other approaches you all take, if any, to getting this first step going.
00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:11.059
Yeah, I think part of that, right.
00:45:11.760 --> 00:45:17.400
And this also comes from as the company grows and scales, right.
00:45:17.940 --> 00:45:35.619
So the growth point you were at here, and the processes that work here, doesn't necessarily now work properly when you're sitting at maybe four times the growth rate where you started off.
00:45:36.539 --> 00:45:41.519
Obviously for smaller teams, everyone talks all the time.
00:45:42.679 --> 00:45:50.119
But now when you start getting to 20, 50, 100 people, that doesn't always necessarily work.
00:45:51.239 --> 00:45:54.880
And transparency there is just such an important thing.
00:45:55.099 --> 00:46:02.500
I mean, you will quickly see where there's friction, because where there's friction in a process, there's a slowdown in something.
00:46:02.980 --> 00:46:10.039
Whether it's ability to deliver or whether it's you physically see it in revenue slowing down, right.
00:46:12.179 --> 00:46:25.440
And from that perspective, it might be good to every, and I read some articles, you know, I also follow a person that's a VC plus also serial founder.
00:46:26.159 --> 00:46:41.900
Brett Fox, and I like the approach we said every six months, or at least once a year, you've got to say, okay, take a stab of is the team I still have in place fit for size if I double the revenue.
00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:43.099
So I if I grow from one million to 5 million revenue. And do the people have the abilities that they can work at that scale or manage other people at that scale. And a lot of the time that will start showing the gaps and things. And that's a good time to say, okay, Other processes also isn't because the process is an iterative aspect, right. And it also needs to adapt to where the growth is happening. And sometimes you just need to replace the systems and replace or move people in different roles.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:18.619
have Or upskill.
00:47:19.219 --> 00:47:21.139
Start that training if you see it coming early.
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:33.059
Yeah, started early and that's a good checkpoint for me on constantly reviewing, okay, is there a critical gap that's now starting to appear?
00:47:33.199 --> 00:47:46.139
And as I say, the little red flags are there, sometimes we're just to ignore them, but when they start popping up, is really to do that stop and think, organize and plan approach and then do the changes.
00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:48.239
Yeah, yeah.
00:47:48.940 --> 00:48:04.820
I mean, I'm a big fan of starting with the stakeholders as well, you know, it's, you have to know who's gonna have to use it to make it the right option, I think.
00:48:05.219 --> 00:48:12.380
And so, but where I always like to start is I like to analyze what's happening in the moment.
00:48:12.760 --> 00:48:14.539
I don't wanna talk to anyone first.
00:48:14.539 --> 00:48:28.940
I wanna see, I wanna, let me be a fly on the wall for a hot second and see, and just look, look over someone's shoulder, look at, you know, how many- Good old fashioned get go walk?
00:48:29.239 --> 00:48:30.199
Yeah, yeah.
00:48:30.920 --> 00:48:43.519
I just, I want to objectively observe and analyze and then talk to the people.
00:48:44.539 --> 00:48:53.860
And bring them into, okay, what, you know, because a lot of times when we're talking to our clients, we're hearing from them where their pain point is.
00:48:54.400 --> 00:49:02.260
And I will say where you feel the pain is very rarely where it's being caused is something we generally find.
00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:11.079
And so we're very much about like, okay, let's analyze what's happening right now without input.
00:49:11.659 --> 00:49:20.500
Because you've told us where your pain is, we're gonna look at what's in the system, we're gonna make our own diagnosis, then we're gonna talk to people actually in it, right?
00:49:20.780 --> 00:49:25.539
And then say, oh, okay, this is the pain that you're feeling because of this.
00:49:25.940 --> 00:49:30.800
This is pain because objectively we would already analyze like what this looks like.
00:49:31.179 --> 00:49:35.400
So I like that forest perspective first.
00:49:36.159 --> 00:49:42.760
And then to say, oh, okay, well, the path is washed out over here and there's 32 trees down over there.
00:49:42.760 --> 00:49:44.059
So that's the problem, right?
00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:48.360
You're stuck in the middle, of course you can't see those things.
00:49:49.039 --> 00:50:00.539
So like that overview, that 100 foot, thousand foot view first really I think helps me the way I like to kind of dig into the problem.
00:50:01.099 --> 00:50:04.659
And then I will say, I love the people aspect.
00:50:04.980 --> 00:50:09.760
I, that's a great part, but and tell me how you feel about this.
00:50:09.760 --> 00:50:18.159
People bring a lot of emotions into their work, which they should, it's where you spend a ton of your time.
00:50:19.039 --> 00:50:31.280
And so, but in doing that, sometimes you get a skewed response to some process oriented questions or role oriented questions.
00:50:31.280 --> 00:50:36.539
And it's less about what their role is or what the process is.
00:50:36.539 --> 00:50:49.019
And it's more about how they feel about those things or how they've been treated or how they've been perceiving the treatment that they've received based on those things.
00:50:49.239 --> 00:50:58.239
And so that stepping back a little and then it gives me, it helps me to see past some of those biases.
00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:02.760
Well, and that reminds me very much of how I like to talk about systems engineering.
00:51:03.039 --> 00:51:08.840
Systems engineering is being able to hold both the forest and the trees, right?
00:51:08.920 --> 00:51:11.800
That example you gave of there's 30 trees down over there.
00:51:12.239 --> 00:51:14.679
What I was thinking about is where are your monsters, right?
00:51:14.739 --> 00:51:18.300
When they fall over, they're going to take out 15 other trees.
00:51:18.539 --> 00:51:23.500
You can look at these aerial views of forests and you see these glades, these clearings, where did they come from?
