WEBVTT
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Hey there.
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Welcome back to Sessions with System and Soul.
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I'm Mackenzie.
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I'm here with Benj
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What's up?
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Benj has got good energy today.
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We today, we've got a, what we call a reflection episode for you.
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What this, what that means is we're gonna talk through some things that we notice that are just general, a general feeling, a general vibe, a general challenge that we see as we work with clients and that we experience ourselves.
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So we're working through it with you.
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We're gonna have a conversation today around it.
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Before we start, I wanna thank fist bumps.
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So fist bumps is the team that puts this amazing this amazing show on for us.
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If you need help with a really authentic message and really authentic content, they are your people.
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getfistbumps.com Okay.
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Benj.
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I can feel you bracing yourself for this conversation.
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I, you know what I am Actually, can I tell you, okay.
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So this morning I was thinking about this.
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I'm like, how do we wanna address this like pace of change idea?
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And I found myself like this is probably just like how I operate, but I found myself being irritated because I'm like, I think one of the things that's really hard about this conversation is.
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There's a lot of in my opinion, there's like a lot of competing wisdom around it.
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There's a lot of so here I wrote down what I feel like I've heard all these people say all these phrases.
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That are supposed to be like, I guess they're supposed to be advice when you're trying to decide are we moving at the right pace?
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Is the pace of change fast enough?
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Are we being thoughtful enough?
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Whatever it is.
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I'm so curious
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what's on the list?
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Okay, so my first one, okay, by the way, don't know who said any of these things, so that's how valid they are.
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We will work it out
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Slow is fast and fast is smooth", "Move fast and break things".
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"Keep the one thing", which, it's a pace thing.
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Okay, hold on.
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So the first one's a military phrase.
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You don't have it perfect, but it's a military phrase.
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And I love that one.
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The second one's from Zuckerberg, that was his whole thing at Facebook for the first 20 years.
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And the third one I'm pretty sure is from the movie City Slickers But keep going.
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Okay.
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So we're fact checking as we go.
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Yeah, I got you.
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And "We have a strategy: it's called Doing Things".
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That's the other one I'm thinking of.
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And I think that one's about pace, because I think you say that when it's okay, we just need to, we need to go, like we need to be.
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And that one is Herb Keller, which is legit.
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Yeah.
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Can you think of as I like as I say all those, do you, can you think of one that you
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oh, probably, I don't know.
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Not on the spot, but I do love I do love a few of those.
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And Herb Keller's especially, because what it reminds me is the the strategy, like people get so wrapped up in strategy, which is not really what we're talking about today, but the reality of what strategy is like it should tell us what we're gonna do and what we're not gonna do.
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That's like at its core, it should give us insight to that and then, and in what we're gonna do.
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"Keep the main thing".
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Move fast.... "move fast and break things" is great for stage one companies.
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I'm not sure it's the right advice for all companies.
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Yeah.
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And I actually have your first quote on my I got a new laptop, but it was on my, it was the only thing on my old laptop.
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And it says "slow is smooth, and smooth is fast".
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And so the idea is I want to go fast, but the way to go fast is to go smooth.
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And the way to go smooth is to go slow.
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And it's it's more I think of a mindset than it is a actual pace.
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Because if you're in the middle of a war zone, like you gotta go fast, right?
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It's not Hey, let's just sit back here and bunker and drink some tea and think about what we're gonna do.
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You've gotta go, there's still movement.
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But make your movements smooth.
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Yeah, I think you're helping me place some of these things, but I do think that a lot of the pace conversation is, this is another, I think this is an Andy Stanley thing, but it's "A tension to be managed".
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Like not a problem to solve, but a tension to manage, which, and that's what I wanna talk to you about today in a couple of different ways, because I think oftentimes we're like, it's as simple as this.
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Like we like, but there is more of a, there's more of like a sliding scale of dealing with.
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Change how fast we move, how we make decisions, how we bring people along for those decisions.
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So that's what we're gonna talk about today.
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Let's go.
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It's definitely a tension.
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We feel it too.
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Yeah.
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And we can talk through that.
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Maybe we can get some work done while we're on this call.
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The first, so the first kind of tension category of tension that we deal with this is this idea of like progress and perfection.
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Which I think there's a, another way to say it might be like iteration versus the highest quality outcome.
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Like really this battle between we're learning as we go.
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We're giving our space, we're giving ourselves space to unlearn, we're giving ourselves space to create feedback loops.
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Yeah.
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And then moving towards the quickest, most.
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High quality most, directed action and getting it right the first time, second time, third time.
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Let me just tell you my reaction to that 'cause I have a deep bias when it comes to this and that it's that learning happens in action.
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And so like when people get paralyzed by perfection, it feels like something's sitting on the shelf because we're afraid of failure.
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And.
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There's actually a mentality that you can have over the speed of failure, and so it's not about not failing because you will fail.
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Things will be less than perfect.
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So how fast can we get through the reps, the awkward reps?
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And a lot of this comes down.
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Some of us are wired.
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I'm a perfectionist.
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I'm, I, excellence is all that matters.
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I don't want to be seen as somebody that makes a mistake or an error.
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So I reread my email five times and I, my bent's like way on the other side you're gonna get an email from me.
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It might not have capitalization, it might not have punctuation.
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I'm gonna do dot seven times in one very long sentence because that's how my mind thinks.
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So you might get that from me, but I'm gonna get that off and it's gonna be done, and it's gonna be outta my mind and outta my space, and so my ability to get more done.
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Maybe not perfect, but more done.
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I just don't know how much value perfection actually has.
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Now on this other side of that, like I don't want us launching features in our software that have bugs and let users have a bad experience, right?
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So it's knowing like where's that is the tension, right?
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Where is the line?
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But I think learning happens in action.
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And if we're waiting for something to be perfect.
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Then we're like to launch, like then we're not getting customer feedback.
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We're not seeing where things break fast enough and just learning happens in action.
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But I know that's a tension.
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'Cause you do things really well and you want them to be really well.
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So how do you manage that?
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Yeah I was gonna say, I don't, and in response to what you just said, I don't think that.
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I totally agree with.
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I think I was gonna say like in more of a growth stage business, but I think in any business I've been in the progress over perfection.
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It's true.
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No matter what stage you're at, I think it is.
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I think it's focusing the two things.
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I think it's focusing on what things require perfection, which is one of the things that you just mentioned.
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So I think that's one bucket.
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What requires perfection and are we creating the correct feedback loops so that if we're living in the journey of progress, are we making sure that we're learning from it?
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I think that's where, I think that's where that falls off the rails and people wanna use that as we're just, we've gotta learn, which I think is absolutely true.
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A hundred percent.
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We've got a beta test, we've gotta get MVPs out there.
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We have to do that, but we also have to make sure that we're looking at what we learned and iterating on that.
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When I say we need to focus, perfection, what you just said about so we have a software and it would not be acceptable for us to be releasing features that are half baked.
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It doesn't create the customer experience that we know we need in order to.
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Serve our customers in the way that we want to.
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So I think that perfection piece, there's gonna be a progress to get to that perfection.
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But there's a certain number of things in any business where you say, these are non-negotiable.
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These are the things we're gonna do extraordinarily well, and we're probably actually gonna be spending more and more time.
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Making progress on making that thing better over time.
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So that could be customer service, that could be speed to delivery, that could be communication.
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There's probably a handful of things that are, that require that perfection and maybe we give it the space to or we just acknowledge that we give it we acknowledge the thing that requires a perfection.
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We let everything else live in progress.
