WEBVTT 00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:03.240 Hey, what's up, Toby? We made it another week. 00:00:03.339 --> 00:00:06.759 Yeah. Hey, happy Friday. That's right. We are 00:00:06.759 --> 00:00:08.500 rocking and rolling today. I want to talk about 00:00:08.500 --> 00:00:11.539 decision making. Oh, you got some decisions you 00:00:11.539 --> 00:00:14.759 want to make? There's always lots of decisions. 00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:17.679 More that I probably don't want to make. Right? 00:00:17.780 --> 00:00:21.539 But that's part of it. Realizing how few decisions 00:00:21.539 --> 00:00:23.800 you actually want to make. You know, for a second, 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:26.179 before we get into where you want to go, decision 00:00:26.179 --> 00:00:29.739 fatigue, right? Oh, God. Yeah. Like, what's for 00:00:29.739 --> 00:00:33.060 dinner? By that time of day, and it comes every 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:37.460 day, I'm kind of pooped out. And so there's a 00:00:37.460 --> 00:00:40.000 myriad of decisions. So I'm kind of curious from, 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:43.159 you know, do I put on my pants before my shoes 00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:46.259 to what's for dinner? Do I brush my teeth before 00:00:46.259 --> 00:00:48.719 I fall in bed? What layer of decision making 00:00:48.719 --> 00:00:51.380 are you thinking about? Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking 00:00:51.380 --> 00:00:54.600 business decisions, right? So there's all the 00:00:54.600 --> 00:00:58.259 anecdotes of like... Steve Jobs always only had 00:00:58.259 --> 00:01:00.960 like one outfit. Right. Right. Or Brahma had 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:05.239 the one, you know, the one black suit or something. 00:01:05.579 --> 00:01:08.519 Because they wanted to make sure that their decisions 00:01:08.519 --> 00:01:13.120 were clear and clean. Totally. And I think the 00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:15.079 reason why I want to talk about business decisions 00:01:15.079 --> 00:01:17.780 is because they're just so hard to track after 00:01:17.780 --> 00:01:20.060 the fact. I'm not talking like before the fact. 00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:24.629 Sure. Yeah. But I'm talking like doing like retros 00:01:24.629 --> 00:01:29.549 at the business decision level. And it wasn't 00:01:29.549 --> 00:01:31.230 an effective decision is what you're asking. 00:01:31.430 --> 00:01:35.670 How do we... Yeah. How do you know? Yeah. Yeah. 00:01:36.189 --> 00:01:38.629 Is there an example of a decision that you've 00:01:38.629 --> 00:01:42.109 been thinking about or maybe abstracted? But 00:01:42.109 --> 00:01:44.849 I think it's a super interesting question because 00:01:44.849 --> 00:01:47.890 I immediately go to most organizations today 00:01:47.890 --> 00:01:52.650 are so short -term focused that... Yeah. It's, 00:01:52.769 --> 00:01:56.890 did I keep my job at the quarterly earnings call? 00:01:58.430 --> 00:02:03.189 Yeah, for sure. The best thought or the best 00:02:03.189 --> 00:02:06.290 way that I've seen that enacted in a company 00:02:06.290 --> 00:02:10.909 is I worked at an e -commerce company for a while, 00:02:12.270 --> 00:02:16.569 in the purchasing department, and they actually 00:02:16.569 --> 00:02:21.689 did... They looked for the mean absolute percentage 00:02:21.689 --> 00:02:25.090 error on purchasing. And so what they did was 00:02:25.090 --> 00:02:30.189 is they would figure out are the purchasing individual, 00:02:30.870 --> 00:02:35.370 do they buy us high or buy us low on their purchasing. 