WEBVTT 00:00:00.550 --> 00:00:03.770 Hey, what's up, Toby? We've made it to podcast 00:00:03.770 --> 00:00:09.490 33. 33. That time machine. We got a slingshot 00:00:09.490 --> 00:00:12.470 last week. Look out folks. I know. We snuck ahead. 00:00:12.630 --> 00:00:17.089 We forgot one, which was bad. Bonus track. Hey 00:00:17.089 --> 00:00:19.649 Chris, I usually make it your job to think big 00:00:19.649 --> 00:00:21.870 ideas. And there's one that's been keeping me 00:00:21.870 --> 00:00:23.530 up at night and it's not because I've been watching 00:00:23.530 --> 00:00:28.010 Walking Dead. That is maybe the last guy to get 00:00:28.010 --> 00:00:30.539 caught onto that. The truth is everybody's like, 00:00:30.579 --> 00:00:32.079 what are you doing the zombie apocalypse? And 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:33.859 the reality is I think we're living it today. 00:00:34.020 --> 00:00:37.659 Certainly in corporate America, I was, I was 00:00:37.659 --> 00:00:39.859 going through and just looking at some of my 00:00:39.859 --> 00:00:42.700 own subscriptions, right? We pay them every month. 00:00:42.820 --> 00:00:45.780 They're invisible to us. Okay. I'm paying for 00:00:45.780 --> 00:00:50.020 stuff that I haven't used in months. Right. And 00:00:50.020 --> 00:00:51.500 I started thinking about this is on a personal 00:00:51.500 --> 00:00:54.060 basis. Yeah. And some of these little applications, 00:00:54.380 --> 00:00:56.960 but when we start to think about the organizations 00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:00.710 we work in and our clients. Yeah. So organizations 00:01:00.710 --> 00:01:03.850 have all these zombie systems knocking around 00:01:03.850 --> 00:01:05.890 and they're not chewing off your leg or anything, 00:01:05.909 --> 00:01:08.629 but we're not getting the value from them. You 00:01:08.629 --> 00:01:10.930 know, we're paying the full sticker price and 00:01:10.930 --> 00:01:13.790 we might be using like two to 3 % of the functionality. 00:01:14.810 --> 00:01:17.069 So tell me, tell me I'm, this is a unique problem 00:01:17.069 --> 00:01:19.390 to me and we'll move on to some other topic, 00:01:19.549 --> 00:01:22.310 but do you see this in your world? I am shocked 00:01:22.310 --> 00:01:26.189 at how many software tools, just even a small 00:01:26.189 --> 00:01:29.879 company has. Oh my God. Like for your consulting 00:01:29.879 --> 00:01:32.799 company, if you said you had 40 software pieces 00:01:32.799 --> 00:01:35.739 that you used, I'd be like, that sounds about 00:01:35.739 --> 00:01:38.019 right. And now, you know, you just pick Microsoft 00:01:38.019 --> 00:01:40.700 and all of a sudden you've got four. Oh my gosh. 00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:43.319 Right. You've got your Outlook, you've got Word, 00:01:43.579 --> 00:01:47.859 Excel, PowerPoint, and others. And that's without 00:01:47.859 --> 00:01:51.359 unpacking. Outlook, which has calendar and it 00:01:51.359 --> 00:01:54.459 has email and has task management. I came across, 00:01:54.519 --> 00:01:56.180 and I think that may be at the heart of when 00:01:56.180 --> 00:01:58.459 you said that I saw a statistic that said the 00:01:58.459 --> 00:02:00.659 typical small business has something like, I 00:02:00.659 --> 00:02:03.840 want to say 68 pieces of software that it uses. 00:02:04.180 --> 00:02:07.939 I would not be surprised. You take that up to 00:02:07.939 --> 00:02:10.080 large business and this is what surprised me. 00:02:10.199 --> 00:02:13.580 Large businesses were just under 300. And so 00:02:13.580 --> 00:02:16.860 I think about, you know, my small consultancy. 00:02:17.050 --> 00:02:20.090 versus a Nike or a Starbucks. And the reality 00:02:20.090 --> 00:02:23.150 is they have all the same base stack that I do 00:02:23.150 --> 00:02:26.490 plus X systems, but that's custom admission. 00:02:27.409 --> 00:02:30.650 I don't use task management inside of Outlook, 00:02:30.830 --> 00:02:33.729 task management over in Monday, because that's 00:02:33.729 --> 00:02:38.030 where the team lives. But all I need is the calendar 00:02:38.030 --> 00:02:40.009 and the email. And I could probably even break 00:02:40.009 --> 00:02:42.370 those apart, except that my habits are there. 