00:51:23.539 --> 00:51:27.420
A lot of them came from one big tree, came down and took out a whole bunch of others.
00:51:27.880 --> 00:51:30.360
You need to be able to see both.
00:51:30.619 --> 00:51:37.239
And in many ways, I feel like some of those, those feelings you're talking about in those responses can be your monsters, right?
00:51:37.380 --> 00:51:44.440
Like that tree has the potential to take out a lot of other trees around it.
00:51:45.099 --> 00:51:50.400
And it may be that actually what you have is a communication of perception.
00:51:50.619 --> 00:51:51.880
Maybe your roles are well-defined.
00:51:52.039 --> 00:51:53.820
Maybe your processes are working pretty well.
00:51:53.820 --> 00:52:04.280
And what's happening is something a little fuzzier where the person in this role who is guiding this process is doing it by running around screaming at people.
00:52:04.820 --> 00:52:07.320
Now I will say that is not my zone.
00:52:07.539 --> 00:52:11.039
Like I'm not fixing that problem, but that could be what's it.
00:52:11.099 --> 00:52:18.219
You know, so you do also need to, I see the, those feelings and those biases as more data, right?
00:52:18.340 --> 00:52:21.800
If someone, four people come in and tell me this process is super broken.
00:52:21.800 --> 00:52:32.699
And I don't necessarily know from that, that the process is super broken, but I sure as heck know that at least four people feel like that process is broken and whatever we do, we have to fix that feeling.
00:52:33.119 --> 00:52:33.519
Yeah.
00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:35.179
Yeah, definitely agree.
00:52:35.500 --> 00:52:39.800
And for full transparency, sometimes I've been that person running around screaming at people.
00:52:40.320 --> 00:52:43.079
So, totally felt and heard.
00:52:47.280 --> 00:52:50.820
But I'm not saying, I agree, Belle, totally.
00:52:51.639 --> 00:52:54.239
Sometimes those perspectives are very necessary.
00:52:55.679 --> 00:52:59.179
Hugely necessary to diagnosing what's going on.
00:52:59.699 --> 00:53:02.960
But I do like to step back a little, right?
00:53:02.960 --> 00:53:04.199
Yes, definitely.
00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:08.820
You can't just do those four interviews and say, aha, I know.
00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:11.900
I got it.
00:53:12.159 --> 00:53:21.719
It boils back down to I think the transparency and having the conversations, you know, it's like a wound, you can see there's bleeding, but you don't know what's the cause of it.
00:53:22.019 --> 00:53:31.400
And cause of it only comes through diagnosis and understanding and hearing and listening to people of where the pain lies.
00:53:32.880 --> 00:53:47.179
And so that, as I say, sometimes we'll point to, oops, we really have a people structure problem here or role problem, or no, it's just something that's very ineffective.
00:53:47.659 --> 00:53:59.599
But I think the other part that's also quite key, I think, before we wrap up, but I've noticed sometimes you have a process in place of something that's serving that process.
00:54:00.139 --> 00:54:09.159
10 years down the line, as staff have turned, know if people who designed it originally wasn't there and then suddenly that thing breaks.
00:54:10.579 --> 00:54:19.139
And all the documentation around that specific aspect of the process are now long gone.
00:54:21.519 --> 00:54:27.559
So there is that lot to be said about part of it is the documentation aspect.
00:54:27.860 --> 00:54:38.679
And at least these days we're having better tools, I think, with AI to keep that IP there, that when that happens, that people can dig back.
00:54:39.280 --> 00:54:43.179
And don't necessarily think that something is broken.
00:54:43.639 --> 00:54:46.480
As you say, the process may not be, there may be other recourses.
00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:49.380
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
00:54:50.840 --> 00:55:02.300
Well, before we wrap up, Belle, is there anything you want to highlight, key takeaways, last minute takeaways, and then where people can find you?
00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:20.440
Yeah, I think that the key takeaways I'm going to come back to that just reiterating we framed it as which comes first the processor the roles and I would prefer to just highlight the first in that sentence, you're going to have to do that question you're going to have to do both.
00:55:20.980 --> 00:55:22.739
You're going to have to iterate.
00:55:22.900 --> 00:55:30.300
And so it's really about where do you start to get the most leverage and then making sure you, you remember to do both before you're done.
00:55:31.559 --> 00:55:33.619
And then keep going because you're never really done.
00:55:34.400 --> 00:55:43.860
And so you can find me on my website is Belleview consulting.com it's B E L L E V I E W so my view of the world.
00:55:44.699 --> 00:55:47.280
Belleview consulting.com and I'm on LinkedIn Belle Walker.
00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:48.539
and love it.
00:55:48.820 --> 00:55:49.239
I love it.
00:55:49.760 --> 00:55:52.500
Thank you so much for coming to our podcast.
00:55:53.539 --> 00:56:00.280
For all of our audience members, like, subscribe, follow, whatever, we're everywhere.
00:56:00.780 --> 00:56:03.239
You can find podcasts, Ops, o r Die.
00:56:04.139 --> 00:56:05.119
Those are your options.
00:56:07.179 --> 00:56:09.059
And we've had so much fun today.
00:56:09.980 --> 00:56:16.079
This is Katie, and signing off, and we will see you next time.
00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:26.480
Thanks for listening to Ops or Die, the podcast for all things business operations.
00:56:27.059 --> 00:56:38.000
With your hosts, Maria Pienaar and Katie Whitcraft, our theme music composed by Min Tran and editing services provided by Troubleshoot Productions.
00:56:39.179 --> 00:56:48.539
For more information on how to make your operations smart ops, visit www.scalespark.ai.