00:02:35.590 --> 00:02:37.810 And it was really cool. Like it was, it was, 00:02:38.030 --> 00:02:42.870 it was like, it was done in a way that empowered 00:02:42.870 --> 00:02:46.990 the team for them to have some self -awareness 00:02:46.990 --> 00:02:53.069 around, hey, I know that when I purchase, I purchase 00:02:53.069 --> 00:02:57.050 high or I purchase low because it's in, you know, 00:02:57.409 --> 00:02:59.810 in inventory, it's always this balance of like, 00:02:59.889 --> 00:03:01.610 well, you can have a hundred percent ship, you 00:03:01.610 --> 00:03:03.949 can ship everything. Yeah. But that means that 00:03:03.949 --> 00:03:06.750 you need to have infinite inventory, which finance 00:03:06.750 --> 00:03:09.330 doesn't want. Right. So finance wants to keep 00:03:09.330 --> 00:03:13.669 your stocks on hand really, really low. That 00:03:13.669 --> 00:03:16.490 leads to stock outs. And so It was this really, 00:03:16.490 --> 00:03:22.349 really good example in operations of tracking 00:03:22.349 --> 00:03:25.990 people's decision -making based on their job. 00:03:26.590 --> 00:03:28.789 And so that's kind of where I go when I think 00:03:28.789 --> 00:03:32.490 about this. But then that leads to, oh, how is 00:03:32.490 --> 00:03:36.349 this done at the strategic levels? Or how is 00:03:36.349 --> 00:03:40.069 this done in our day -to -day jobs? Chris, what 00:03:40.069 --> 00:03:41.830 I love about the example that you just shared 00:03:41.830 --> 00:03:45.169 is that You also pointed at the natural tension 00:03:45.169 --> 00:03:48.750 in the business between the actions of purchasing 00:03:48.750 --> 00:03:54.810 who want infinite supply and the counterbalancing 00:03:54.810 --> 00:03:57.370 tension that finance introduces, which is to 00:03:57.370 --> 00:03:59.330 say, don't put all of our money into inventory. 00:04:00.050 --> 00:04:03.330 And so that little bit of tension is really clear. 00:04:04.229 --> 00:04:06.449 Individual purchasers probably weren't contemplating 00:04:06.449 --> 00:04:08.689 that, but you were able to arrive at a point 00:04:08.689 --> 00:04:10.969 of bias. It makes me think for our strategic 00:04:10.969 --> 00:04:15.120 decisions, Where is that point of tension? You 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:17.259 know, there's, there has to be some natural limit. 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:21.259 And so too often strategic decisions with truly 00:04:21.259 --> 00:04:23.279 strategic decisions are turning a battleship 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:26.420 of effort. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Rarely is it a 00:04:26.420 --> 00:04:28.680 motorboat kind of action where it's like, you 00:04:28.680 --> 00:04:31.060 know, jig left and then jig back to the right 00:04:31.060 --> 00:04:33.819 area. Those are, they may feel strategic depending 00:04:33.819 --> 00:04:35.899 on where you're at in the organization, but in 00:04:35.899 --> 00:04:38.139 terms of shifting the outcomes of the overall, 00:04:38.819 --> 00:04:41.360 it's a lot smaller. And so. I'm imagining when 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:43.259 you say strategic, you know, we might be time 00:04:43.259 --> 00:04:45.500 out launching a new product line, a new partners. 00:04:45.560 --> 00:04:47.819 Oh, for sure. And acquisition. How do we know 00:04:47.819 --> 00:04:51.259 if that was the right choice? And what is that 00:04:51.259 --> 00:04:55.279 natural tension that makes me think about like 00:04:55.279 --> 00:04:59.060 the HP compact merger, you know, where a lot 00:04:59.060 --> 00:05:01.579 of our listeners, they may be. What is that? 00:05:01.860 --> 00:05:06.079 You know, battle of the battle of the printers. 00:05:06.519 --> 00:05:10.649 It's, you know. Yeah. But we have a whole host 00:05:10.649 --> 00:05:12.529 of these things that we often don't realize the 00:05:12.529 --> 00:05:14.810 consequences of them because the knock on effect 00:05:14.810 --> 00:05:18.129 is so nuanced. Yeah. Well, what's interesting, 00:05:18.269 --> 00:05:20.129 the other thing that's interesting is like, I 00:05:20.129 --> 00:05:25.189 think the challenge can become, it becomes this, 00:05:25.709 --> 00:05:29.509 becomes a political problem, right? Which is 00:05:29.509 --> 00:05:33.589 like, how am I as an individual assessing what 00:05:33.589 --> 00:05:37.430 the strategy is and how do I apply that strategy? 