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I like feel myself tightening up on the inside even.
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When you say there's some things that require perfection.
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So go back to the software example.
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We don't get perfection.
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There's gonna be some weird edge case use case that we didn't expect and a customer's gonna find it.
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So in that case, it's get it to the place where we're comfortable with for the majority of the users.
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Put it out there and then our job is to be like, how fast can we respond and fix that?
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It's not perfection.
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It's not perfection.
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It's excellence.
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Yeah.
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It's a standard, and different things have different bars for what that can be, and different people have different bars, and I think that's where it can create organizational frustration.
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I was in a session yesterday and people were like, why hasn't this launched?
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And it took us forever to get to like kind of the root problem.
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And there were a couple things that.
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It people like didn't believe were ready.
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And it's that, it's what you're saying, like they didn't feel like it was to the excellence standard that the organization has.
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And so internally it was hard to get buy-in to then take externally and that was a huge roadblock.
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And so we had to go, okay, what things don't feel excellent and are these really deal breakers that are gonna stop us from launching or, so we made like an absolute list and a coming soon list.
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So where is the line?
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That we feel good enough we can take this to market to start to get some feedback, to get more data.
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Like action creates learning, right?
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So there's gonna be something else that comes up that's ooh, this is not to our level of excellence.
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But we wouldn't have known that if it was sitting on the shelf.
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But it took a lot for them to get to that root in the room, especially 'cause it involves the whole organization.
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So everybody had their different perspective on their part of.
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The pieces and what should be perfect and what was good and what wasn't.
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So it took us a long time to get there and realize that's what was happening.
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I, I think that's such an important step.
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I had a real, it's funny, I had a similar conversation internally yesterday in, inside of our team around the same thing.
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There's, we're working on a project and as we we decided this project, I guess at this point, six weeks ago.
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So we're halfway through the time allotted for it.
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And as we, over this six weeks, we've learned a ton and it's changed.
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Everything that we planned for has changed and we're looking at it and I'm talking to this team member and it's oh, like this kind of feels like a failure because everything we thought is not true and we're not gonna hit the goal.
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So we're like what could we do differently?
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And the two things we landed on were when we talk about this on the front end, maybe there's some like reality check.
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We need to pause and do what you did with that team, which is what's negotiable?
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What's non-negotiable?
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Yeah,
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there's that.
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And then there's also just giving ourselves the space for iteration and learning.
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And maybe that's truly like we need to allot more days of time or weeks of time.
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'cause there's a lot of unknowns that we need to account for.
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One of the things as you were talking that I was thinking of is, I think a lot of times, and maybe this is a me problem, but like I'll get frustrated at times when I see slowness.
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Yeah.
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When we've made a decision.
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We're gonna, it's like we, we decided that we're moving in that direction.
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Why isn't everybody.
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Why aren't we there?
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And I think there's so much in wrapped up in that, in, in leading people through change.
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But I think one of the things that you just said related to that team is that they were unclear there.
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It wasn't that people are being slow, it's that there was something that wasn't clear about what the deliverable was, what our standard of excellence is.
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And that's, I think.
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The slowness is probably an indicator less of like disengagement or disinterest or procrastination.
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It's more of a signal of care because people are like, I wanna do my job.
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So I think that conversation's really important to have
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it.
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It is.
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I will say it also felt like a leadership fail because these are senior leaders and nobody like just raised their hand and said.
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I have trouble backing this, or my team has trouble backing this because X, Y, Z. So the fact that we had to have the conversation and go those layers deep without somebody just raising their hand or multiple people raising their hand, that felt like, ooh, we've got some, we've got some, leadership inner work to do because we can't just my coach has a, let's see if I can get this quote be careful of disagreement, masquerading as confusion.
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And I see that a lot too as oh, I wasn't sure about this and this.
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No, you just disagreed.
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Or you didn't like the answer or you weren't you didn't do your job, so you just act confused about what was supposed to happen.
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I don't know why my team did this and this.
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Okay, maybe it's 'cause you didn't lead them well and give them the directive to get it done or the urgency.
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And I think I know what project pro project you're referring to internally for us.
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And I smile going "man. I don't know that we could have done any better on the front side." And that's the point, is we all love the quote, the saying everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face.
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You can add that.
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Mike Tyson.
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Yep.
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There you go.
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Thank you.
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Fact check.
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But like this is that we created a plan and then we got punched in the face.
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Oh my gosh, this is so much bigger.
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There's a better way to actually go about the whole thing.
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Different people need to be involved in different parts of the process in a different way, and so we learned a lot.
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We iterated, we switched, and it's gonna be so much better because of all the switches that we've made.
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So I don't know, but you're, what you're talking about goes to this.
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The other thing that we we talk about internally, I don't know if we've ever used this language outside, but it's like your gut versus gravity.
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My guts always says we should be moving faster.
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Always.
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But there's a gravity in every organization to both how you've always done it.
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And a pace that you're comfortable with, like people seek comfort.
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And so very rarely, most founders are very okay with being uncomfortable.
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That's like the number one trait because there's nothing comfortable about being a founder.
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But then you're surrounded by a bunch of people in an organization that seek comfort and they, the leaders have gut saying this should be this way and this should go faster, and why aren't we doing this?
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There's a gravity to the people in the organization pulling you down.
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And I laughed, what was it this week or last week when we were around a table and you said, but I just don't know if we're going fast enough.
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And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is the moment.
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Write it down.
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Like it's usually me saying that to you and you being the gravity, and I'm like.
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This is awesome.
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And then I was the gravity in that moment.
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I'm like, yeah, but I honestly am not sure what we even do to be able to go faster.
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But I feel you.
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I feel you.
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So there's like the gut, the feeling and then the reality.
00:16:35.504 --> 00:16:41.364
So how are you handling your frustration of your gut that we should be going faster?
00:16:41.903 --> 00:16:49.320
And our pace, our and the gravity of resources and time and people and all of the realities.
00:16:50.548 --> 00:16:50.938
Okay.
00:16:50.938 --> 00:16:57.749
I have two thoughts and I wanna push your question the side and go back to what you were saying about the speed versus comfort thing.
00:16:58.169 --> 00:17:01.789
There's part of me that agrees with it, and then there's part of me that's oh wait, let me do this.
00:17:01.789 --> 00:17:04.909
Yes and yes, and meaning I agree.
00:17:04.938 --> 00:17:08.899
And also I don't know that it's always a comfort thing.
00:17:09.440 --> 00:17:15.169
As much as it is, we have people on our team with different, we call 'em geniuses.
00:17:15.559 --> 00:17:27.980
Their genius requires a pace that let, lets them sit in something, comb through something, marinate and pull out oh yeah, did we think of this?
00:17:27.980 --> 00:17:34.659
Did we, oh, I if they have a few hours instead of a few minutes, they're able to look at something differently objectively, or.
00:17:35.364 --> 00:17:37.044
They can make that connection.
00:17:37.359 --> 00:17:41.654
I'm a little more like that, so I tend to be and I'm a more cautious person.
00:17:41.654 --> 00:17:44.324
So the caution is probably the comfort piece.
00:17:44.324 --> 00:17:47.384
It's makes me feel comfortable when we're moving cautiously.
00:17:47.834 --> 00:17:58.394
But I do think, and we've encountered this internally, it's like your pace is I can give feedback in five minutes and there's other people on our team, they need five hours.
00:17:58.754 --> 00:18:04.224
And their return in that five hours is gonna be exponentially better for the way that they operate.
