Hey, what's up, Toby? We made it to another Friday.
Indeed. Good to see you. Yeah, absolutely. Today
I want to talk about what we were struggling
on right before this thing, right before we kicked
this off. The pain and suffering of simple collaboration
in the modern world. Yeah. So we, Toby and I,
we've started a list because, you know, for the
process step podcast, we should actually probably
follow a list, which embarrassingly enough we
have not, we have had one list item which is
record a podcast once a week that's been successful
we're trying to it's a great way to get started
okay our emissions were low one recording a week
god knows what it's going to be yeah well and
it proved it proved that we were both committed
that's right and so but we've been adding a list
and what's interesting is we ran into something
that you don't run into in knowledge work a lot
which is the frustration of technology IE logins,
IE emails, IE whatever. And so that's today's,
that's today's process topic of the day. I'll
tell you, let me step back and I'll, I want to
explain for list. There's the experience that
I just went through, which is Chris, you said,
Hey, come join me in Wix. We'll take a few minutes
and set up our profiles. Wix is the platform
for the website. Yep. And like a lot of folks,
I use a password manager. So I go to login. Nope,
that's not your password. It's not your password.
Okay. So I hit reset. Wix in particular, and
they're not unique in this. I've just given them
my email and I give them the password for my
password manager and it says one of these is
incorrect. Oh yeah. So what S is, would you like
to reset your password? So I hit the button yes
and I go over to my email. Chris, I sat here
staring at you, kind of dumb, dumb, stunned look
on my face, hitting refresh my email. Well, I
go back to the Wix browser and what it says is,
it didn't automatically send it given the email
address I'd already provided. It said, give us
your email address. That was the screen it took
me to. Yeah. So here's a system issue that's
super common, right? Go to log in. We've given
it an email address that's associated with us.
But then when we ask for it to resend a password,
to reset it, it asks us to resubmit the email.
Yep. Clearly, it processed that. That's a friction
to adoption issue, I think. Oh, for sure. 100%.
I'm sure it's on everybody's bug list, but it
goes way down the list, because it's not a pain
that causes people to believe. Well, what's interesting
about this is just in knowledge work in general,
this is probably the most simple and most complicated.
Piece of thing that we do which is just logging
in and yet we just assume that we're out there
doing our work Magically working away on stuff.
That's significantly more complex significantly
significantly more mentally intensive And we're
like, oh it's got it and they'll be fine. They'll
be fine. They've got it. It's true Just hit reset.
It's like the new guy hazing. It's out on SharePoint.
It's out on Google Drive. Just go find it. But
to your point, the irony is that when tools don't
do what they're supposed to do, and I had a couple
levels of failure, the WIC site didn't do what
I expected it to do. And then my password manager
wasn't capturing the new password properly, so
I had to manually go through and delete it. All
of a sudden, the purpose, which was to go update
the profiles, you're not going to take three
minutes to do, we spent 20 minutes simply because
the tools weren't behaving the way that intuitively
we expect modern tools to work. And so I started
laughing when you're like, this is our topic
this week. Because it is, it's universal, you
know? Well, and so when we talk about collaboration
tools come join us team join a zoom and in your
other browser Open up a shared document. Yep.
