Hey, what's up, Toby? How you doing? Hey, doing
well, buddy. Welcome. Guess what? We're at 32
because I can't count. What? I know. So the Excel
guru. Maybe we should have put it in an Excel
sheet when we started this system. We should
have. So in my little podcast, we use RSS, which
is fabulous. They don't report us, but maybe
they will someday. You put in the episode number.
And then the season. Oh, okay. And I forgot to
put in a season. And so we were, we made it to
32. Wow. I know that's like, that's like just
flashing forward into the future. I know it's
amazing. Listeners have been enjoying a bonus
this whole time. Welcome to have 32. It's very
incredible. All right. So today's topic. Yeah.
What are you thinking? Most businesses optimize
their silos. Yeah. Few optimize what happens
between them. Ooh, that's the topic. Yeah, I
love that, Chris. It's the white space. Yeah,
we play the notes. We don't think about what
happens between the notes. Everybody's playing
their instrument. We don't think about the transition
in between. Let's get into this. I love this.
Yeah. So what's going on here? Is it failure?
What do you think about between silos and...
I think it's human nature. I think by nature,
we get very myopic, regardless of what we're
doing. I think we get myopic and then we just
don't get curious. And so you end up doing things,
and I see this a lot in product where people
are like, well, tell me what you're doing. And
what I'm asking is like, piece of work are you
delivering downstream or what? Like that's the
question that I'm asking. And what I get told
oftentimes is they're like, I click the button.
Yeah. Well, what does the button do? Well, I
don't, I don't, I click the button. Chris, I
love that. Cause they're a black box, right?
We see the input. Yeah. They do whatever they
do in their black box. Cause they should be an
expert and then. We want to understand what comes
out the other end for the next party or for the
customer. And they're telling you like how they
tied their shoelaces. And you're like, no, to
what end? What's the value of having paid you
for a day? Or like in a client servicing team,
it's like, but where did you get this? They're
like, well, the client emailed me. I'm like,
no, no. Like where did the problem happen? Like
the client sent an email and you're like, oh,
I'm going to go sit in the corner. And think
about what I've just heard, because it's a bit
rough. I'm going to rethink a number of choices
that have brought this point. What I love though
is your point about curiosity, because sometimes
the questions we ask are answered correctly,
but we ask the wrong question. And so sometimes
what I'm hearing is a little bit of how do we
put things in context to get the answers we want.
in inviting enough room for people to get super
narrow and myopic in it or for them to be so
broad and general to be useless. How do we start
to find that level? So they're telling us what
we need to know. Yeah, do you have what kind
of examples or something that comes to mind or
why do you think this maybe there's an underlying
here that we want to touch on first. You said
human nature, maybe in lack of curiosity, other
thoughts maybe about why this this silo at the
cost of systems is continuing to happen. Think
it's because it's easier. It's easier to make
your it's easier to make your silo. It's efficient
It's just flat outs. It's flat up super easy
back to like a span of control thing. What's
with yeah? Well, I mean it's it's and you're
you're not being measured on someone else's silo
or measured on the system You're being measured
on how well your silo does. Yeah, but Enter the
world of gamification. That's right AI blockchain
synergy, baby. Well, what's funny is like, it
makes me go to like, what do, if you give someone
an objective, we are just remarkably good at
tracking whatever that thing is. So a primary
example is we, so most systems like ServiceNow
or Zendesk, Yeah. They'll give a little, they'll
put in a little token or a little ID for the,
for the, for the ticket. Yep. Yep. And, you know,
a place that I was working, you know, we, there
was a SLA to respond to, to this thing within
X amount of hours, right? Right. But what happened
was, is they were sending an email, they were
CCing it, right? So the first email has no token
on it. Okay. Right. All the second and thirds
have the token on it. Okay. Yep. So here's what
happens in these implementations. And this is
why you actually get a thank you for responding.
Please respond above this line. The reason you
get that is you get that auto response because
if you do a reply or send the email to a bunch
of different people, what ends up happening,
especially if it's before hours, is you get a
ton of people replying back and forth. without
the token, right? So now all of a sudden, what
you get is you get a ton of duplicates. So in
this Salesforce instance that I was implementing,
I was like, we should do auto -reply. And people
were like, well, that will mess with our SLA.
And it's like, do you like merging all the cases
that use duplicates? Yeah, well, I mean when
we merge them we don't get ranked and you're
like, oh boy How far do I back up my bus to help
them understand the value of what I'm proposing?