00:18:04.704 --> 00:18:06.714
And I think we have to keep that in mind as well.
00:18:07.074 --> 00:18:08.964
Just as a dignifying piece.
00:18:09.054 --> 00:18:09.625
A dignifying
00:18:09.865 --> 00:18:10.344
Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:10.394 --> 00:18:11.625
It gets us what we want.
00:18:12.324 --> 00:18:12.519
I'll give you,
00:18:12.589 --> 00:18:14.754
I'll give you a very real example of that.
00:18:15.004 --> 00:18:20.854
There were a couple actual objectives that were on our list for the quarter.
00:18:21.734 --> 00:18:36.644
One specifically that you had, and it's big and you are gonna have to have a couple meetings, and I'm sure if you stuck with that, whatever you came back would be like masterful.
00:18:36.644 --> 00:18:44.623
And there'd be a document and there'd be a flow chart, and there'd be like the level of detail would've been way deeper than I was capable of.
00:18:44.744 --> 00:18:48.514
I am capable of, because of what you're talking about your ability to go deep into.
00:18:48.933 --> 00:18:49.534
The thinking.
00:18:50.204 --> 00:19:01.284
We decided, a week or two ago, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take that for now, and I just stewed on it in my subconscious and it actually drove me crazy for a little while.
00:19:01.674 --> 00:19:04.434
But then I came back and what I brought back to you was like.
00:19:05.034 --> 00:19:08.814
The work output of maybe 20 minutes at a computer, right?
00:19:08.894 --> 00:19:09.854
Maybe it was more than that.
00:19:10.154 --> 00:19:12.334
But there was all the thinking that went into it.
00:19:12.334 --> 00:19:17.115
And then the 20 minutes at the computer, your work would've been days.
00:19:17.444 --> 00:19:20.294
But it would've been way deeper and way better.
00:19:20.844 --> 00:19:24.824
But you also would've gotten to a point where because you would've wanted it to be so good.
00:19:25.409 --> 00:19:33.119
Had you been wrong in any of your decision points along the way, you would've done a lot of work that couldn't, that we would have to go backwards on.
00:19:33.169 --> 00:19:38.419
And so I took it and two days later I'm like, when can I present this to you and Chris, right?
00:19:38.419 --> 00:19:41.240
Like to make sure I'm on the right path.
00:19:41.929 --> 00:19:46.240
And I don't know if I am or not, but that's an example of what you're talking about.
00:19:46.240 --> 00:20:01.119
Like I'm gonna go really fast, but it might not have a depth and an accuracy to it that you or some of our other people on the team would have, which makes, I think it makes a good partnership, but it is also still a tension because.
00:20:01.990 --> 00:20:05.319
I know when you give me something you're like, I don't know what I'm gonna get back.
00:20:05.319 --> 00:20:06.789
It's gonna end up back on my plate.
00:20:06.789 --> 00:20:08.439
I'm gonna have to do the deep work.
00:20:09.259 --> 00:20:10.549
So that, am I right?
00:20:10.549 --> 00:20:11.689
Is that real?
00:20:12.019 --> 00:20:13.099
Sometimes, yeah.
00:20:14.059 --> 00:20:17.809
Sorry, my mind's going a bunch of directions I wanna talk about.
00:20:18.109 --> 00:20:19.309
I think sometimes yes.
00:20:19.889 --> 00:20:21.719
It's again, we're in attention.
00:20:21.719 --> 00:20:23.809
That's why this is there's not a one answer.
00:20:23.809 --> 00:20:26.089
'cause there's sometimes I fully agree with you.
00:20:26.089 --> 00:20:40.000
It's we don't need, we don't need, and I need to make sure that I'm not communicating to our team in a way that when I give them something to do, they go and they spend 17 hours instead of seven minutes when all we need is the seven minutes.
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:42.039
We don't need 17 hours yet.
00:20:42.309 --> 00:20:42.549
Yeah.
00:20:43.209 --> 00:20:55.559
I think we have to, it's, and sometimes you do a really good job of this, where you communicate that on the front end where you're like, let's go work on this, but don't spend here's how much time you should spend on it.
00:20:55.559 --> 00:20:59.359
I know we could go and become like PhDs on this, but like we need to.
00:20:59.865 --> 00:21:06.644
Like right size the appetite is the word we use for it, but communicate what the appetite is, I think is really important.
00:21:07.004 --> 00:21:08.984
Yeah, I was gonna say, you really good at it too.
00:21:08.984 --> 00:21:10.214
And I think that's something you've
00:21:10.694 --> 00:21:11.504
grown in, you've
00:21:11.714 --> 00:21:21.653
Learned over the last couple years, that even if we think, this is a 10 minute task, somebody could pick it up thinking that we think it's a, 10 hour task.
00:21:21.653 --> 00:21:25.284
And so to communicate that you do that exceptionally well.
00:21:25.613 --> 00:21:25.943
Yeah.
00:21:26.769 --> 00:21:27.309
Thank you.
00:21:27.369 --> 00:21:28.119
There's, so when do
00:21:28.119 --> 00:21:40.129
we decide whether to push a team to go faster versus slow down and do it well, or just not even, staying neutral to the speed that's happening?
00:21:40.969 --> 00:21:44.209
When do we know when to push a team to go faster?
00:21:44.359 --> 00:21:46.699
When to slow down or stay neutral?
00:21:47.149 --> 00:21:49.129
So I'll answer it and I wanna hear your answer.
00:21:49.729 --> 00:21:56.479
I think when we're trying something new, when we don't have a proof of concept yet, I think we have to move really fast.
00:21:56.689 --> 00:22:00.048
So we know we have a new product that we wanna release.
00:22:00.078 --> 00:22:02.639
There's a new business line.
00:22:03.119 --> 00:22:05.548
There's a new marketing campaign.
00:22:06.344 --> 00:22:07.664
Marketing activity.
00:22:07.964 --> 00:22:12.764
I think that requires speed Plus feedback loops.
00:22:12.884 --> 00:22:13.034
Yeah.
00:22:13.094 --> 00:22:14.024
Plus iteration.
00:22:14.024 --> 00:22:16.424
There's gotta be this like process.
00:22:16.524 --> 00:22:18.054
When do we need to slow down?
00:22:18.054 --> 00:22:24.024
I think once we found a proof of concept with something, I think then we dial it in.
00:22:24.054 --> 00:22:26.454
It's like, how do we sharpen what we've learned?
00:22:26.514 --> 00:22:27.684
We've learned that works.
00:22:28.149 --> 00:22:33.039
For example, this is inside of our business, so we've got software.
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:33.939
We've talked about that.
00:22:33.939 --> 00:22:37.029
The software is like constantly iterative.
00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:39.429
There's so much that we have to move really fast.
00:22:39.429 --> 00:22:43.764
Some of that's the industry pace and some of it is just we have to test things and learn.
00:22:44.534 --> 00:22:45.794
On the other side of the business.
00:22:45.794 --> 00:22:58.534
We move a lot slower when it comes to the, we have a coach community, a bunch of business coaches that are part of our community, and we are very intentional and careful about how we add new things to that yeah.
00:22:58.534 --> 00:22:58.984
Environment.
00:22:58.984 --> 00:23:01.234
And I think maybe that's an example of.
00:23:01.419 --> 00:23:02.889
Of how that works.
00:23:02.919 --> 00:23:07.519
'cause we wanna be very, the word is intentional and how we handle that part of our business.
00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:10.309
It feels like we've, it's like we've really established a proof of concept.