00:05:37.819 --> 00:05:41.699 to my area or not do it, because I think sometimes 00:05:41.699 --> 00:05:44.639 we forget that not doing something is a decision 00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:47.139 and oftentimes can be the right decision. Yeah. 00:05:48.180 --> 00:05:52.060 Wow. We were talking earlier this week about 00:05:52.060 --> 00:05:55.339 the scientific approach, you know, to publishing 00:05:55.339 --> 00:05:58.180 and you made the comment that rarely is it a 00:05:58.180 --> 00:06:00.660 solo act. It's usually a group of folks that 00:06:00.660 --> 00:06:03.220 have collaborated to publish, you know, big pieces 00:06:03.220 --> 00:06:06.379 of work. But there's an inherent bias in which 00:06:06.379 --> 00:06:09.519 they're asking what's wrong with my theory And 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:12.319 yeah, and that's the lens that incremental peers 00:06:12.319 --> 00:06:14.839 bring to it Which is totally counter to how the 00:06:14.839 --> 00:06:17.120 corporate world works and to your point. It's 00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:21.120 a political will Well, as opposed to a strong 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:24.740 Grounded theory. So yeah, so should maybe I'll 00:06:24.740 --> 00:06:27.699 ask the question this way Like is testing of 00:06:27.699 --> 00:06:29.819 a strategic decision. Are we testing it from 00:06:29.819 --> 00:06:32.860 a political lens? Or are we trying to test it 00:06:32.860 --> 00:06:37.500 from a validity and an effectiveness lens? From 00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:41.000 a grow the business lens because sometimes it's 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:44.259 just it's antics on Wall Street and it puts our 00:06:44.259 --> 00:06:46.759 name in the Headlines and our stock price goes 00:06:46.759 --> 00:06:49.420 up, you know, yeah, what what kind of lens are 00:06:49.420 --> 00:06:51.779 you thinking about? I mean, I think I think the 00:06:51.779 --> 00:06:53.000 first thing that you have to do is you got to 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:57.819 make sure that you have a strategy I'm not even 00:06:57.819 --> 00:06:59.220 trying to be flippant there. But like I think 00:06:59.220 --> 00:07:04.819 sometimes strategy Coming up with a really solid 00:07:04.819 --> 00:07:07.540 strategy, specifically one that's a year out, 00:07:07.620 --> 00:07:11.980 is actually a lot harder than we think. And practically 00:07:11.980 --> 00:07:16.120 what that looks like is what is, I always go 00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:19.000 back to, there's a book on strategy that I read 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:21.860 that just talked about strategy is like having 00:07:21.860 --> 00:07:25.300 a illness and having to go to a doctor where 00:07:25.300 --> 00:07:30.639 there's a problem. There's a, you go to the doctor, 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:33.839 the doctor gives you an action plan, which is 00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:36.160 like, this is what we're going to do. And then 00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:39.959 there's an outcome of better health. And I think 00:07:39.959 --> 00:07:45.379 most, I think sometimes people forget to just, 00:07:46.060 --> 00:07:47.779 when it comes to strategy, just to think about 00:07:47.779 --> 00:07:51.879 those, right? So the, and like what problems 00:07:51.879 --> 00:07:55.720 are you solving for what people? What actions 00:07:55.720 --> 00:07:57.759 or what directions are you going to take and 00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:00.250 how are you going to resource them? Because it 00:08:00.250 --> 00:08:02.790 does come down to you know, that's great like 00:08:02.790 --> 00:08:04.889 you can have a strategy all you want But if you're 00:08:04.889 --> 00:08:08.230 not resourcing it doesn't matter Right, or if 00:08:08.230 --> 00:08:10.310 you're the other thing is like if you're gonna 00:08:10.310 --> 00:08:12.110 have a strategy all day And if you don't know 00:08:12.110 --> 00:08:16.170 what pain the people are in yeah Then you're 00:08:16.170 --> 00:08:19.470 you're resourcing the wrong things Right if you 00:08:19.470 --> 00:08:22.269 don't have someone who has control of you know 00:08:22.269 --> 00:08:25.009 where those pieces go He was in you're gonna 00:08:25.009 --> 00:08:27.790 be you're gonna be too thin. Yeah, right working 00:08:27.790 --> 00:08:30.930 on too many things I love the piece you didn't 00:08:30.930 --> 00:08:33.909 touch on that was inherent in your analogy, I 00:08:33.909 --> 00:08:36.950 think, is you have an expert providing a diagnosis. 