We are going to revisit our topic from last week,
which was try versus buy. It's too good. We didn't
go deep enough. We did make it to 20 minutes
though. So that was impressive. But the thing
that I want to talk about this week is really
around try versus buy and how simple consultants
have made it to buy. with showing very little
impact unless you're selling opium by way of
McKinsey, by way of doctors, by way of nefarious
practices. Chris, I recently saw an article.
God, I wish I would have flagged it. They were
talking about the billions of dollars that Fortune
500 companies spend on things like digital transformation
or strategic reset. All of these things as a
consulting industry, we're bringing in people
with very low context that don't understand the
complex mechanics and they're creating beautiful
PowerPoints or they're introducing powerful dashboards
of data. that are superficial, right? Because
the audience is this executive. And executives
are rewarded for growing. The rewards, show me
what somebody's rewarded for, I'll tell you where
their attention goes. Oh, 100%. Consulting does
a really powerful job of feeding that need to
have something to present up. So talk to me about
how there's something more in your mind. It struck
me that this is such a recent piece. because
it's literally a multi -billion dollar industry
just talking about what could happen or should
happen and not making it happen. I think it's
really interesting. It's probably why I will
never be an executive because I want accuracy.
Yeah. I want accuracy. I want results. I want
people to, when they say that they predict something,
I want their prediction to be validated. Like,
what's your confidence level? And, you know,
I saw a meme on Instagram about, you know, ask
Chad GPT to create a Mackenzie slide deck. and
then analyze the words that that McKinsey slide
deck would get and you end up with synergies
and optimizations and all these big words that
sell really well. It's a really good story. And
the side benefit is if McKinsey doesn't do well
or Boston Consulting doesn't do well, it's not
your problem. Right. It's like the best way to
pass the buck. It is. You can vilify them and
then you can hire them into a different functional
area tomorrow. Yeah. And you have a different
team from the same. Correct. Well educated organization.
Correct. Yeah. No, it's, I think, you know, this,
the idea of the culture of buy versus try, I
think some of that has to do with how long are
we invested within this organization? Oh yeah.
And so if I was making a 40 year commitment to
a company. Sure. then I wanna leave everything
I touch at least a little bit better than I encountered
it. Because I'm gonna reap the rewards multiple
times, right? Investment rule of 72, if I do
a 10 % improvement, then the value of that's
gonna double in seven years. And so as I move
through an organization, leaving things better
than I found them pays both me and all of my
collaborators that I'm working with for the next
30 years, it pays us dividends. But if my career
is two years, or if I'm measuring in quarterly
increments, those try investments that take time,
a series of experiments, a series of refinements,
those don't happen in 90 days. Well, the other
interesting thing is like, I'm going to think
about like new employees, right? So you hire
a new employee, right? They're impressive. You've
never heard their stories before. You don't know
their strengths or weaknesses. You know, and
generally you get someone who's at, you know,
who's a competent professional, they will be
very competent and kind and have some EQ, but
it takes a while to understand the strengths,
weaknesses, the good, the bad, and the ugly,
because we're all humans trying to do our best,
right? Yeah. And so the best triers are going
to be the people that know where to try. And
maybe it's as simple as if you're an executive,
you don't even know where to start. Yeah. So
it's easy to start with synergies. Transformation.
Transformation. Impact. More hay -owl. We need
more calabino. Leverage. Scale. It's interesting
because what you described, and I think today's
hiring process, is pretty abrupt. And if I think
about hiring a new resource, we have some screening,
maybe I have some technical acumen, periods of
interviews, maybe plural. I have some EQ, cultural
fit within that team, not necessarily within
the company's DNA, but usually just at a team
level. But in general, I would dare say most
hires happen within... you know, four to six
weeks unless there's HR reasons that it's slowed
down. So you've essentially spent maybe, I mean,
at least personally, a lot of my interviews,
both as an employee, but also as a consultant,
it may only be an hour or two of interview and
I made an offer or I'm asked for a proposal.