00:23:10.309 --> 00:23:11.209
We've got something awesome.
00:23:11.209 --> 00:23:12.259
We're like, we don't wanna mess it up.
00:23:12.879 --> 00:23:13.389
Neutral.
00:23:13.389 --> 00:23:13.899
I don't know.
00:23:13.949 --> 00:23:15.929
I don't know if I have an answer for neutral.
00:23:16.139 --> 00:23:18.568
Here's what comes up for me.
00:23:18.808 --> 00:23:19.139
Yeah.
00:23:19.409 --> 00:23:27.209
Is I think most organizations are moving too slow and I think most organizations, the reason why.
00:23:27.729 --> 00:23:31.028
Is because we do the work without thinking about the work.
00:23:31.269 --> 00:23:42.498
And maybe it's just a skillset I have, but I end up in a lot of conversations where I question how we're doing the work and people are like oh yeah, we could do it that way.
00:23:42.498 --> 00:23:48.798
And now we're doing it in half the time, or we're doing it, and that those kind of conversations have been a lot.
00:23:48.888 --> 00:23:51.528
And I think it's because most people, when they start doing the work.
00:23:52.173 --> 00:23:53.883
They don't think about how to do the work.
00:23:54.183 --> 00:24:03.353
I am I don't know if this is the right word, but I wanna say lazy, that I will spend the time figuring out the easiest way to do the work before I just start doing the work.
00:24:03.863 --> 00:24:06.413
And I think most organizations don't do that.
00:24:06.413 --> 00:24:12.593
So if you feel like you're going too slow, you're probably not taking enough time to think about how you're doing the work.
00:24:13.584 --> 00:24:14.544
That's my big takeaway.
00:24:14.544 --> 00:24:14.964
What's yours?
00:24:15.534 --> 00:24:16.344
No, I love that.
00:24:16.344 --> 00:24:21.173
I was gonna say, maybe neutral isn't an option because it should always be a conversation.
00:24:21.534 --> 00:24:22.434
That's interesting.
00:24:22.494 --> 00:24:22.854
At least.
00:24:22.854 --> 00:24:23.094
Yeah.
00:24:23.094 --> 00:24:25.574
Then you're forcing that, are we doing this the right way?
00:24:25.964 --> 00:24:27.164
Yeah, that's good.
00:24:27.164 --> 00:24:36.964
And I would say the takeaway, it's advice and a takeaway I guess, but this is attention to be managed, which means this is a conversation at all times.
00:24:37.014 --> 00:24:39.324
I think there's an emotional aspect to this.
00:24:39.564 --> 00:24:49.854
One thing we didn't really talk about is I think sometimes we get into this comparison trap with this pace of change for our organization or our stuff versus other people's stuff.
00:24:50.183 --> 00:24:58.854
And I think we have to have the conversations internally and either, acknowledge that we're trying to compare ourselves to our competitor.
00:24:59.244 --> 00:25:01.434
We're unclear, we disagree.
00:25:01.494 --> 00:25:06.984
Like I think the convers it has to be a conversation and it's a huge fail.
00:25:06.984 --> 00:25:19.884
As you mentioned with the example you gave earlier, it's a huge fail for a leadership team if we're not, someone's not raising their hand to say, I either don't understand this, or we haven't evaluated this, or whatever it is.
00:25:19.884 --> 00:25:21.414
So I think maybe that's my takeaway.
00:25:22.149 --> 00:25:22.659
That's good.
00:25:22.988 --> 00:25:24.519
Hey, thanks for bringing up this conversation.
00:25:24.519 --> 00:25:25.148
This is good.
00:25:25.148 --> 00:25:26.918
It feels deep 'cause it feels personal.
00:25:26.918 --> 00:25:39.933
So hopefully everybody listening can relate to this in one way or another and have something actionable that they can go do, a team that they can go ask about how they're doing the work or challenge them to speed up or maybe slow down.
00:25:39.933 --> 00:25:44.763
Maybe there's a quality issue there that they're, they are going too fast, which makes me.
00:25:44.823 --> 00:25:49.173
I'm almost sick to say because I want everything to go faster.
00:25:49.863 --> 00:25:56.133
But we'll see how fast this next week goes, and we'll see you next week for another episode of Sessions.
00:25:56.223 --> 00:25:57.628
Thanks again to fist bumps.
00:00:36.869 --> 00:00:37.259
Hey there.
00:00:37.259 --> 00:00:39.719
Welcome back to Sessions with System and Soul.
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I'm Mackenzie.
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I'm here with Benj
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What's up?
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Benj has got good energy today.
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We today, we've got a, what we call a reflection episode for you.
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What this, what that means is we're gonna talk through some things that we notice that are just general, a general feeling, a general vibe, a general challenge that we see as we work with clients and that we experience ourselves.
00:01:05.650 --> 00:01:07.569
So we're working through it with you.
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We're gonna have a conversation today around it.
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Before we start, I wanna thank fist bumps.
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So fist bumps is the team that puts this amazing this amazing show on for us.
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If you need help with a really authentic message and really authentic content, they are your people.
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getfistbumps.com Okay.
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Benj.
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I can feel you bracing yourself for this conversation.
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I, you know what I am Actually, can I tell you, okay.
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So this morning I was thinking about this.
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I'm like, how do we wanna address this like pace of change idea?
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And I found myself like this is probably just like how I operate, but I found myself being irritated because I'm like, I think one of the things that's really hard about this conversation is.
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There's a lot of in my opinion, there's like a lot of competing wisdom around it.
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There's a lot of so here I wrote down what I feel like I've heard all these people say all these phrases.
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That are supposed to be like, I guess they're supposed to be advice when you're trying to decide are we moving at the right pace?
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Is the pace of change fast enough?
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Are we being thoughtful enough?
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Whatever it is.
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I'm so curious
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what's on the list?
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Okay, so my first one, okay, by the way, don't know who said any of these things, so that's how valid they are.
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We will work it out
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Slow is fast and fast is smooth", "Move fast and break things".
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"Keep the one thing", which, it's a pace thing.
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Okay, hold on.
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So the first one's a military phrase.
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You don't have it perfect, but it's a military phrase.
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And I love that one.
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The second one's from Zuckerberg, that was his whole thing at Facebook for the first 20 years.
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And the third one I'm pretty sure is from the movie City Slickers But keep going.
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Okay.
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So we're fact checking as we go.
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Yeah, I got you.
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And "We have a strategy: it's called Doing Things".
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That's the other one I'm thinking of.
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And I think that one's about pace, because I think you say that when it's okay, we just need to, we need to go, like we need to be.
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And that one is Herb Keller, which is legit.
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Yeah.
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Can you think of as I like as I say all those, do you, can you think of one that you
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oh, probably, I don't know.
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Not on the spot, but I do love I do love a few of those.
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And Herb Keller's especially, because what it reminds me is the the strategy, like people get so wrapped up in strategy, which is not really what we're talking about today, but the reality of what strategy is like it should tell us what we're gonna do and what we're not gonna do.
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That's like at its core, it should give us insight to that and then, and in what we're gonna do.
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"Keep the main thing".
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Move fast.... "move fast and break things" is great for stage one companies.
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I'm not sure it's the right advice for all companies.
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Yeah.
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And I actually have your first quote on my I got a new laptop, but it was on my, it was the only thing on my old laptop.
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And it says "slow is smooth, and smooth is fast".
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And so the idea is I want to go fast, but the way to go fast is to go smooth.
00:04:03.553 --> 00:04:05.504
And the way to go smooth is to go slow.