00:02:42.389 --> 00:02:44.370 And I think in the spirit of these zombie systems, 00:02:44.509 --> 00:02:47.860 it's like, God bless. How many of us would benefit 00:02:47.860 --> 00:02:50.759 from having somebody just sit us down, taking 00:02:50.759 --> 00:02:52.740 out of so many times, ask what is it that we're 00:02:52.740 --> 00:02:56.219 getting out of this system? And so they're kind 00:02:56.219 --> 00:02:58.759 of invisible. It's not creating a blister on 00:02:58.759 --> 00:03:02.060 our daily lives, but boy, it sure erodes our 00:03:02.060 --> 00:03:06.639 margins. You know, how many zombie Jira instances 00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:09.439 do you think are out there in the wild? Oh my 00:03:09.439 --> 00:03:12.759 heavens. I had one client that had three discrete 00:03:12.759 --> 00:03:16.199 instances that they were using. And there had 00:03:16.199 --> 00:03:18.800 been like four others that had flipped from trial 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:20.719 into subscription and they weren't big numbers. 00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:23.879 So that was, that was actually more, there were 00:03:23.879 --> 00:03:28.240 zombies than were in use. Maybe those, they were 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:30.639 just undead. They didn't even, there was no value 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:33.620 from them at all, right? Most of us use like 00:03:33.620 --> 00:03:35.860 one primary instance. And then there's these 00:03:35.860 --> 00:03:38.000 other outliers that we can't quite kill because 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:39.939 there might be some data in it, or we haven't 00:03:39.939 --> 00:03:42.319 figured out how to move the functionality somewhere 00:03:42.319 --> 00:03:44.949 else. I mean, what kind of zombie systems do 00:03:44.949 --> 00:03:47.229 you feel like you've encountered in your years 00:03:47.229 --> 00:03:51.030 and travels? What I see a lot is that people 00:03:51.030 --> 00:03:55.689 don't define what tools are supposed to be used 00:03:55.689 --> 00:04:03.830 for. And so therefore, instead of using a confluence 00:04:03.830 --> 00:04:07.389 when they could, they go and buy something different, 00:04:07.930 --> 00:04:10.930 right? They buy a frontward facing knowledge 00:04:10.930 --> 00:04:16.839 management. And so you end up with a lot of like 00:04:16.839 --> 00:04:20.720 bespoke applications that basically do one thing. 00:04:20.939 --> 00:04:24.160 Even if Jira can get you 80%, there is a large 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:28.319 attraction to go and buy that extra 20 % and 00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:31.579 then use only a fraction of the fraction. That's 00:04:31.579 --> 00:04:33.120 where I think it's really interesting because 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:36.980 these tools are so ridiculously powerful if they 00:04:36.980 --> 00:04:41.629 are defined. And then you buy an add -on and 00:04:41.629 --> 00:04:45.209 then you only use a fraction of the add -on and 00:04:45.209 --> 00:04:47.930 then you buy another add -on. It becomes the 00:04:47.930 --> 00:04:50.470 plague. One of the conversations that I've had 00:04:50.470 --> 00:04:52.370 recently with a couple of different clients and 00:04:52.370 --> 00:04:56.230 a few prospects is this idea of HubSpot is this 00:04:56.230 --> 00:04:58.990 fantastic system and it has all these marketing 00:04:58.990 --> 00:05:01.550 features. And then I'm like, well, great. Who 00:05:01.550 --> 00:05:06.310 uses those? Well, nobody yet. Oh. But you have 00:05:06.310 --> 00:05:07.889 a marketing, well, yeah, we have a marketing 00:05:07.889 --> 00:05:11.129 team, but they don't use this. And I think, oh, 00:05:11.209 --> 00:05:14.329 okay. So that means they're using something else. 00:05:14.870 --> 00:05:17.209 And so to your point about getting clear about 00:05:17.209 --> 00:05:20.269 what we use and what we don't, it's a whole host 