00:08:37.509 --> 00:08:42.029 Yeah. And I will say that there's been a lot 00:08:42.029 --> 00:08:47.230 of conversations where the role of the executive 00:08:47.230 --> 00:08:50.529 is misunderstood. They should be having a bunch 00:08:50.529 --> 00:08:54.169 of diagnosticians come in and opine from their 00:08:54.169 --> 00:08:57.648 unique areas of expertise, right? But instead... 00:08:57.639 --> 00:09:02.080 this idea of the superhero CEO, the all -knowing, 00:09:02.139 --> 00:09:06.360 all -seeing one -man band, I think it's unfortunate 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:09.740 because we don't necessarily let senior executives 00:09:09.740 --> 00:09:14.120 draw around them these experts that have developed 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:18.259 new ways of diagnosing or new ways of solutioning. 00:09:19.399 --> 00:09:21.379 That raises a really interesting question. It 00:09:21.379 --> 00:09:24.340 does make me think then in terms of how we understand 00:09:24.340 --> 00:09:26.600 decision -making, is there even a framework? 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:30.659 You know, if we don't know the causal chain of 00:09:30.659 --> 00:09:33.820 if this and that, it's really hard to know if 00:09:33.820 --> 00:09:37.580 the remedy was effective. So I have a fever and 00:09:37.580 --> 00:09:39.299 it plunged me in a nice bath and hold me under 00:09:39.299 --> 00:09:41.860 water for two days. My temperature is going to 00:09:41.860 --> 00:09:46.080 come down. I'll be dead, but they got the outcome. 00:09:47.179 --> 00:09:50.440 One of the problems is like just raw accountability. 00:09:50.960 --> 00:09:54.120 Yeah. And it's the time component that makes 00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:56.149 it really difficult. Are you talking about the 00:09:56.149 --> 00:09:58.990 resourcing element from a decision? Well, what 00:09:58.990 --> 00:10:01.269 I'm just thinking of like the ability to hold 00:10:01.269 --> 00:10:03.409 people accountable to their decision -making 00:10:03.409 --> 00:10:07.190 means that there's a time component, which means 00:10:07.190 --> 00:10:09.070 that you're going to have to go back in time 00:10:09.070 --> 00:10:14.789 and you're going to have to determine what was 00:10:14.789 --> 00:10:19.659 predicted based on that decision. I think the 00:10:19.659 --> 00:10:21.840 biggest problem with that is if we go back in 00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:25.740 time, we would instantly be faced with terrible 00:10:25.740 --> 00:10:28.080 predictions that we make as human beings. For 00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:32.100 sure. And probably the people that are the most 00:10:32.100 --> 00:10:36.360 accurate are also the people that are providing 00:10:36.360 --> 00:10:40.320 the longer timelines, which you don't have appetites 00:10:40.320 --> 00:10:45.559 for. And so that ends up being this really kind 00:10:45.559 --> 00:10:50.120 of counter -intuitive business logic, which is 00:10:50.120 --> 00:10:54.840 hard things take a long time, and the appetite 00:10:54.840 --> 00:10:58.000 for doing hard things, unless it's blended with 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:02.100 other long -term items, it's going to feel like, 00:11:02.220 --> 00:11:05.100 what have you done for me lately? And so I have 00:11:05.100 --> 00:11:09.139 a friend that just released a really cool outward 00:11:09.139 --> 00:11:12.220 -facing, client -facing website, and I was like... 00:11:12.120 --> 00:11:13.799 And they shared it this quarter. And I was like, 00:11:13.799 --> 00:11:15.580 that is the coolest thing I've seen in a very 00:11:15.580 --> 00:11:18.159 long time. And I'm like, how long did that take? 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:19.639 And they're like two to three years. I'm like, 00:11:19.720 --> 00:11:22.440 yep. That's how long this time this stuff takes. 