Let's try. Okay. So where'd you go next? Yeah,
I mean I some people were like well we want to
do it and we don't want to do it so it was like
a customer by customer basis but was like this
is ridiculous and then the other thing that they
the other thing like The like the other thing
is that they didn't want is they didn't want
their SLA to be at zero. Yeah, and I'm like Can
we just make, can we just make it easier for
everybody? It was so weird. Like, it reminds
me, it reminds me of like, remember when Wells
Fargo did their little fiasco on like, we have
to open all these accounts? I do go, go into
that. That's a good example though. Yeah. So
like, I mean, basically it was like, we've got
to grow accounts. And so, you know what they
did? They, they grew their accounts. They were
very effective. Yeah. One for you, one for you,
and one for you. The thing that they forgot is
to ask if their clients wanted them to create
good accounts. They kind of missed that vital
step, but they were successful and sued. Yeah.
There's this one ethical step that kind of matters.
Yeah. Yeah. But it's true. And I think that speaks
to your point earlier about the incentive. And
so sales team, your... financial wellbeing, your
continued success in your career here is driven
by this activity. Yeah. And so if you're given
a single carrot and everything else is consequence,
why wouldn't you just chew up everything that
looks like a carrot and let somebody else sort
it out? Cause it's not their problem. That's
the ethics department. Internal audit will figure
it out later when they get around to discovering
what we've done or not. So now that's, it's interesting
cause you're right. sales guys are notoriously
awesome at finding all the little white space
between the rules and bylaws and disclaimer of
any sales comp plan, which makes comp in general
a little bit slippery. And, you know, we've talked
offline over the years about how do you increase
agency within teams? How do you build a sense
of ownership? And then the same organizations
that might say that are also You're exempt. You're
going to get paid whether you mail it in or actually
throw your heart and soul into the work. Yeah.
And we're still going to ask you to work weekends
because you're a free resource to us now. And
so, yeah, strangely, you know, how we align people's
heads and hearts with the broader picture is
a finer art than we like, you know, acknowledge.
And so, yeah, I love that. Another example is,
as you were sharing Wells Fargo, what made me
think about was, as you and I often do, A couple
of gray whiskers means that we've been a place
or two so far in our career. As a young and super
enthusiastic financial analyst, I was working
in healthcare and it was a spectacular experience.
This was in the late nineties before Sarbanes
-Oxley caused large organizations or publicly
traded organizations to put in a lot of safeguards.
It was the world of hammer and champy process
engineering. So we're like. get rid of all these
unnecessary reviews. Let's chuck stuff out. One
of the projects where it was less about stripping
down the process to its core dimension that we
did was working within the emergency department
of a county hospital. Oh, wow. And so, you know,
for anybody that's ever had the misfortune of
going to an emergency department, we know what
that experience looks like. And it usually involves...
you know, bring a brand new 700 page book because
you'll probably finish it before you actually
get seen. Yeah. And as the county was growing,
they said, our wait times just continue to increase.
And so for them, that was the first time that
they said, let's take a really hard look at how
we triage. Sure. And so that's still inside of
the silo of just the emergency department. Yeah.
But as we got in and we started talking with
the nurses and the physicians and then the folks
that do so much of that diagnostic stuff. You
know, the lab said, we don't even know a lab
is needed and stuff shows up and we've already
got a whole calendar. We haven't, we haven't
built a schedule, so we don't have enough humans
on staff. But if you want these two or three
most common tests, why don't we just set up the
equipment in the ER? We'll show somebody how
to do it and they can get turnaround in 10 minutes
or less. It wasn't the big brains at the top
of the company that said this. These are day
-to -day techs. And we went, well, that's interesting.
Hey, let's go ask the X -ray guys. So we looked
at the imaging and they said, interestingly,
X -rays are important. Those we can turn fast.
I want to say it was CTs. And so management all
of a sudden is like, well, that's kind of expensive.
But when we showed them the sheer volume of CTs
and how quickly those could be turned, they said
all day long, if we can still build those and
not disrupt other stuff, that's a great investment.
Let's push that piece of equipment in. And so
We had this really messy blend of sniffles and
sneezes and this guy has, you know, a chunk of
rebar stuck through his skull. I don't know how
to prioritize these. They started really think
intentionally about triaging and starting to
separate these. And it wasn't just getting people
through the ER. It was also asking where's, where
do we want to ultimately disposition these humans?
If it's sneezes, can we get them in and out in
30 minutes? Yeah. Full of Tylenol. And if you
guys got rebar, we probably need to figure out
if we have room in the ICU and we have enough
corks to thread through there and plug the bleeding,
or do we need to send them across town to something
else? And so of so many of my projects, I call
this out because this is a case where by talking
with the people that are living with those hard
handoffs, and it's just causing all this emotional
grind for them, they already knew the answer.