00:05:20.269 --> 00:05:22.550 of conversations that we've not had. We haven't 00:05:22.550 --> 00:05:24.730 brought people together in a meaningful way. 00:05:25.610 --> 00:05:28.389 And so, you know, a lot of these zombie systems 00:05:28.389 --> 00:05:30.610 are harming us in a couple of ways. It's not 00:05:30.610 --> 00:05:33.490 just that we're paying for this unnecessarily, 00:05:33.689 --> 00:05:36.540 but We're also getting excited in our efforts 00:05:36.540 --> 00:05:38.680 to bring people into our world, even though we 00:05:38.680 --> 00:05:41.040 haven't told them that. We're also doing things 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:43.579 like building integrations or buying all these 00:05:43.579 --> 00:05:45.620 add -ons and it's like, oh, but if I build it, 00:05:45.620 --> 00:05:48.920 they will come. Not realizing that they're happy, 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:51.300 healthy and comfortable in their own world and 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:53.800 have got really fluent at getting work done in 00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:57.899 a different way. You know what? I've got a budget. 00:05:59.139 --> 00:06:00.579 So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to 00:06:00.579 --> 00:06:02.620 tweak and make the tool that we have better. 00:06:03.279 --> 00:06:06.100 Said no one ever now when there's a shiny new 00:06:06.100 --> 00:06:09.519 thing that you can just ink a quick check or 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:12.379 Or do a face flash double click and now you just 00:06:12.379 --> 00:06:14.779 bought a new app or bought a new whatever And 00:06:14.779 --> 00:06:16.759 then what happens after you bought the new app 00:06:16.759 --> 00:06:19.240 you realize that it doesn't integrate with the 00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:23.939 old app But you have to hold on to the new app 00:06:23.939 --> 00:06:27.000 Because you have budget for a year and then you 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:29.399 forget about it and then it just rolls over and 00:06:29.399 --> 00:06:31.899 you get the invoice It's like reporting systems 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:33.680 If you have a company that's been around more 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:36.180 than 10 years, it probably has a system per year. 00:06:36.939 --> 00:06:39.800 And you can't get rid of it because this guy 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:42.379 has their critical reporting system. A brand 00:06:42.379 --> 00:06:47.120 new leader just introduced system B. Forbid, 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:49.220 we organize things and do it with intention. 00:06:49.339 --> 00:06:53.000 I really do think it's best intentions, but especially 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:56.040 as we make new people into, we all have our favorite 00:06:56.040 --> 00:06:59.920 thing that we're fluent with. Well, and then 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:01.879 the other thing is like, If you don't use a tool, 00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:05.639 you forget about it. You forget the tricks and 00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:08.680 the tips and the things that you're trying. Sometimes 00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:10.600 I think businesses go wrong because they don't 00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:14.899 put humans behind the tools. If no one owns the 00:07:14.899 --> 00:07:18.740 tools, then no one's actually going to, like, 00:07:19.660 --> 00:07:22.300 if there's no human that's driving the tool and 00:07:22.300 --> 00:07:26.240 the tool adoption, I can guarantee you, you're 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:28.959 losing that person's salary in a lack of tool 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:33.360 efficiency. Not a percent. Also we're designed 00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:36.000 for us only to push data into and never get value 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.660 out of. Yeah, for sure. That's that old accounting 00:07:38.660 --> 00:07:41.300 world of we don't care if you ever use the information, 00:07:41.300 --> 00:07:43.360 but we have to make sure we're reporting it. 00:07:43.480 --> 00:07:46.399 And I think modern tools have shifted and particularly 00:07:46.399 --> 00:07:48.920 how we approach tools when we do it with intention. 