00:11:22.620 --> 00:11:25.039 Right. Just because you've got it. You've got 00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:28.080 to have the foresight to code it in a way that 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:32.019 you can get there. You, you have to balance all 00:11:32.019 --> 00:11:35.279 the other things that are coming in and you have 00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:38.470 to go in and and execute, and then you have to 00:11:38.470 --> 00:11:40.830 go through all of the rigmarole of getting something 00:11:40.830 --> 00:11:42.730 publicly facing, which means that you got to 00:11:42.730 --> 00:11:45.590 make sure that all your stuff is API'd and pin 00:11:45.590 --> 00:11:48.509 tested and all, or pin tested. You have to do 00:11:48.509 --> 00:11:50.649 all those things. Like it is an immense amount 00:11:50.649 --> 00:11:54.230 of work, and yet you can't have, you couldn't 00:11:54.230 --> 00:11:58.250 have that expectation for every single quarter 00:11:58.250 --> 00:12:00.389 for that team to land like that, because that 00:12:00.389 --> 00:12:03.429 was such a huge effort. But among all of the 00:12:03.429 --> 00:12:05.970 org, It would make sense that stuff like that 00:12:05.970 --> 00:12:09.710 would start to fall if people are aligning towards 00:12:09.710 --> 00:12:15.889 a strategy, which in that case has put abilities 00:12:15.889 --> 00:12:19.929 into the client's hands. That's an interesting 00:12:19.929 --> 00:12:23.549 example of something that is, and legitimately 00:12:23.549 --> 00:12:26.809 great big enterprise, consumer facing websites. 00:12:27.169 --> 00:12:29.090 There's so much going on in all the complexity. 00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:32.000 I hadn't thought about that for a while. So at 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:34.100 first I thought two to three years and I thought, 00:12:34.539 --> 00:12:37.779 okay, well, depending on what it is and the confidentiality, 00:12:37.799 --> 00:12:43.799 that makes sense. Well, and a lot of it was not 00:12:43.799 --> 00:12:46.200 necessarily the real calendar time. It's just 00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:50.179 you have to have that direction, put a stake 00:12:50.179 --> 00:12:54.259 in the ground. Any loose ends that you have or 00:12:54.259 --> 00:12:57.080 extra time, extra cycles that you have in a sprint, 00:12:57.179 --> 00:12:59.899 you would throw it towards that direction. And 00:12:59.899 --> 00:13:02.220 so, a lot of it was being strategic, putting 00:13:02.220 --> 00:13:04.620 those stakes in the ground, and then just marching 00:13:04.620 --> 00:13:07.820 in that way, and it just happened to land. Now, 00:13:07.820 --> 00:13:11.639 it took a lot of effort, but the calendar time 00:13:11.639 --> 00:13:18.259 took more because it wasn't a direct, hey, we 00:13:18.259 --> 00:13:21.080 should go do this now. Because if we were to 00:13:21.080 --> 00:13:22.840 say, hey, let's go do this now, then maybe that 00:13:22.840 --> 00:13:26.399 becomes a six -month project. Chris, you know 00:13:26.399 --> 00:13:29.779 what it makes me think about? I worked in and 00:13:29.779 --> 00:13:33.200 around the internal audit function years ago, 00:13:33.919 --> 00:13:38.480 and there's a myriad of different ways that they 00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:41.159 try to assess risk, and internal audit's job 00:13:41.159 --> 00:13:44.179 is to understand is the business functioning 00:13:44.179 --> 00:13:49.100 in a healthy and viable way, right? Are we meeting 00:13:49.100 --> 00:13:51.100 all of the expectations that we've communicated 00:13:51.100 --> 00:13:54.360 to the public, whether it's ethical obligations 00:13:54.360 --> 00:13:59.069 or degree of risk, whatever the case is? Auditors 00:13:59.069 --> 00:14:02.350 have a number of things that they'll review against. 00:14:03.490 --> 00:14:06.009 Everything from what was the intention? Was there 00:14:06.009 --> 00:14:08.309 a framework that was followed? Was there governance 00:14:08.309 --> 00:14:11.570 process that decision had to pass through? The 00:14:11.570 --> 00:14:14.049 question that raises for me, though, in light 00:14:14.049 --> 00:14:16.549 of this one was, your friend just successfully 00:14:16.549 --> 00:14:20.350 launched a website, two to three years of effort, 00:14:20.529 --> 00:14:25.129 let's say it that way, manpower. Does that individual 00:14:25.129 --> 00:14:31.450 now... Has their star risen by virtue of having 00:14:31.450 --> 00:14:34.129 delivered on what they committed? Or did people 00:14:34.129 --> 00:14:36.789 understand? I'm wondering if it matters to be. 00:14:36.889 --> 00:14:38.809 Oh, no, no. That's really what's interesting 00:14:38.809 --> 00:14:41.690 is this kind of goes back to a couple of episodes 00:14:41.690 --> 00:14:45.990 ago. It's obvious after it's obvious. Right. 