00:04:06.014 --> 00:04:10.754
And it's it's more I think of a mindset than it is a actual pace.
00:04:10.814 --> 00:04:15.233
Because if you're in the middle of a war zone, like you gotta go fast, right?
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It's not Hey, let's just sit back here and bunker and drink some tea and think about what we're gonna do.
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You've gotta go, there's still movement.
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But make your movements smooth.
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Yeah, I think you're helping me place some of these things, but I do think that a lot of the pace conversation is, this is another, I think this is an Andy Stanley thing, but it's "A tension to be managed".
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Like not a problem to solve, but a tension to manage, which, and that's what I wanna talk to you about today in a couple of different ways, because I think oftentimes we're like, it's as simple as this.
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Like we like, but there is more of a, there's more of like a sliding scale of dealing with.
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Change how fast we move, how we make decisions, how we bring people along for those decisions.
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So that's what we're gonna talk about today.
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Let's go.
00:05:03.799 --> 00:05:04.919
It's definitely a tension.
00:05:04.968 --> 00:05:05.809
We feel it too.
00:05:06.229 --> 00:05:06.559
Yeah.
00:05:06.559 --> 00:05:07.489
And we can talk through that.
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Maybe we can get some work done while we're on this call.
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The first, so the first kind of tension category of tension that we deal with this is this idea of like progress and perfection.
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Which I think there's a, another way to say it might be like iteration versus the highest quality outcome.
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Like really this battle between we're learning as we go.
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We're giving our space, we're giving ourselves space to unlearn, we're giving ourselves space to create feedback loops.
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Yeah.
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And then moving towards the quickest, most.
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High quality most, directed action and getting it right the first time, second time, third time.
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Let me just tell you my reaction to that 'cause I have a deep bias when it comes to this and that it's that learning happens in action.
00:06:06.713 --> 00:06:15.473
And so like when people get paralyzed by perfection, it feels like something's sitting on the shelf because we're afraid of failure.
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And.
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There's actually a mentality that you can have over the speed of failure, and so it's not about not failing because you will fail.
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Things will be less than perfect.
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So how fast can we get through the reps, the awkward reps?
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And a lot of this comes down.
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Some of us are wired.
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I'm a perfectionist.
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I'm, I, excellence is all that matters.
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I don't want to be seen as somebody that makes a mistake or an error.
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So I reread my email five times and I, my bent's like way on the other side you're gonna get an email from me.
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It might not have capitalization, it might not have punctuation.
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I'm gonna do dot seven times in one very long sentence because that's how my mind thinks.
00:06:56.538 --> 00:07:05.209
So you might get that from me, but I'm gonna get that off and it's gonna be done, and it's gonna be outta my mind and outta my space, and so my ability to get more done.
00:07:05.809 --> 00:07:07.819
Maybe not perfect, but more done.
00:07:08.088 --> 00:07:10.999
I just don't know how much value perfection actually has.
00:07:10.999 --> 00:07:18.059
Now on this other side of that, like I don't want us launching features in our software that have bugs and let users have a bad experience, right?
00:07:18.538 --> 00:07:20.859
So it's knowing like where's that is the tension, right?
00:07:20.859 --> 00:07:21.848
Where is the line?
00:07:22.329 --> 00:07:25.119
But I think learning happens in action.
00:07:25.119 --> 00:07:27.189
And if we're waiting for something to be perfect.
00:07:27.864 --> 00:07:31.014
Then we're like to launch, like then we're not getting customer feedback.
00:07:31.014 --> 00:07:36.084
We're not seeing where things break fast enough and just learning happens in action.
00:07:36.084 --> 00:07:36.984
But I know that's a tension.
00:07:37.033 --> 00:07:42.114
'Cause you do things really well and you want them to be really well.
00:07:42.413 --> 00:07:43.794
So how do you manage that?
00:07:44.064 --> 00:07:48.704
Yeah I was gonna say, I don't, and in response to what you just said, I don't think that.
00:07:49.408 --> 00:07:51.329
I totally agree with.
00:07:51.684 --> 00:07:59.884
I think I was gonna say like in more of a growth stage business, but I think in any business I've been in the progress over perfection.
00:07:59.884 --> 00:08:00.394
It's true.
00:08:00.394 --> 00:08:03.304
No matter what stage you're at, I think it is.
00:08:03.634 --> 00:08:06.134
I think it's focusing the two things.
00:08:06.134 --> 00:08:12.223
I think it's focusing on what things require perfection, which is one of the things that you just mentioned.
00:08:12.223 --> 00:08:14.059
So I think that's one bucket.
00:08:14.848 --> 00:08:25.408
What requires perfection and are we creating the correct feedback loops so that if we're living in the journey of progress, are we making sure that we're learning from it?
00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:34.229
I think that's where, I think that's where that falls off the rails and people wanna use that as we're just, we've gotta learn, which I think is absolutely true.
00:08:34.318 --> 00:08:35.188
A hundred percent.
00:08:35.828 --> 00:08:38.948
We've got a beta test, we've gotta get MVPs out there.
00:08:38.948 --> 00:08:44.438
We have to do that, but we also have to make sure that we're looking at what we learned and iterating on that.
00:08:45.218 --> 00:08:57.808
When I say we need to focus, perfection, what you just said about so we have a software and it would not be acceptable for us to be releasing features that are half baked.
00:08:57.889 --> 00:09:02.298
It doesn't create the customer experience that we know we need in order to.
00:09:02.739 --> 00:09:05.198
Serve our customers in the way that we want to.
00:09:05.408 --> 00:09:10.443
So I think that perfection piece, there's gonna be a progress to get to that perfection.
00:09:10.443 --> 00:09:14.884
But there's a certain number of things in any business where you say, these are non-negotiable.
00:09:14.974 --> 00:09:20.913
These are the things we're gonna do extraordinarily well, and we're probably actually gonna be spending more and more time.
00:09:21.318 --> 00:09:24.168
Making progress on making that thing better over time.
00:09:24.168 --> 00:09:31.209
So that could be customer service, that could be speed to delivery, that could be communication.
00:09:31.209 --> 00:09:42.798
There's probably a handful of things that are, that require that perfection and maybe we give it the space to or we just acknowledge that we give it we acknowledge the thing that requires a perfection.
00:09:42.798 --> 00:09:44.959
We let everything else live in progress.
00:09:45.094 --> 00:09:47.824
I like feel myself tightening up on the inside even.
00:09:47.989 --> 00:09:50.538
When you say there's some things that require perfection.
00:09:50.639 --> 00:09:52.168
So go back to the software example.
00:09:52.219 --> 00:09:53.418
We don't get perfection.
00:09:53.418 --> 00:09:58.938
There's gonna be some weird edge case use case that we didn't expect and a customer's gonna find it.
00:09:59.219 --> 00:10:04.729
So in that case, it's get it to the place where we're comfortable with for the majority of the users.
00:10:04.908 --> 00:10:10.938
Put it out there and then our job is to be like, how fast can we respond and fix that?
00:10:10.994 --> 00:10:12.163
It's not perfection.
00:10:12.214 --> 00:10:13.053
It's not perfection.
00:10:13.053 --> 00:10:14.104
It's excellence.
00:10:14.163 --> 00:10:14.374
Yeah.
00:10:14.374 --> 00:10:23.274
It's a standard, and different things have different bars for what that can be, and different people have different bars, and I think that's where it can create organizational frustration.
00:10:23.514 --> 00:10:27.354
I was in a session yesterday and people were like, why hasn't this launched?
