Hey, what's up, Toby? We've made it to podcast
33. 33. That time machine. We got a slingshot
last week. Look out folks. I know. We snuck ahead.
We forgot one, which was bad. Bonus track. Hey
Chris, I usually make it your job to think big
ideas. And there's one that's been keeping me
up at night and it's not because I've been watching
Walking Dead. That is maybe the last guy to get
caught onto that. The truth is everybody's like,
what are you doing the zombie apocalypse? And
the reality is I think we're living it today.
Certainly in corporate America, I was, I was
going through and just looking at some of my
own subscriptions, right? We pay them every month.
They're invisible to us. Okay. I'm paying for
stuff that I haven't used in months. Right. And
I started thinking about this is on a personal
basis. Yeah. And some of these little applications,
but when we start to think about the organizations
we work in and our clients. Yeah. So organizations
have all these zombie systems knocking around
and they're not chewing off your leg or anything,
but we're not getting the value from them. You
know, we're paying the full sticker price and
we might be using like two to 3 % of the functionality.
So tell me, tell me I'm, this is a unique problem
to me and we'll move on to some other topic,
but do you see this in your world? I am shocked
at how many software tools, just even a small
company has. Oh my God. Like for your consulting
company, if you said you had 40 software pieces
that you used, I'd be like, that sounds about
right. And now, you know, you just pick Microsoft
and all of a sudden you've got four. Oh my gosh.
Right. You've got your Outlook, you've got Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, and others. And that's without
unpacking. Outlook, which has calendar and it
has email and has task management. I came across,
and I think that may be at the heart of when
you said that I saw a statistic that said the
typical small business has something like, I
want to say 68 pieces of software that it uses.
I would not be surprised. You take that up to
large business and this is what surprised me.
Large businesses were just under 300. And so
I think about, you know, my small consultancy.
versus a Nike or a Starbucks. And the reality
is they have all the same base stack that I do
plus X systems, but that's custom admission.
I don't use task management inside of Outlook,
task management over in Monday, because that's
where the team lives. But all I need is the calendar
and the email. And I could probably even break
those apart, except that my habits are there.
And I think in the spirit of these zombie systems,
it's like, God bless. How many of us would benefit
from having somebody just sit us down, taking
out of so many times, ask what is it that we're
getting out of this system? And so they're kind
of invisible. It's not creating a blister on
our daily lives, but boy, it sure erodes our
margins. You know, how many zombie Jira instances
do you think are out there in the wild? Oh my
heavens. I had one client that had three discrete
instances that they were using. And there had
been like four others that had flipped from trial
into subscription and they weren't big numbers.
So that was, that was actually more, there were
zombies than were in use. Maybe those, they were
just undead. They didn't even, there was no value
from them at all, right? Most of us use like
one primary instance. And then there's these
other outliers that we can't quite kill because
there might be some data in it, or we haven't
figured out how to move the functionality somewhere
else. I mean, what kind of zombie systems do
you feel like you've encountered in your years
and travels? What I see a lot is that people
don't define what tools are supposed to be used
for. And so therefore, instead of using a confluence
when they could, they go and buy something different,
right? They buy a frontward facing knowledge
management. And so you end up with a lot of like
bespoke applications that basically do one thing.
Even if Jira can get you 80%, there is a large
attraction to go and buy that extra 20 % and
then use only a fraction of the fraction. That's
where I think it's really interesting because
these tools are so ridiculously powerful if they
are defined. And then you buy an add -on and
then you only use a fraction of the add -on and
then you buy another add -on. It becomes the
plague. One of the conversations that I've had
recently with a couple of different clients and
a few prospects is this idea of HubSpot is this
fantastic system and it has all these marketing
features. And then I'm like, well, great. Who
uses those? Well, nobody yet. Oh. But you have
a marketing, well, yeah, we have a marketing
team, but they don't use this. And I think, oh,
okay. So that means they're using something else.
And so to your point about getting clear about
what we use and what we don't, it's a whole host
of conversations that we've not had. We haven't
brought people together in a meaningful way.
And so, you know, a lot of these zombie systems
are harming us in a couple of ways. It's not
just that we're paying for this unnecessarily,
but We're also getting excited in our efforts
to bring people into our world, even though we
haven't told them that. We're also doing things
like building integrations or buying all these
add -ons and it's like, oh, but if I build it,
they will come. Not realizing that they're happy,
healthy and comfortable in their own world and
have got really fluent at getting work done in
a different way. You know what? I've got a budget.
So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to
tweak and make the tool that we have better.
Said no one ever now when there's a shiny new
thing that you can just ink a quick check or
Or do a face flash double click and now you just
bought a new app or bought a new whatever And
then what happens after you bought the new app
you realize that it doesn't integrate with the
old app But you have to hold on to the new app
Because you have budget for a year and then you
forget about it and then it just rolls over and
you get the invoice It's like reporting systems
If you have a company that's been around more
than 10 years, it probably has a system per year.