00:14:46.190 --> 00:14:49.470 And so you basically know that this is the right 00:14:49.470 --> 00:14:53.649 direction. Right you you basically make sure 00:14:53.649 --> 00:14:57.370 that you're carving carving timeout every sprint 00:14:57.370 --> 00:15:01.389 planning and then at the end You deliver this 00:15:01.389 --> 00:15:03.230 and everybody's like, oh my gosh, this is so 00:15:03.230 --> 00:15:09.970 great. And so it's the the the outcome and the 00:15:09.970 --> 00:15:16.960 expectation is And the acceptance of how good 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:21.080 of an idea this was, was really kind of after 00:15:21.080 --> 00:15:29.259 the fact. And so it's kind of like, in the absence 00:15:29.259 --> 00:15:37.220 of an overarching kind of strategy, it's a lot 00:15:37.220 --> 00:15:39.679 of people trying to figure out what the right 00:15:39.679 --> 00:15:42.600 thing is for them politically, for their teams 00:15:42.600 --> 00:15:46.580 politically. and really ultimately what everybody 00:15:46.580 --> 00:15:53.100 wants up the chain. I'm with you. Let's bring 00:15:53.100 --> 00:15:57.899 this back and put a bullseye on how this relates 00:15:57.899 --> 00:16:01.740 to process, which I think is the idea that decisions 00:16:01.740 --> 00:16:05.419 made without any kind of backcasting or confirmation, 00:16:05.820 --> 00:16:09.019 retrospectively, how do we know if it's creating 00:16:09.019 --> 00:16:13.259 problems or solving problems? What are some thoughts 00:16:13.259 --> 00:16:14.720 that you might have around that? I mean, you 00:16:14.720 --> 00:16:16.539 and I have talked a lot about different kinds 00:16:16.539 --> 00:16:20.519 of decision bias. So being aware of that bias 00:16:20.519 --> 00:16:24.120 is part of it. Yeah. I mean, I think a practical 00:16:24.120 --> 00:16:26.740 one that CEOs use today is zero -based budgeting. 00:16:28.679 --> 00:16:31.539 I think... Just to force them to be intentional 00:16:31.539 --> 00:16:35.320 about resource allocation. It forces them to 00:16:35.320 --> 00:16:37.799 think about their business. The challenge is 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:41.750 you just end up with... sharks and sheep, right? 00:16:42.009 --> 00:16:46.090 Like you've got your people that are just basically 00:16:46.090 --> 00:16:50.309 there to enhance their career, their career around 00:16:50.309 --> 00:16:53.750 them. And that still doesn't change the bias 00:16:53.750 --> 00:16:56.250 thing. But it is a good forcing function that 00:16:56.250 --> 00:16:58.929 forces people to communicate what the expectations 00:16:58.929 --> 00:17:01.309 are. I do think, you know, we've talked about 00:17:01.309 --> 00:17:04.589 this a lot, just having a cohort. Like what's 00:17:04.589 --> 00:17:08.140 your cohort? What are your constraints? because 00:17:08.140 --> 00:17:11.920 you will end up finding out where the work needs 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:15.200 to be done. And if you're doing work, I don't 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:17.599 know if we've talked about Eli Goldratt's book 00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:20.619 called The Goal, but it talks about constraints. 00:17:21.460 --> 00:17:26.819 And he has a lot of, it's a story, but it's a 00:17:26.819 --> 00:17:29.279 story on how if you fix constraints, then you 00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:33.759 fix the system. And so I think if you're working 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:35.700 on something that's not a constraint, you're 00:17:35.700 --> 00:17:39.619 not actually making, you essentially are building 00:17:39.619 --> 00:17:43.279 process debt. That's interesting. Because you're 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:46.720 not making the system any better. Yep. So can 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:49.079 you explain, I guess the two qualifiers I heard 00:17:49.079 --> 00:17:53.240 is, what does this decision do to shift existing 00:17:53.240 --> 00:17:56.140 resources, zero -based budgeting, and then the 00:17:56.140 --> 00:17:59.099 idea of constraint, are you addressing an existing 00:17:59.099 --> 00:18:03.819 operational constraint? Yeah. Just a really binary 00:18:03.819 --> 00:18:08.069 question. Are you making the system better? And 00:18:08.069 --> 00:18:12.630 then