00:07:49.060 --> 00:07:51.399 Do I get an hour of value back out? And I think 00:07:51.399 --> 00:07:53.819 that's probably a really good equation. Just 00:07:53.819 --> 00:07:56.560 a simple rule of thumb. If you've got a sales 00:07:56.560 --> 00:07:59.139 team banging information into a CRM all day, 00:07:59.240 --> 00:08:03.540 and all it does is sit there, then you're probably 00:08:03.540 --> 00:08:07.519 missing the point of having it as VRM. And if 00:08:07.519 --> 00:08:09.360 that's the case, reach out. But at the heart 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:11.620 of it too, it's like, ask yourself of all these 00:08:11.620 --> 00:08:14.339 different systems. And that's, the landscape 00:08:14.339 --> 00:08:18.199 has shifted so much. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Well, 00:08:18.300 --> 00:08:21.959 let's talk for a second. Let's kind of, in light 00:08:21.959 --> 00:08:23.800 of this, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only guy 00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:26.399 that has like four photo editing apps on his 00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:29.180 phone. It's still paying in subscription, you 00:08:29.180 --> 00:08:34.440 know, to AOL and internet subscribers. But I'd 00:08:34.440 --> 00:08:36.419 love to hear your thoughts, you know, talk about 00:08:36.419 --> 00:08:39.980 Fix It Friday. Oh yeah, for sure. I think when 00:08:39.980 --> 00:08:43.519 it comes to the thing that you can do, regardless 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:45.639 of whether you're a manager or an executive, 00:08:46.279 --> 00:08:48.259 learn something about a tool that either you 00:08:48.259 --> 00:08:51.379 are in or your people are in. Cause I guarantee 00:08:51.379 --> 00:08:54.679 you there is a magical area of space that you 00:08:54.679 --> 00:08:56.850 could go and learn in. to make your life and 00:08:56.850 --> 00:09:00.669 your team's life better. I love that. You're 00:09:00.669 --> 00:09:05.370 that tools guy. You spin up something every time 00:09:05.370 --> 00:09:07.730 I chat, you're like, Hey, I found this new thing 00:09:07.730 --> 00:09:10.389 and I'm going to give it a couple hours. Nope. 00:09:10.470 --> 00:09:12.210 It wasn't better than what I already had. It 00:09:12.210 --> 00:09:15.389 didn't work. But it's that explore mindset. Yeah. 00:09:15.470 --> 00:09:17.750 And I think the other thing is like, don't assume 00:09:17.750 --> 00:09:20.049 that just because you have a technical person 00:09:20.049 --> 00:09:21.850 that they're going to understand the technical 00:09:21.850 --> 00:09:24.940 application. Don't assume that they understand 00:09:24.940 --> 00:09:27.120 how to use Jira. Don't assume that they understand 00:09:27.120 --> 00:09:29.360 how to run a stand -up. Don't assume that they 00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:31.879 know how to do Scrum. Don't assume any of that 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:34.820 and figure out how it's done and march in that 00:09:34.820 --> 00:09:40.460 direction. And if you can and you have the ability 00:09:40.460 --> 00:09:45.440 and the authority to make multiple people and 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:49.559 or groups do something, that can be ridiculously 00:09:49.559 --> 00:09:52.590 powerful. Because the thing that I see most often 00:09:52.590 --> 00:09:59.389 is that you have experts on a tool and their 00:09:59.389 --> 00:10:02.169 expertise is determined by their peers. And so 00:10:02.169 --> 00:10:04.090 funny story, my mom was a kindergarten teacher 00:10:04.090 --> 00:10:08.110 forever. She was the Excel guru at school and 00:10:08.110 --> 00:10:10.610 her Excel guru -ness was that she could add two 00:10:10.610 --> 00:10:12.850 numbers in an individual cell. Like that was 00:10:12.850 --> 00:10:15.230 next level stuff, not referencing a cell. So 00:10:15.230 --> 00:10:17.570 you can buy your Excel kung fu. But the bar was 00:10:17.570 --> 00:10:20.419 so low for her. Yeah. You go and work with an 00:10:20.419 --> 00:10:22.480 engineer that's in Excel all day and you're like, 00:10:22.820 --> 00:10:26.039 my mom, yeah, like there's no way that she would 00:10:26.039 --> 00:10:28.279 have, she, she could have done any of the, any 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:30.620 of the things that I was doing, but her peers. 00:10:30.820 --> 00:10:33.460 Right. And so like, and I guess all that's to 00:10:33.460 --> 00:10:37.779 say that just because you're a technical expert 00:10:37.779 --> 00:10:41.419 in an IDE, that doesn't mean that you were very 00:10:41.419 --> 00:10:44.220 good at processing. And so, you know, fixing 00:10:44.220 --> 00:10:47.500 stuff on Friday is really about just deciding. 00:10:47.720 --> 00:10:50.940 to be curious, deciding to learn, you know, going 00:10:50.940 --> 00:10:53.480 in, just doing some research. Like if, if you're 00:10:53.480 --> 00:10:57.039 in Jira, go learn something about JQual. Right. 00:10:57.059 --> 00:10:59.120 If you're, if you're in, if you're in Monday, 00:10:59.200 --> 00:11:01.440 go check stuff out on YouTube, search something 00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:05.120 on, on Shad GPT to just make yourself better. 00:11:06.179 --> 00:11:08.259 I love that Chris. I think you did a nice job 00:11:08.259 --> 00:11:11.100 of touching on both in that leadership capacity, 00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:13.120 what can you do to fix, but also individually. 00:11:13.480 --> 00:11:18.039 And so to cut it. Um, step it back a bit. What 00:11:18.039 --> 00:11:21.899 it does make me think about is this mess, you 00:11:21.899 --> 00:11:24.500 know, the zombies grow in the dark, just like 00:11:24.500 --> 00:11:26.419 my hands. I was starting to just expose them 00:11:26.419 --> 00:11:28.860 to the light, you know, digging in and pulling 00:11:28.860 --> 00:11:31.019 it out of the back of the closet to look at it. 00:11:31.480 --> 00:11:33.500 See if you still have any of the cartridges for 00:11:33.500 --> 00:11:36.600 your old Atari 2600. Why are you keeping the 00:11:36.600 --> 00:11:39.960 hardware? But also it's this idea of like communicating 00:11:39.960 --> 00:11:43.059 it out. I mean, I'm on more of the business side. 00:11:43.220 --> 00:11:45.639 So it's the, if the tool isn't doing a job, then. 00:11:46.029 --> 00:11:48.789 I don't care how beautiful the interface. Yeah. 00:11:49.149 --> 00:11:51.070 But it's really interesting when you just raise 00:11:51.070 --> 00:11:53.029 your hand and say, what the heck are we using 00:11:53.029 --> 00:11:55.210 this for? Does anybody have a solution? Yeah. 00:11:55.429 --> 00:11:57.669 And it's so lean into that curiosity and have 00:11:57.669 --> 00:11:59.850 that conversation. Yeah. The other thing is like, 00:11:59.970 --> 00:12:02.409 just keep your ears open. Cause you'll hear the 00:12:02.409 --> 00:12:05.769 people complain about the zombie employees will 00:12:05.769 --> 00:12:07.870 complain about the zombie systems. You know, 00:12:07.870 --> 00:12:13.169 it's like, oh yeah, or a KPI, you know? There's 00:12:13.169 --> 00:12:16.009 a brilliant person. They have all of this expertise 00:12:16.009 --> 00:12:18.750 and wisdom, perhaps. But if all we're doing is 00:12:18.750 --> 00:12:20.889 asking them to work in a super narrow way, we're 00:12:20.889 --> 00:12:24.009 only tapping into their five or 10 % of value. 00:12:24.110 --> 00:12:26.590 Oh, for sure. Well, God forbid you have a zombie 00:12:26.590 --> 00:12:29.529 driving in some companies. That does happen. 00:12:30.149 --> 00:12:32.669 As always, Chris, I love our conversations. Absolutely, 00:12:33.029 --> 00:12:35.309 man. Good stuff, buddy. Have an awesome party. 00:12:35.789 --> 00:12:37.509 Yep. Catch you next week. All right. Bye.