Yeah. And the funny thing is like that offer
could be early in your career. It could be 50
grand later in your career. It could be 150 grand,
could be 300 grand. And basically all I'm being
offered, I'm not being offered a career. I'm
being offered paycheck. I was talking with a
friend today over lunch and she is a really brilliant
chief HR leader. And I was saying to her, earlier
in my career, I almost, I was interviewing and
I was offered a job as an actuary. I am not the
kind of introvert or statistic table Nazi that
would have been an awesome actuary. I would have
been a distraction. to everybody I worked with
and an annoyance to leadership. I would have
certainly been fired within the first year for
not getting what they needed. But what's interesting
was when they were asking me about what I wanted,
what I didn't say but was 100 % true is I want
a paycheck. I have bills to pay and you're furthest
along the process and I have an urgent need to
cover my costs. But as we get later in our career,
hopefully, we kind of discover who we are and
what we're about. And so I was saying to her,
today, I have a paycheck. I have a lot of learning
as well. So I'm not looking for a paycheck. What
I'm looking for is a purpose. And I'm looking
for a sense of fit. And I'm looking for value
alignment. Is this an opportunity for me to show
up and do something I'm really passionate about?
Or is it just a paycheck? I think in the spirit
of the buy versus try, so many organizations
today, it's a consumerism transaction when we're
hiring. We're not asking, is this the kind of
person that reflects our DNA? Do we have our
values aligned? Could they potentially become
part of our leadership and contribute to our
overall health over the course of 10 to 15 years?
I don't think we're thinking in that longer line,
and it takes a long time to become a good trier.
and develop that deep knowledge of how an organization
actually functions. Well, you've talked about
your time at Nike in kind of their heyday, in
which they basically, it was part of their culture,
that they kicked people to other parts of the
org. Like it was 18, it was 18 months stints,
if I remember correctly, and they would basically
go and they would learn this other thing. Like
imagine like the wealth of knowledge that you
get by bringing other stuff, other things, like,
and I've thought about this a lot, like, Would
love to be a consultant if you could start me
as a new as basically a new hire and Train me
how to do something because I guarantee you four
weeks in I've got 25 different problems solved.
I guarantee it Because you have fresh eyes and
experience Correct. Yeah, I like give me give
me four weeks in any job I will I will basically
have all sorts of things for you to solve right
and you know That's a try. Yeah. Right. That's
that's putting your boots on, putting your gloves
on and going to work. Right. Whereas it feels
like. You know, maybe maybe I'm missing something
here, but most consulting just feels like it's
a flyby of what could be and, you know, of the
flavor of the month. And so a couple of years
ago, it was blockchain. You know, blockchain
had zero value. So we created crypto. It's been
great. You know, now it's gen AI, right? What
is gen AI? Define it. Good luck getting a good
answer from many people. They will, or getting
one flavor of an answer and that like, look,
AI is nuanced. Like an LLM will, it predicts
the next word. And so if you can, if you understand
that you're going to be better off versus just
thinking it's magical. You're like, no, it's
just. It's a writing machine. It's pretty, like
I'm not complaining. No. Well, I think what's
interesting is that if we think about the script
of how a business operates, you know, or like
notes on a page of sheet music, it's not just
the notes that matter. It's the white space in
between. You know, your comment, I love that,
that Nike story stuck with you. What I was so
impressed with was when they took people that
were, had a pretty good social EQ and were inherently
curious and were collaborative and they started
to move them around, they started drawing connection
across all the white space between these teams,
between geographies and they call them product
engines. But for any business, we have all these
different service lines. somebody can spend an
entire career in just one piece of the business.