We have two pregnant assumptions that people
can both attend the meeting. Yep And then we've
set up a shared document properly for them to
access. Yeah And and to your point most of the
time we don't even think about these things Well,
and the thing is is like when it works, it's
fine Right when it doesn't work, right and like
and this says this is a known system. It's a
known. It's a known access pattern Right? And
what's interesting to me is like, I kind of was
over here chuckling because I'm, you know, I'm
the administrator. I'm logged in just fine. So
it's easy for me to laugh. It's easy for me to
laugh at other people. It's totally fine. But
what struck me is that so much of our work is
not done in the open like that. And so much of
those little micro frustrations around not just
logins but an excel spreadsheet or trying to
trying to figure out what your boss wants they
just end up being so much more nebulous and so
much harder and yet we get caught up on just
such like we just get stuck Like as knowledge
workers we just get stuck all the time And we
can't we can't put on a sad face or a mad face
or any we can only put on a happy linkedin face
That says it's always good Um, well, look at
look at me. We're hiring like that's the only
face that you can put on But but yet like our
work is really hard and we don't Since oftentimes
we're not working together. We're working around
each other you know, like I'm a little I'm a
little envious to my dad, he did he did manual
construction forever. And there's something about
working together and doing something manual and
lifting something and pushing stuff around and
building stuff and like, it's a different it's
a different it's like we've lost connection because
we've lost the process of physical work. Chris,
I love that. Contrast by And I've talked about
it over the last year. I've stepped outside of
my traditional management consulting world, so
technology heavy and facilitation. And I've been
doing project management in the construction
world as an owner's rep, which just means I work
for a very busy executive. And they said, I care
about three things. I want you to go handle the
rest of the decisions and ask questions with
myself and team so that we can do our daily jobs
while we get this building renovated. And the
point that you just made about your dad is so
true It's not a question whether the two by fours
are available for use on site that day. It's
abundantly clear There is not and then the other
question is do we have the guys with hammers
to? Turn the two by fours into framing and the
answer is either there with their equipment or
they are not But it's not like I can't seem to
access the stack of two by fours I can't access
the acoustic styles to finish out the drop ceiling.
It is a different world. And all of that dialogue
is more about the logistics of, can you grab
the other end of that for me? Or, hey, can you
cut this down so I don't have to get up and down
off the ladder? That's not the world you and
I live in. Yeah, no, it's not. Right? No, I joke
with my dad. I'm like, let me bring over my typing
fingers and help you. with your yard wood clay.
I know. Check these out. These are amazing. It
is. Look at the calluses on these fingertips.
What do you want me to do? I'll punch my way
through that board. The last time I got calluses
on my fingers is probably from playing video
games. And that's been a while, but it's crazy.
The other element that this brings up is that
You and I got on our call this scheduled time
to do a recording. Yep. And we thought we were
going to digress for just a brief second or a
couple seconds of update. Yep. And it became
this trail that then became an access management
problem. Yep. And our core focus was recording
an episode today. Yeah, totally. And I think
that just encapsulates so much what collaboration
looks like. Yeah. If you take a document so far
and say, Toby, can you give me a peer review,
then either I have enough context to do it or
I don't. But those two things can happen asynchronously.
But if it's Toby, can you give me a peer review
as I draft an article, then everything's pretty
messy at best. It can't be editing what you're
crafting on the fly. And that's a little bit
of the dysfunction in modern collaboration. Yeah,
it makes me think of, you know, demos that have
gone bad. You know what I mean? Like where it's
basically like the house of cards and which like
and and like it just I've just been thinking
in my mind I've been thinking like have I had
any of those times where it was like one of those
things where you like you come in and you're
like sweating bullets, but you just make it at
the finish line and you're like Trying to act
cool as a cucumber. But in reality, you're like
the whole thing's just a total shit show It's
so fragile. Yeah. Happy path. Don't look over
there. Nothing to see here. Nothing to see here.
That's right. I did see. I did see. I did see
that the I saw an article on, you know, on the
the original iPhone demo. And the only reason
it worked is because it was so ridiculously scripted.
Like every single button push was was to the
button rather to the point because it was just
that Unstable at that point It's talking about
changing expectations. I Remember getting software
pitched to me when I was doing IT strategy in
the late 90s And it was quite literally There
wasn't even a touchscreen at this point, right?
So that's mouse clicks through a PowerPoint Where
they've made that object in the PowerPoint a
hyperlink to the next slide. Okay, that's kind
of cool, but yeah, right Required zero code.
It's total vapor there. Yep, because it's all
in it was all in PowerPoint. That's fine But
you know whether it's that or whether it's the
iPhone. Yeah Well, which has gone on to work
Incredibly well for billions of people. I don't
even know actual subscriber base hundreds of
millions And I think there's something that you've
lost in the permissioning. And by that permissioning,
I mean like giving each other the grace not be
perfect on day one. And so, yeah, our first goal
was you and I commit to getting together and
recording something. And we don't care what the
feedback is or whether people enjoy it, but we
recorded something. The other funny thing about
just us trying to kick off new process is that
it's just messy every single time. Like, I can't
think of, you know, I can't think of an example,
a single process that basically has gone on without
a hitch. That's not like a micro change. Right.