00:10:27.384 --> 00:10:31.884
And it took us forever to get to like kind of the root problem.
00:10:31.884 --> 00:10:33.894
And there were a couple things that.
00:10:33.894 --> 00:10:37.014
It people like didn't believe were ready.
00:10:37.063 --> 00:10:43.933
And it's that, it's what you're saying, like they didn't feel like it was to the excellence standard that the organization has.
00:10:44.443 --> 00:10:50.144
And so internally it was hard to get buy-in to then take externally and that was a huge roadblock.
00:10:50.144 --> 00:11:01.504
And so we had to go, okay, what things don't feel excellent and are these really deal breakers that are gonna stop us from launching or, so we made like an absolute list and a coming soon list.
00:11:01.798 --> 00:11:03.028
So where is the line?
00:11:03.079 --> 00:11:08.989
That we feel good enough we can take this to market to start to get some feedback, to get more data.
00:11:09.019 --> 00:11:10.938
Like action creates learning, right?
00:11:11.119 --> 00:11:15.438
So there's gonna be something else that comes up that's ooh, this is not to our level of excellence.
00:11:15.769 --> 00:11:18.168
But we wouldn't have known that if it was sitting on the shelf.
00:11:18.629 --> 00:11:24.269
But it took a lot for them to get to that root in the room, especially 'cause it involves the whole organization.
00:11:24.269 --> 00:11:28.048
So everybody had their different perspective on their part of.
00:11:29.204 --> 00:11:32.293
The pieces and what should be perfect and what was good and what wasn't.
00:11:32.293 --> 00:11:35.504
So it took us a long time to get there and realize that's what was happening.
00:11:36.403 --> 00:11:38.744
I, I think that's such an important step.
00:11:38.744 --> 00:11:45.824
I had a real, it's funny, I had a similar conversation internally yesterday in, inside of our team around the same thing.
00:11:46.303 --> 00:11:53.874
There's, we're working on a project and as we we decided this project, I guess at this point, six weeks ago.
00:11:53.964 --> 00:11:57.384
So we're halfway through the time allotted for it.
00:11:57.714 --> 00:12:02.124
And as we, over this six weeks, we've learned a ton and it's changed.
00:12:02.183 --> 00:12:13.274
Everything that we planned for has changed and we're looking at it and I'm talking to this team member and it's oh, like this kind of feels like a failure because everything we thought is not true and we're not gonna hit the goal.
00:12:13.829 --> 00:12:15.509
So we're like what could we do differently?
00:12:15.509 --> 00:12:22.028
And the two things we landed on were when we talk about this on the front end, maybe there's some like reality check.
00:12:22.028 --> 00:12:26.709
We need to pause and do what you did with that team, which is what's negotiable?
00:12:26.729 --> 00:12:28.048
What's non-negotiable?
00:12:28.349 --> 00:12:28.769
Yeah,
00:12:29.009 --> 00:12:29.849
there's that.
00:12:30.239 --> 00:12:35.009
And then there's also just giving ourselves the space for iteration and learning.
00:12:35.704 --> 00:12:41.764
And maybe that's truly like we need to allot more days of time or weeks of time.
00:12:41.793 --> 00:12:43.984
'cause there's a lot of unknowns that we need to account for.
00:12:44.854 --> 00:12:55.484
One of the things as you were talking that I was thinking of is, I think a lot of times, and maybe this is a me problem, but like I'll get frustrated at times when I see slowness.
00:12:55.903 --> 00:12:56.264
Yeah.
00:12:56.474 --> 00:12:57.644
When we've made a decision.
00:12:57.644 --> 00:13:01.033
We're gonna, it's like we, we decided that we're moving in that direction.
00:13:01.063 --> 00:13:02.264
Why isn't everybody.
00:13:02.918 --> 00:13:03.818
Why aren't we there?
00:13:04.089 --> 00:13:09.259
And I think there's so much in wrapped up in that, in, in leading people through change.
00:13:09.769 --> 00:13:15.408
But I think one of the things that you just said related to that team is that they were unclear there.
00:13:15.469 --> 00:13:24.019
It wasn't that people are being slow, it's that there was something that wasn't clear about what the deliverable was, what our standard of excellence is.
00:13:24.199 --> 00:13:25.519
And that's, I think.
00:13:26.384 --> 00:13:33.984
The slowness is probably an indicator less of like disengagement or disinterest or procrastination.
00:13:33.984 --> 00:13:37.433
It's more of a signal of care because people are like, I wanna do my job.
00:13:37.484 --> 00:13:40.303
So I think that conversation's really important to have
00:13:40.479 --> 00:13:40.699
it.
00:13:41.293 --> 00:13:41.504
It is.
00:13:41.504 --> 00:13:48.313
I will say it also felt like a leadership fail because these are senior leaders and nobody like just raised their hand and said.
00:13:49.454 --> 00:14:15.104
I have trouble backing this, or my team has trouble backing this because X, Y, Z. So the fact that we had to have the conversation and go those layers deep without somebody just raising their hand or multiple people raising their hand, that felt like, ooh, we've got some, we've got some, leadership inner work to do because we can't just my coach has a, let's see if I can get this quote be careful of disagreement, masquerading as confusion.
00:14:16.394 --> 00:14:20.033
And I see that a lot too as oh, I wasn't sure about this and this.
00:14:20.033 --> 00:14:21.114
No, you just disagreed.
00:14:21.114 --> 00:14:27.024
Or you didn't like the answer or you weren't you didn't do your job, so you just act confused about what was supposed to happen.
00:14:27.454 --> 00:14:29.344
I don't know why my team did this and this.
00:14:29.344 --> 00:14:34.063
Okay, maybe it's 'cause you didn't lead them well and give them the directive to get it done or the urgency.
00:14:34.063 --> 00:14:38.193
And I think I know what project pro project you're referring to internally for us.
00:14:38.644 --> 00:14:49.074
And I smile going "man. I don't know that we could have done any better on the front side." And that's the point, is we all love the quote, the saying everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face.
00:14:49.124 --> 00:14:49.693
You can add that.
00:14:50.474 --> 00:14:51.344
Mike Tyson.
00:14:51.793 --> 00:14:52.063
Yep.
00:14:52.063 --> 00:14:52.423
There you go.
00:14:52.423 --> 00:14:52.813
Thank you.
00:14:52.813 --> 00:14:53.354
Fact check.
00:14:53.563 --> 00:14:57.193
But like this is that we created a plan and then we got punched in the face.
00:14:57.204 --> 00:14:59.183
Oh my gosh, this is so much bigger.
00:14:59.244 --> 00:15:01.884
There's a better way to actually go about the whole thing.
00:15:01.884 --> 00:15:06.443
Different people need to be involved in different parts of the process in a different way, and so we learned a lot.
00:15:06.443 --> 00:15:11.874
We iterated, we switched, and it's gonna be so much better because of all the switches that we've made.
00:15:12.274 --> 00:15:14.974
So I don't know, but you're, what you're talking about goes to this.
00:15:15.004 --> 00:15:21.524
The other thing that we we talk about internally, I don't know if we've ever used this language outside, but it's like your gut versus gravity.
00:15:21.943 --> 00:15:25.124
My guts always says we should be moving faster.
00:15:25.484 --> 00:15:26.293
Always.
00:15:26.504 --> 00:15:32.053
But there's a gravity in every organization to both how you've always done it.
00:15:33.048 --> 00:15:37.278
And a pace that you're comfortable with, like people seek comfort.