And I think this is true of so many companies.
When we're curious about what's upstream and
downstream, our peers will tell us why they aren't
able to perform. And they're probably as frustrated
as we are. And so interestingly, there was a
window of time where we did get this down and
we had a two and a half average wait time in
the ER from that first sign up and admit at the
desk being dispositioned. Whether it was back
home with Tylenol or it's we're going to send
you upstairs and have a team of surgeons. get
that metal out of your face. So it's crazy. It
was insane. And I would kill for that today.
Maybe not literally, but maybe literally. But
I mean, you know, that's not the world that we
live in today. And I think part of it is to your
point, it's the silo mentality. Yeah. Well, what's
interesting is like, I mean, here I am just thinking
like your wait time could have been delayed by
45 minutes because they don't have enough blood
texts. Yeah. And that, you know what the blood
texts were probably saying? Like their bosses
are like, you need to move faster. And they're
like, we don't have capacity here. Yeah. You're
online. What are you doing? Are you guys playing?
It was pre Xbox sites. Like get off your Polinkovision
or whatever was your Atari. Yeah. Quit playing
tank. It's right. There's listeners that are
like. Never even heard of these platforms is
this what is party? Yeah, Atari had two three
buttons. It was amazing Alright, so alright,
so it's Friday fix it Friday. What do we do today?
To fix handoffs. Yeah, what is that? What is
that? I mean, I just shared for me in that example
It was asking people on both sides of that handshake,
you know, I'm passing the baton. You're receiving
it How do we have an intelligent conversation
so we stop dropping it? Yeah, but I love your
Wells Fargo one because that's a little bit more
meta Yeah, right and and the the costs are really
high. I mean you think about the Wells Fargo
example How might you fix that or how should
organizations think about that before they start?
I don't handle stuffing. I don't think you fix
that. I think that's broken culture and I don't
I like Yeah, put them out of business No, no.
I mean, I just don't think you do. But I do think,
like, individually, I think being curious on
a Friday to say, why do we do it this way, right?
Now, ultimately, what you're going to find, I
think, is you're going to find humans gamifying
the system. Everybody knows that the system is
gamified because the KPIs and all of the metrics
are driven towards the gamified metrics, right?
But those aren't where the solutions are. That's
right. And so, and so like, I think, and the
funny thing is, and I think I'm just ridiculously
stubborn when I find a problem. Like I literally,
I was joking because I just did this, I did this
really cool thing at work that it was literally,
it was, if we had all, and it was, it was with
three different teams. Okay. And three different
completely like, it was a, it was a DBA. It was
a, it was a dev that was offshore. It was a,
it was a different dev team that I have no, like,
it's basically influence over this other dev
team. And we did, we did a solid, it was, it
was a, it was a solid week of work in about six
months. Right. Just because, and, and because
I was bar begging, borrowing and stealing and
getting into sprints. And I want to make sure
it took you six months to get a week worth done,
or you got six months of work in one week. I
got, it took me. It took me six months to get
a week's worth of work. We would have got them
all in the same room. Right. But again, like
that hurt my brain when you said that, because
that's such a shit experience. You know, and
I'm like, no, that's on topic, but I want to
make sure I heard that right. It is the worst
possible sequence. And some of it was like this
one team, you know, the DBAs had to go and create
the table. Right. Then, you know, the, the offshore
team had to change the end point and the people
that own the code locally had to go and write
the code. And then we found an issue and we had
to go and update the table. And so, so if you
think about it, like every single change was
basically a two week sprint, right? Because that's,
that's, that's all the capacity. And I wasn't
asking for a lot of time from these people, but,
but like, again, like, I think it was my curiosity
that helped me actually get data to actually.
realistically solve the problem. But it also
wasn't something that I could have done in a
short fashion because there's no way that an
individual contributor can actually go and actually
change the KPIs because the system's against
them. So if you're an individual contributor,
go get a wild hair and chase something down and
just be stubborn about it. If you're a manager,
like figure out how much your stuff is gamed.
Because your report that you see is not gamed,
right? The report you see is flashy and it's
beautiful. If you click down one and you click
down two, you will find empty shells of work.
Chris, I love that. I want to restate the same
idea in the spirit of Fix It Friday. And it's
that if your goal is to process a task, leave
your head in the sand, go about your day. If
your goal is to have an impact and improve the
system, you've got to paint a broader picture
than just your desktop. And that means other
people into the conversation. 100%. So that's
a, that's a really great example. I love that.
Well, happy Friday. Yep. Cool, man. We'll catch
you next week. All right. We'll see you. Have
a great week. Bye.