And it means that the depth of their relationships
is shallow and they don't have context outside
of their area. And so from a cultural health,
I found that to be extraordinarily powerful because
all of a sudden it's not just empathy you have
because you're familiar with what your counterparts
are doing, but you also know who to call to ask
for that tri -level of insight. So that's super
powerful. Last week you touched on something
and I want to go back to it because I don't remember
the specifics, but there were a handful of things
that if I wanted to hire or cultivate triers
in my business, what are some of those characteristics
of how I might identify somebody that's prepared
to try, that's going to take the time to really
unpack and invest in building something that's
more long -standing versus just throwing up some
quarterly results because they expect to be shopping
for a new job in two to three years. I mean,
I would consider myself a trier. And if I go
back to my career, my biggest successes have
always been just being curious and just being
like, well, why does it work that way? And specifically
in handoffs, I've been ridiculously lucky in
just figuring out why does department a do this
thing and department b do something else or system
a do something and system b do something and
you're like there seems to be something amiss
here or or i just i just expect more um i i you
know um when i i used to work at bodybuilding
.com yeah you know these are audio so you guys
won't know this but i am totally jacked just
kidding not jacked Oh no, I was in operations.
That was the only non jacked department at buddy
building. Anyway, um, you've got your marketing
guy. You didn't get the supplements that everybody
else got the marketing guys. You're like, oh,
they're pretty over there and all the operations
are like, we've, we've had too many beers or
something. I don't know. Anyway, uh, but when
I was there, we, we, we were shipping stuff from
different warehouses and we had, we would ship
stuff from the wrong warehouse a lot. And then
when we went and looked to what was shipping,
it was always like our most popular product.
It was optimum chocolate whey. And it was just
baffling people. They just could not figure it
out. And I'm like, well, why does it ship from
the wrong warehouse? It's like, well, we were
missing that product, whatever the product was,
in the warehouse that it was supposed to ship
from. Right. So it might be ordered in LA. Correct.
And it's being sourced or shipped out of New
York. Exactly. Exactly. Like specifically, you
order it in Oregon. It comes from Pennsylvania
because it didn't have some sort of ketone, something
or other. And so I'm over here in the corner
raising my hand and saying, hey, you know what
would be awesome? I'll tell you what would be
awesome. Just tell me the item that you expected
to be in, you know, the West Coast, DC. Yeah.
But was not, but was in Pennsylvania. And I created
this report and everyone was like, oh my gosh,
this is so great. And you're like, that was a
try, but it was caused by me being curious and
saying just because it doesn't exist doesn't
mean I can't ask for it. And it took me a while
to explain what I was trying to do, but once
they got it, it just became so obvious. That's
the funny thing about tries is when the try works
and not all of them are going to work, but when
the try works, It's so obvious what we've been
done. Yeah. Well, it's like a baseball player
with a, with a 400 average. Like how much is
that guy worth? Oh yeah. Out of control. Right?
No. And, and that's only four out of 10. Yeah.
And yet we don't, we don't have baseball cards
for our staff. Yeah. We don't know what calendar
to track. They're meaningful. Think the other
I think the other thing is triers have to be
system thinkers Me or they will just make their
little silo efficient and not care about the
system Yeah, and you know, I also think being
able to Go into different groups like again,
I don't know why companies don't collect these
little like these little internal consulting
teams Because my guess like my guess is is there's
a there's a portion of your company However,
how whatever size your company is like let's
just say it's 2 % Okay, so you got 2 % of your
company that did for some rat for some random
reason their superpower is Trying and figuring
out little nuanced things that like gets them
all sorts of credit and and But no one else saw
Like if you had a little team, you've got a 200
200 percent company. You got a little team of
four that basically just goes and sits stuff,
learns stuff, and then just goes and makes recommendations
and has some pull within the org, it would be
pretty incredible what could happen. Because
the thing is, is like these changes aren't big
oftentimes, they're really small. That's the
thing that's blown, like that's the thing that
blows my mind. Is sometimes these tries are like,
you know, I think there's a story of this company
they call in the console. I don't even know if
this is a true story, but it's. It's a good analogy.