00:15:37.818 --> 00:15:42.729
And so very rarely, most founders are very okay with being uncomfortable.
00:15:42.729 --> 00:15:46.928
That's like the number one trait because there's nothing comfortable about being a founder.
00:15:47.139 --> 00:15:58.699
But then you're surrounded by a bunch of people in an organization that seek comfort and they, the leaders have gut saying this should be this way and this should go faster, and why aren't we doing this?
00:15:59.464 --> 00:16:03.043
There's a gravity to the people in the organization pulling you down.
00:16:03.043 --> 00:16:12.308
And I laughed, what was it this week or last week when we were around a table and you said, but I just don't know if we're going fast enough.
00:16:12.308 --> 00:16:14.918
And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is the moment.
00:16:14.918 --> 00:16:15.879
Write it down.
00:16:16.178 --> 00:16:20.839
Like it's usually me saying that to you and you being the gravity, and I'm like.
00:16:21.783 --> 00:16:22.954
This is awesome.
00:16:24.303 --> 00:16:25.894
And then I was the gravity in that moment.
00:16:25.894 --> 00:16:30.514
I'm like, yeah, but I honestly am not sure what we even do to be able to go faster.
00:16:30.854 --> 00:16:31.604
But I feel you.
00:16:31.604 --> 00:16:32.144
I feel you.
00:16:32.144 --> 00:16:35.173
So there's like the gut, the feeling and then the reality.
00:16:35.504 --> 00:16:41.364
So how are you handling your frustration of your gut that we should be going faster?
00:16:41.903 --> 00:16:49.320
And our pace, our and the gravity of resources and time and people and all of the realities.
00:16:50.548 --> 00:16:50.938
Okay.
00:16:50.938 --> 00:16:57.749
I have two thoughts and I wanna push your question the side and go back to what you were saying about the speed versus comfort thing.
00:16:58.169 --> 00:17:01.789
There's part of me that agrees with it, and then there's part of me that's oh wait, let me do this.
00:17:01.789 --> 00:17:04.909
Yes and yes, and meaning I agree.
00:17:04.938 --> 00:17:08.899
And also I don't know that it's always a comfort thing.
00:17:09.440 --> 00:17:15.169
As much as it is, we have people on our team with different, we call 'em geniuses.
00:17:15.559 --> 00:17:27.980
Their genius requires a pace that let, lets them sit in something, comb through something, marinate and pull out oh yeah, did we think of this?
00:17:27.980 --> 00:17:34.659
Did we, oh, I if they have a few hours instead of a few minutes, they're able to look at something differently objectively, or.
00:17:35.364 --> 00:17:37.044
They can make that connection.
00:17:37.359 --> 00:17:41.654
I'm a little more like that, so I tend to be and I'm a more cautious person.
00:17:41.654 --> 00:17:44.324
So the caution is probably the comfort piece.
00:17:44.324 --> 00:17:47.384
It's makes me feel comfortable when we're moving cautiously.
00:17:47.834 --> 00:17:58.394
But I do think, and we've encountered this internally, it's like your pace is I can give feedback in five minutes and there's other people on our team, they need five hours.
00:17:58.754 --> 00:18:04.224
And their return in that five hours is gonna be exponentially better for the way that they operate.
00:18:04.704 --> 00:18:06.714
And I think we have to keep that in mind as well.
00:18:07.074 --> 00:18:08.964
Just as a dignifying piece.
00:18:09.054 --> 00:18:09.625
A dignifying
00:18:09.865 --> 00:18:10.344
Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:10.394 --> 00:18:11.625
It gets us what we want.
00:18:12.324 --> 00:18:12.519
I'll give you,
00:18:12.589 --> 00:18:14.754
I'll give you a very real example of that.
00:18:15.004 --> 00:18:20.854
There were a couple actual objectives that were on our list for the quarter.
00:18:21.734 --> 00:18:36.644
One specifically that you had, and it's big and you are gonna have to have a couple meetings, and I'm sure if you stuck with that, whatever you came back would be like masterful.
00:18:36.644 --> 00:18:44.623
And there'd be a document and there'd be a flow chart, and there'd be like the level of detail would've been way deeper than I was capable of.
00:18:44.744 --> 00:18:48.514
I am capable of, because of what you're talking about your ability to go deep into.
00:18:48.933 --> 00:18:49.534
The thinking.
00:18:50.204 --> 00:19:01.284
We decided, a week or two ago, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take that for now, and I just stewed on it in my subconscious and it actually drove me crazy for a little while.
00:19:01.674 --> 00:19:04.434
But then I came back and what I brought back to you was like.
00:19:05.034 --> 00:19:08.814
The work output of maybe 20 minutes at a computer, right?
00:19:08.894 --> 00:19:09.854
Maybe it was more than that.
00:19:10.154 --> 00:19:12.334
But there was all the thinking that went into it.
00:19:12.334 --> 00:19:17.115
And then the 20 minutes at the computer, your work would've been days.
00:19:17.444 --> 00:19:20.294
But it would've been way deeper and way better.
00:19:20.844 --> 00:19:24.824
But you also would've gotten to a point where because you would've wanted it to be so good.
00:19:25.409 --> 00:19:33.119
Had you been wrong in any of your decision points along the way, you would've done a lot of work that couldn't, that we would have to go backwards on.
00:19:33.169 --> 00:19:38.419
And so I took it and two days later I'm like, when can I present this to you and Chris, right?
00:19:38.419 --> 00:19:41.240
Like to make sure I'm on the right path.
00:19:41.929 --> 00:19:46.240
And I don't know if I am or not, but that's an example of what you're talking about.
00:19:46.240 --> 00:20:01.119
Like I'm gonna go really fast, but it might not have a depth and an accuracy to it that you or some of our other people on the team would have, which makes, I think it makes a good partnership, but it is also still a tension because.
00:20:01.990 --> 00:20:05.319
I know when you give me something you're like, I don't know what I'm gonna get back.
00:20:05.319 --> 00:20:06.789
It's gonna end up back on my plate.
00:20:06.789 --> 00:20:08.439
I'm gonna have to do the deep work.
00:20:09.259 --> 00:20:10.549
So that, am I right?
00:20:10.549 --> 00:20:11.689
Is that real?
00:20:12.019 --> 00:20:13.099
Sometimes, yeah.
00:20:14.059 --> 00:20:17.809
Sorry, my mind's going a bunch of directions I wanna talk about.
00:20:18.109 --> 00:20:19.309
I think sometimes yes.
00:20:19.889 --> 00:20:21.719
It's again, we're in attention.
00:20:21.719 --> 00:20:23.809
That's why this is there's not a one answer.
00:20:23.809 --> 00:20:26.089
'cause there's sometimes I fully agree with you.
00:20:26.089 --> 00:20:40.000
It's we don't need, we don't need, and I need to make sure that I'm not communicating to our team in a way that when I give them something to do, they go and they spend 17 hours instead of seven minutes when all we need is the seven minutes.
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:42.039
We don't need 17 hours yet.
00:20:42.309 --> 00:20:42.549
Yeah.
00:20:43.209 --> 00:20:55.559
I think we have to, it's, and sometimes you do a really good job of this, where you communicate that on the front end where you're like, let's go work on this, but don't spend here's how much time you should spend on it.
00:20:55.559 --> 00:20:59.359
I know we could go and become like PhDs on this, but like we need to.
00:20:59.865 --> 00:21:06.644
Like right size the appetite is the word we use for it, but communicate what the appetite is, I think is really important.