the other one is just retros. Like if we 00:18:12.630 --> 00:18:16.809 were forced to make a decision a month, or even 00:18:16.809 --> 00:18:18.869 a decision a quarter, and just say, hey, when 00:18:18.869 --> 00:18:22.450 do you expect this to be? We would probably all 00:18:22.450 --> 00:18:24.589 end up in a deep depression because our predictions 00:18:24.589 --> 00:18:29.650 are so terrible. That is interesting. Do you 00:18:29.650 --> 00:18:31.789 think that decision making is like a muscle, 00:18:31.970 --> 00:18:34.049 that it gets better the more often it's used? 00:18:34.190 --> 00:18:38.579 Or do you think that it fatigues? I think it's 00:18:38.579 --> 00:18:42.460 like practicing golf. You can go out to the range 00:18:42.460 --> 00:18:46.779 and just swing a ball, but I guarantee you professionals 00:18:46.779 --> 00:18:50.380 are not practicing that way. And so just because 00:18:50.380 --> 00:18:52.480 you go out to the driving range and hit a ball 00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:54.240 doesn't mean that your game is actually getting 00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:56.500 better, because you're just basically taking 00:18:56.500 --> 00:19:01.160 a crappy swing and just doing it more. Unless 00:19:01.160 --> 00:19:05.500 you can turn it into a practice. And you can 00:19:05.500 --> 00:19:08.599 measure decisions going in and decisions going 00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:11.200 out. And I think what you would do, and we played 00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:12.720 around with this a little bit with the cash flow 00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:16.740 calculator, which is like, look, if you take 00:19:16.740 --> 00:19:20.140 finances, whatever those are, and you put a prediction 00:19:20.140 --> 00:19:23.519 on when the sales are going to come in and what 00:19:23.519 --> 00:19:26.160 your operating expense are, and you track that, 00:19:26.619 --> 00:19:29.839 and you see that over time, it forces people 00:19:29.839 --> 00:19:33.400 to think slower. versus thinking fast, oftentimes 00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:40.319 in meetings is just pushing the decision off. 00:19:42.420 --> 00:19:44.920 Interesting. I don't know if we landed something. 00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:48.000 I do think the coverage is around. Maybe we'll 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:51.640 come back to it in a future episode. I'm glad 00:19:51.640 --> 00:19:57.059 we had the conversation though. It is a quandary. 00:19:57.980 --> 00:20:02.349 It's hard, really hard. I do think that you're 00:20:02.349 --> 00:20:04.869 either going to get significantly better with 00:20:04.869 --> 00:20:08.250 GPTs and general of AI with your decision making, 00:20:08.990 --> 00:20:11.269 or you're going to be forced to make more decisions 00:20:11.269 --> 00:20:14.450 and do it just this same way over and over again. 00:20:14.609 --> 00:20:17.549 I do think that those two will come together. 00:20:17.869 --> 00:20:22.089 Chris, I guess the thought that I take away from 00:20:22.089 --> 00:20:24.990 this is that idea of what is your perfect practice 00:20:24.990 --> 00:20:28.750 as an individual? Yours, mine, whoever, right? 00:20:28.910 --> 00:20:32.089 And if we're not intentional about how we come 00:20:32.089 --> 00:20:35.569 at the practice of decision making, it's super 00:20:35.569 --> 00:20:39.549 hard to know how you evaluate it. So that may 00:20:39.549 --> 00:20:43.130 be the place to start. That is the start. Figure 00:20:43.130 --> 00:20:46.630 out what decisions you're making and start with 00:20:46.630 --> 00:20:48.569 yourself. And if you're a manager, start with 00:20:48.569 --> 00:20:53.150 your people. Just don't do multiples. Like pick 00:20:53.150 --> 00:20:56.309 one a quarter and see if that works. That's an 00:20:56.309 --> 00:20:58.930 interesting exercise. Run your business as business 00:20:58.930 --> 00:21:01.750 as usual for a day, for a week, for a month. 00:21:02.589 --> 00:21:05.069 Yeah. Yeah. Let's see what happens and make it 00:21:05.069 --> 00:21:07.029 better. All right. All right, sir. We made it 00:21:07.029 --> 00:21:09.309 through another one. All righty. More to come. 00:21:09.369 --> 00:21:10.089 Talk to you later. See you buddy.