Hey, what's up, Toby? We've made it episode 19 podcast
I learned a little something last week, which was I cannot do a podcast by myself
But we did hit our five. We did hit our five-minute time cap
The very first time how did that feel to deliver on the promise of a five-minute podcast?
It was terrible. Oh, like it's so hard to sit there and talk
So what's funny is I'm sitting there talking and I'm like, okay keep talking
So, I mean we might have lost, you know ones of used ones of listeners last last time. Well, I will send a
May have culpa to our listeners up in the northern frontier and and if there's others
You let me know
Perfect. I do think that you know, I told people you were on vacation, but what were you really doing last week?
So that we I mean the podcast was not as important as it should have been. What were you doing? I?
Yeah, sadly, I wish I could tell you that I was doing something like a vacation that I actually was I was grading
Grading paper so things that Toby's a professor. Yes part-time adjunct
Well, I you know, I mostly do it
for the celebrity that comes with being an adjunct professor and
And that's really only second to the the money that this absolutely craps. So
listeners can always mail me in with a question and I will like they can download my secrets to
Growing wealth very slowly you have told me how impressive some of your students are which has been actually pretty funny
They are you know
I feel really fortunate actually to be involved to the program that isn't just traditional students and so nice
Yeah, sometimes it's epic and I love getting to work with adults that finally have enough space to return to the work
Yeah, you know from workforce and start finishing their degrees
But I often I do get some questions sometimes that make me think
You know this this is a 400 level class. Maybe we should regear it a little
But that's the world around I get those as do you I'm sure we get questions at yeah sometimes to make us think
I don't know if you have the right ticket to be in this line
All right the topic for this week the topic for this week is
A little bit of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is simplifying complexity
Yeah, and specifically I have I have I've started to notice
Where at higher levels there's just is this great
oversimplification of boy just the complex the complex rule that we live in
Increasingly right we yeah, it's not it's not like we go to the corner grocery store and buy things from somebody
We know that lives in the community
Yeah, you know whether it's transactions or services or just trying to run a business
Yeah, nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems
Yeah, what what specifically I I'm 100% with you
And in the spirit of survival for some are just the embracing of ignorance for others
What what sparks this thought about?
The complexity of the supplier relationship that man so I'm sure yeah
I've been thinking a lot about just cars in general okay, and how much I think I know about cars
And how little I know
Yeah, before we jump into that Chris
Where do you rate yourself on the continuum of like zero is you need to tell me what a car is and then 10 is
I could be on the click and clack PBS show diagnose all things based on sound
You know I would give myself like a two or three
Yeah, and I could probably name like maybe five things
But like literally I could go to my mechanic
And he couldn't they could make up a mechanical looking thing
I would give him six hundred dollars because it said red and critical
Did you just paid to get your flush capacitor?
Flushed
Yeah, it's very yeah, I do know what your time
I know that feeling when yeah when they're saying when when somebody's describing
You know here's what you need or here's what you should do and they say yeah
Such a blatantly straightforward way that you feel kind of stupid to say no
Yeah, well, and they you know my mechanic. You know they send a text message
I click on it, and it's basically it's red yellow and green
But the reality is like I literally don't know what it is, but the thing that made why why this kind of?
Kind of popped up for me was I was just thinking about like sometimes. I'm in meetings and
Instead of going to kind of the shop floor to the people that are actually doing the work
Like there's this great oversimplification of like oh well
You know you just got a I mean it's the it's the thermostat for sure you know you're like
And so oftentimes in business are like make the car go faster
And the mechanic let me get the shop floor
Is like well I mean that would require a new engine and that's going to be seven thousand dollars
And it's almost like the person saying I just give it a paint job
Just give it a paint job, and then you go and give it a paint job
I mean I mean they give it back, and they're like man looks great
You take it on the road doesn't go any faster, and they're like it was supposed to go faster. You're like yeah
I don't know man
Chris what I what I love about that example you're speaking to the people that are like
What I love about that example and you're speaking to the consumer vendor relationship, but yeah
I also have experienced that with managerial layers and oh 100 the shop floor does tell the supervisor
This is the problem if only we had
X then we could we could unlock things we could remove the blockage
And then the supervisor has to translate it to the manager
And they have to walk it up some kind of approval chain
And at each layer they simplify it because everybody assumes the guy up the ladder is dumber
Yeah, that's why they should have the job right that's that's kind of the natural machinery
But yeah by the time it gets to somebody it's like you want a paint job to go faster
Okay, it's cheaper than seven grand
You look when I was a kid if I got new shoes man you should assume you run right?