00:21:07.004 --> 00:21:08.984
Yeah, I was gonna say, you really good at it too.
00:21:08.984 --> 00:21:10.214
And I think that's something you've
00:21:10.694 --> 00:21:11.504
grown in, you've
00:21:11.714 --> 00:21:21.653
Learned over the last couple years, that even if we think, this is a 10 minute task, somebody could pick it up thinking that we think it's a, 10 hour task.
00:21:21.653 --> 00:21:25.284
And so to communicate that you do that exceptionally well.
00:21:25.613 --> 00:21:25.943
Yeah.
00:21:26.769 --> 00:21:27.309
Thank you.
00:21:27.369 --> 00:21:28.119
There's, so when do
00:21:28.119 --> 00:21:40.129
we decide whether to push a team to go faster versus slow down and do it well, or just not even, staying neutral to the speed that's happening?
00:21:40.969 --> 00:21:44.209
When do we know when to push a team to go faster?
00:21:44.359 --> 00:21:46.699
When to slow down or stay neutral?
00:21:47.149 --> 00:21:49.129
So I'll answer it and I wanna hear your answer.
00:21:49.729 --> 00:21:56.479
I think when we're trying something new, when we don't have a proof of concept yet, I think we have to move really fast.
00:21:56.689 --> 00:22:00.048
So we know we have a new product that we wanna release.
00:22:00.078 --> 00:22:02.639
There's a new business line.
00:22:03.119 --> 00:22:05.548
There's a new marketing campaign.
00:22:06.344 --> 00:22:07.664
Marketing activity.
00:22:07.964 --> 00:22:12.764
I think that requires speed Plus feedback loops.
00:22:12.884 --> 00:22:13.034
Yeah.
00:22:13.094 --> 00:22:14.024
Plus iteration.
00:22:14.024 --> 00:22:16.424
There's gotta be this like process.
00:22:16.524 --> 00:22:18.054
When do we need to slow down?
00:22:18.054 --> 00:22:24.024
I think once we found a proof of concept with something, I think then we dial it in.
00:22:24.054 --> 00:22:26.454
It's like, how do we sharpen what we've learned?
00:22:26.514 --> 00:22:27.684
We've learned that works.
00:22:28.149 --> 00:22:33.039
For example, this is inside of our business, so we've got software.
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:33.939
We've talked about that.
00:22:33.939 --> 00:22:37.029
The software is like constantly iterative.
00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:39.429
There's so much that we have to move really fast.
00:22:39.429 --> 00:22:43.764
Some of that's the industry pace and some of it is just we have to test things and learn.
00:22:44.534 --> 00:22:45.794
On the other side of the business.
00:22:45.794 --> 00:22:58.534
We move a lot slower when it comes to the, we have a coach community, a bunch of business coaches that are part of our community, and we are very intentional and careful about how we add new things to that yeah.
00:22:58.534 --> 00:22:58.984
Environment.
00:22:58.984 --> 00:23:01.234
And I think maybe that's an example of.
00:23:01.419 --> 00:23:02.889
Of how that works.
00:23:02.919 --> 00:23:07.519
'cause we wanna be very, the word is intentional and how we handle that part of our business.
00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:10.309
It feels like we've, it's like we've really established a proof of concept.
00:23:10.309 --> 00:23:11.209
We've got something awesome.
00:23:11.209 --> 00:23:12.259
We're like, we don't wanna mess it up.
00:23:12.879 --> 00:23:13.389
Neutral.
00:23:13.389 --> 00:23:13.899
I don't know.
00:23:13.949 --> 00:23:15.929
I don't know if I have an answer for neutral.
00:23:16.139 --> 00:23:18.568
Here's what comes up for me.
00:23:18.808 --> 00:23:19.139
Yeah.
00:23:19.409 --> 00:23:27.209
Is I think most organizations are moving too slow and I think most organizations, the reason why.
00:23:27.729 --> 00:23:31.028
Is because we do the work without thinking about the work.
00:23:31.269 --> 00:23:42.498
And maybe it's just a skillset I have, but I end up in a lot of conversations where I question how we're doing the work and people are like oh yeah, we could do it that way.
00:23:42.498 --> 00:23:48.798
And now we're doing it in half the time, or we're doing it, and that those kind of conversations have been a lot.
00:23:48.888 --> 00:23:51.528
And I think it's because most people, when they start doing the work.
00:23:52.173 --> 00:23:53.883
They don't think about how to do the work.
00:23:54.183 --> 00:24:03.353
I am I don't know if this is the right word, but I wanna say lazy, that I will spend the time figuring out the easiest way to do the work before I just start doing the work.
00:24:03.863 --> 00:24:06.413
And I think most organizations don't do that.
00:24:06.413 --> 00:24:12.593
So if you feel like you're going too slow, you're probably not taking enough time to think about how you're doing the work.
00:24:13.584 --> 00:24:14.544
That's my big takeaway.
00:24:14.544 --> 00:24:14.964
What's yours?
00:24:15.534 --> 00:24:16.344
No, I love that.
00:24:16.344 --> 00:24:21.173
I was gonna say, maybe neutral isn't an option because it should always be a conversation.
00:24:21.534 --> 00:24:22.434
That's interesting.
00:24:22.494 --> 00:24:22.854
At least.
00:24:22.854 --> 00:24:23.094
Yeah.
00:24:23.094 --> 00:24:25.574
Then you're forcing that, are we doing this the right way?
00:24:25.964 --> 00:24:27.164
Yeah, that's good.
00:24:27.164 --> 00:24:36.964
And I would say the takeaway, it's advice and a takeaway I guess, but this is attention to be managed, which means this is a conversation at all times.
00:24:37.014 --> 00:24:39.324
I think there's an emotional aspect to this.
00:24:39.564 --> 00:24:49.854
One thing we didn't really talk about is I think sometimes we get into this comparison trap with this pace of change for our organization or our stuff versus other people's stuff.
00:24:50.183 --> 00:24:58.854
And I think we have to have the conversations internally and either, acknowledge that we're trying to compare ourselves to our competitor.
00:24:59.244 --> 00:25:01.434
We're unclear, we disagree.
00:25:01.494 --> 00:25:06.984
Like I think the convers it has to be a conversation and it's a huge fail.
00:25:06.984 --> 00:25:19.884
As you mentioned with the example you gave earlier, it's a huge fail for a leadership team if we're not, someone's not raising their hand to say, I either don't understand this, or we haven't evaluated this, or whatever it is.
00:25:19.884 --> 00:25:21.414
So I think maybe that's my takeaway.
00:25:22.149 --> 00:25:22.659
That's good.
00:25:22.988 --> 00:25:24.519
Hey, thanks for bringing up this conversation.
00:25:24.519 --> 00:25:25.148
This is good.
00:25:25.148 --> 00:25:26.918
It feels deep 'cause it feels personal.
00:25:26.918 --> 00:25:39.933
So hopefully everybody listening can relate to this in one way or another and have something actionable that they can go do, a team that they can go ask about how they're doing the work or challenge them to speed up or maybe slow down.
00:25:39.933 --> 00:25:44.763
Maybe there's a quality issue there that they're, they are going too fast, which makes me.
00:25:44.823 --> 00:25:49.173
I'm almost sick to say because I want everything to go faster.
00:25:49.863 --> 00:25:56.133
But we'll see how fast this next week goes, and we'll see you next week for another episode of Sessions.
00:25:56.223 --> 00:25:57.628
Thanks again to fist bumps.