And you can't get rid of it because this guy
has their critical reporting system. A brand
new leader just introduced system B. Forbid,
we organize things and do it with intention.
I really do think it's best intentions, but especially
as we make new people into, we all have our favorite
thing that we're fluent with. Well, and then
the other thing is like, If you don't use a tool,
you forget about it. You forget the tricks and
the tips and the things that you're trying. Sometimes
I think businesses go wrong because they don't
put humans behind the tools. If no one owns the
tools, then no one's actually going to, like,
if there's no human that's driving the tool and
the tool adoption, I can guarantee you, you're
losing that person's salary in a lack of tool
efficiency. Not a percent. Also we're designed
for us only to push data into and never get value
out of. Yeah, for sure. That's that old accounting
world of we don't care if you ever use the information,
but we have to make sure we're reporting it.
And I think modern tools have shifted and particularly
how we approach tools when we do it with intention.
Do I get an hour of value back out? And I think
that's probably a really good equation. Just
a simple rule of thumb. If you've got a sales
team banging information into a CRM all day,
and all it does is sit there, then you're probably
missing the point of having it as VRM. And if
that's the case, reach out. But at the heart
of it too, it's like, ask yourself of all these
different systems. And that's, the landscape
has shifted so much. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Well,
let's talk for a second. Let's kind of, in light
of this, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only guy
that has like four photo editing apps on his
phone. It's still paying in subscription, you
know, to AOL and internet subscribers. But I'd
love to hear your thoughts, you know, talk about
Fix It Friday. Oh yeah, for sure. I think when
it comes to the thing that you can do, regardless
of whether you're a manager or an executive,
learn something about a tool that either you
are in or your people are in. Cause I guarantee
you there is a magical area of space that you
could go and learn in. to make your life and
your team's life better. I love that. You're
that tools guy. You spin up something every time
I chat, you're like, Hey, I found this new thing
and I'm going to give it a couple hours. Nope.
It wasn't better than what I already had. It
didn't work. But it's that explore mindset. Yeah.
And I think the other thing is like, don't assume
that just because you have a technical person
that they're going to understand the technical
application. Don't assume that they understand
how to use Jira. Don't assume that they understand
how to run a stand -up. Don't assume that they
know how to do Scrum. Don't assume any of that
and figure out how it's done and march in that
direction. And if you can and you have the ability
and the authority to make multiple people and
or groups do something, that can be ridiculously
powerful. Because the thing that I see most often
is that you have experts on a tool and their
expertise is determined by their peers. And so
funny story, my mom was a kindergarten teacher
forever. She was the Excel guru at school and
her Excel guru -ness was that she could add two
numbers in an individual cell. Like that was
next level stuff, not referencing a cell. So
you can buy your Excel kung fu. But the bar was
so low for her. Yeah. You go and work with an
engineer that's in Excel all day and you're like,
my mom, yeah, like there's no way that she would
have, she, she could have done any of the, any
of the things that I was doing, but her peers.
Right. And so like, and I guess all that's to
say that just because you're a technical expert
in an IDE, that doesn't mean that you were very
good at processing. And so, you know, fixing
stuff on Friday is really about just deciding.
to be curious, deciding to learn, you know, going
in, just doing some research. Like if, if you're
in Jira, go learn something about JQual. Right.
If you're, if you're in, if you're in Monday,
go check stuff out on YouTube, search something
on, on Shad GPT to just make yourself better.
I love that Chris. I think you did a nice job
of touching on both in that leadership capacity,
what can you do to fix, but also individually.
And so to cut it. Um, step it back a bit. What
it does make me think about is this mess, you
know, the zombies grow in the dark, just like
my hands. I was starting to just expose them
to the light, you know, digging in and pulling
it out of the back of the closet to look at it.
See if you still have any of the cartridges for
your old Atari 2600. Why are you keeping the
hardware? But also it's this idea of like communicating
it out. I mean, I'm on more of the business side.
So it's the, if the tool isn't doing a job, then.
I don't care how beautiful the interface. Yeah.
But it's really interesting when you just raise
your hand and say, what the heck are we using
this for? Does anybody have a solution? Yeah.
And it's so lean into that curiosity and have
that conversation. Yeah. The other thing is like,
just keep your ears open. Cause you'll hear the
people complain about the zombie employees will
complain about the zombie systems. You know,
it's like, oh yeah, or a KPI, you know? There's
a brilliant person. They have all of this expertise
and wisdom, perhaps. But if all we're doing is
asking them to work in a super narrow way, we're
only tapping into their five or 10 % of value.
Oh, for sure. Well, God forbid you have a zombie
driving in some companies. That does happen.
As always, Chris, I love our conversations. Absolutely,
man. Good stuff, buddy. Have an awesome party.
Yep. Catch you next week. All right. Bye.