I think they made shoes faster than two Chris. Oh, they did. I don't I can't even afford fast shoes anymore
I don't know what's going on
Oh, man, that's funny, but you're right. Yeah, I mean I think too your point about where are we asking the question and
Sure
Are they prepared to do that translation layer? Yeah, I know the I know the
Text alerts that you're describing. I I remember the first time I got those and I thought wow
This is so helpful. I feel like I really understand what's going on
Yeah, but then when I look next to the color codes, which are spectacular supervision messaging
Yep, there might be a recording where where the mechanic was showing me exactly what's going on
But he could have also been showing me the underside of his motorcycle where he was going to spend the money
I was paying him for nothing, you know
Yeah, well and what's interesting is I think that a lot of times this is where process debt comes when it comes top-down
Yeah, right. Yeah, so like, you know one of the things that I that I you know
Like to look for it's just a cohort right? So like sure you're out doing something like I didn't can be anything
You know, you could be you know remodeling your kitchen
Yeah, right
And if you just go in and you figure out what the average remodel is just go to angie.com figure out what an average remodel is
you know what that's what it's going to cost you regardless of what the person says because
all the unknown unknowns, yeah
Well and chris this is I think that you're raising attention to this idea of what is that role of expert?
Yeah, my expert not just sure expert but my expert sure and so if it's a mechanic you've gone to for a number of years
You've developed rapport
Sure, you know you've told others what you've paid and they're like gosh you must have a great mechanic. That seems really reasonable
Yeah, kind of social validation helps me get comfortable with things that I may not understand
I turn to my my network of people that know more than me
Yeah, you and I together maybe add up to a five or six in terms of like automotive expertise
Maybe um, I can't even put gas in my vehicle anymore
That's I got one where they took that away and they said you now shall drive an electric car because you clearly show what you're doing
You shall plug it in. Yeah, that's right. Can you handle a plug-in?
Yeah
But I I often feel like you're right
There's there's realms where I don't have an expert and so then you picture a big organization
Everybody is supposed to be the experts that are that are doing their best work to translate it to senior decision makers
Yeah, but
Yeah, where that takes a lot of practice to get because effective translator both up
Well, you know, yeah, and I wonder I wonder like because every level is an abstraction, right?
Yeah
And so from the top down it's an abstraction and from the bottom up it's an abstraction
right and typically on the bottom floor you have lots of ideas and
Most of the time you're pretty stubborn. Yeah, right when you go to the shop floor
The mechanic is like look I do it this way and this is just how it's done
Right and and you don't marry right? Yeah. Well, and you don't you don't end up with you don't end up with great innovation
I don't think at the very bottom and I don't think you end up with great innovation at the top. Yeah
Like it has to it has to it has to come up or down in order to really be successful. I think
Also, we've talked about the Toyota way on on pass calls. You've read it more recently than I have. Yeah
So when you're doing when you're doing a shop floor walk
Sure
As I recall the intention is to have folks with different perspectives and not everybody just from the shop floor
But also just everybody from the c-suite
Yeah, one of the things in the book they talk about like they would go and put someone on the shop floor for eight hours
And that and they would literally not give them any homework
Like there was no outcome. Just go and sit and watch just see what's happening
And then they were done for the day and it was it was it was very foreign for you know
Americans in which you're like, wait a sec. What's the what's the point?
But then the other thing is like what they what they the other thing that they did is they would go to the shop floor
And they would figure out all the problems right and they'd be like, hey here are here 80 problems that we could
Experiment to see if it gets better
And it's almost like it's almost like as it gets simpler like the the solutions sound more confident
Yeah, but there's less of them
Right. So the higher you go up, it's like we're gonna do general
Gen ai, yeah. Oh my gosh, it's gonna be amazing, right and you know at the shop floor
It's like here here. Here's the tactical next steps. It's x y and z, right?
And you know the problem the problem with you know, the tactical on the shop floor is like
Oftentimes this stuff gets lost in the handoff. Yeah for sure
Like like literally it's one of the things i'm currently working on right now is just a handoff between two systems
Like there's a missed handoff. It's it's system to system and so no one actually even sees it's a problem
But i'm but like i'm right in the middle of it
So that so the experts that might own each of those systems. This is
The dead space in between where it's a totally happens totally is right
So we have you literally have process dead on both sides, right?
Right and because you don't have a clear communication between the systems
You have a system that's not going to be able to do that. So you have a system that's not going to be able to do that
So you have both sides wanting to be very efficient on both sides and they can be as efficient as they want
And they will never get innovation because innovation is in the handoff
chris i'm
Rarely conscious of time, but we are over five minutes
Maybe in our next episode. I'd love to explore this this conversation a little more deeply about
Is it process debt if you find a place where process does not exist?
And your your example here is beautiful, right between two active processes. There's there's simply a void
Yeah, it's it's yeah, and I think that's where like
You know, that's a good call out right? It's really a systematic problem
And so you have you do you actually have great efficiencies in the silos?
You have processed debt in the middle
Even though it's the system communicating back and forth because the system can't be as good as it needs to be
Because because it's it's got broken communication
The unknown unknowns of where those missing socks go. It's the void there you go processes
Absolutely. All right. Well, uh, we we did it again. We did it again, but we're under 15. I know. Thanks, sir
Thank you. See you next week, man