They spent millions of dollars because for some
reason these boxes were coming through and they
weren't being filled. There were boxes coming
through and they would box them up and ship them
out, but they had no product in them. So they
spent millions of dollars fixing the line. The
line was better and it did a lot better job.
And then one day they just found out that these
boxes were just not like ever making it to the
million dollar checkpoint. What some you know
the story goes and again this could be fake but
the story goes Someone who was working just went
and got a fan because he was tired of the million
-dollar machine because it made all this noise
It was a pain. He just put the box fan up It
blew the boxes and if the box didn't have product
just blew the box off the line problem solved
right so like But but but I think you love I
love that story though Rubble solved. Yeah, so
you got some guy with it with a $19 box fan that's
on discount at Walmart is just solving the problem.
It's a lot like the story of the U .S. spending
literally millions of dollars creating a pen
that would write upside down in space and the
Soviets just use a pencil. I think often that
desire to over -engineer because we're not close
enough to it or we don't take a step back. And
I think a lot of triers will adjust their perspective.
To your point about curiosity, I'll ask somebody
that may not be working in the process, but they're
dependent on it or they're an input. And gathering
those perspectives gives you a much more complete
view of what's going on. I think the triers also
have tried more. I know that sounds so dumb,
but they've just tried more. And so they've failed
more. So they have a better predictability of
what will work. Yeah, Chris, I'll tell you You
know, I've spent the last 20 years predominantly
as a consultant. Oh, we're gonna go any of the
stations Yeah, it's an admission, but I'll tell
you the if there's a singular secret to my success
It's discovering who those connected triers are
Because the challenge is that oftentimes a trier
is asking questions that executives can't answer.
Yep or they're pointing at things that are good
enough, they might be fragile, but it's not a
priority. And as a consultant, you're usually
brought in by somebody with authority and budget.
It's a director or an executive, right? And what
they're asking is, I happen to perceive a problem
and you, consultant, I'm not a McKinsey guy,
right? They're not asking me for an army of analysis.
What they're asking for is bring me some recommendations
and help me understand how we execute it. And
so my very simple motion, and to your point,
every organization should have 2 % of their workforce
doing this. It's working on the business, not
in the business. 2%, right? And all you have
to do is, you don't have to have deep knowledge
of every process. You just have to understand
through interview, talk to me about your process.
The priors talk about it differently. They also
don't expect, they don't accept the status quo.
No. There's always one more thing, isn't there?
Well, there's always like, can we go and get
this data piece? Or do we have to do that? And
so they're always kind of experimenting on what
will versus what won't work. Yeah. Tinker as
a descriptor of what you just said, right? And
maybe it's optimizing. They want to play with
things a little bit. I think the triers are also
when you hear Elon talk about Doge, and he's
like, I'm going to go save all these monies.
The triers are like, dude, you can save your
money in Medicare or the military. Those are
your two options. They just stop there. They're
like, look, I understand math, statistics. The
piles of money are hanging out in the buckets
that you aren't playing with. You're playing
in the wrong sand, at the wrong beach, my friend.
That's right. Well, it's kind of like in modern
day organizations, we spend an exorbitant amount
on salaries and on software. If we look at the
actual dollar spent on people, process, and technology,
process is not where money is spent unless there's
software strapped to it or heavy pieces of equipment
that are really - Oh, sure, sure, sure. So the
white streets falls apart for sure and you know
What's interesting like what I've what I've thought
about a lot is like you can take process and
you can tie it to the strategy, right? Yeah,
like if the process can align with the strategy
versus Like I think a lot of oftentimes business
is about connecting To the community right and
so there ends up being more politics than normal,
but we are we are over again my friend it is
Try versus lie. We had more to say on this. We
did. Awesome session. All right, man. Well, I
guess we just keep trying. We'll just keep trying.
There you go. We're only trying to bat a 400,
brother. There you go. All right, man. All right,
have a good one, bet.