So like I've been thinking about, you know, like
a new PMO organization comes in and they try
to dramatically change everything. And it's just
fits and starts and frustrations and annoyances.
But then eventually it eventually it just kind
of lands and I just feel like what's so funny
about this in the whole like just in considering
process debt is that this is like a little microcosm
of just the difficulty of just a simple change
where it's like look we just we just want an
agenda when we come on we're gonna do some things
we're gonna go and check out check our you know
our tens of Tens of subs followers on process
that on our process that page. We're gonna go
through all that stuff But even that even that
little shift it just takes significantly more
effort than we would expect and As long as we're
consistent The impact will be significantly better
because we will be shooting at better targets
Like it's it's this really funny thing. We're
like we as humans we want to just kind of ignore
that We want to just ignore reality. I think
a lot of times And I think too The element is
like once I've moved past the frustration I can
now log in Yeah, it seems like we often make
the assumption everybody can log them. Yeah Right,
or I know that I take a left at the old barn.
Yeah, really everybody knows we take a left at
the old barn and Then sometimes the directions
aren't as useful And I think in the modern world,
we're still saying, we'll go down to where the
Jones's place used to be 20 years ago and take
a left. That's how our dad directions, you know,
remember the old where the old fishing hole was,
but now it's paved over. Go there and then take
a right hand turn and go quarter mile. I feel
like we're still doing that to each other, but
inadvertently. And if you're doing it as our
processes change. What's interesting is. was
we were trying to hand off a piece of work a
piece of collective work where like it was literally
as simple as like a single row for each one of
us and it was like struggle bus city oh my gosh
man it's so true i will say for our listeners
success i'm logged in now properly you know and
struggle bus city brother 100 100 so No, but
I think that the call out around how we navigate
change, but also the changes that we ourselves
have navigated, there's also the implication
that others are only coming to that. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's not necessarily a net new employee or
collaborator. It's just that it might be a very
familiar motion for us, but for somebody else,
it can be their first or second. through that
motion. What's it's it's been funny because you
know we've talked about this a couple times or
we like you know a magic button we're doing stand
-ups like three days a week we have an SOP you
literally go to basically what's like a word
doc and you follow it step by step And what's
interesting is like it took a while. It's taken
a while to kind of get people adjusted to it
because what we want to do is we always want
to go to homeostasis, right? Which is I want
to go into a meeting. I want to stare at a screen.
I want to I want to talk and I want to I want
to in my head complain about the other people
talking. Maybe that's just me. But but but we
want to go into those meetings and we and we
want them to kind of happen. But we don't realize
that like. Our world is so complex, you can't
just have a meeting with a single screen. Like
you just can't. I mean, you can, but it will
be an ineffective meeting that doesn't serve
the greater purpose of the whole. It's interesting,
Chris, because if we go to the physical world,
the non -online meeting world, I feel the same
way. I expect people to bring a notepad and pen,
or I expect them to bring a laptop to take notes.
I don't mind traditionally that if a notebook
and pad they're doodling, that's how some people
process, but when they bring their laptop, I
don't know if they're on task. I don't know if
they're watching cat videos or replying to email
or just deleting all the emails I've sent them
asking for follow -ups. Any of those things can
be equally true. And so, this new world, having
the SOPs is one way to keep us on the same page.
Yeah. Yeah. Working with people. Yeah. Do you
think we're going to be better off when we're
the last person working with all the AI bots?
Maybe not the last guys. Is it going to be a
beautiful experience? AI will save the world.
I'm not really sure. I'm not so... I mean...
AI is great. It's a great personal assistant,
which maybe we maybe we should talk about. Like
I was just thinking about TVs, right? And how
everybody's like, oh, my gosh, TV. Like, oh,
even before that, the radio was going to just
say like it was going to save the world or kill
the world or whatever. Before that, I think the
smoke signals. Yeah, I mean, totally. Or maybe
the telegraph, I guess. But like. it's a new
technology and we will leverage it and figure
it out and probably have new jobs that come out
of it. Truly, I think that's, I can't wait to
offload all the things that I forget to my AI
assistant. Oh, for sure. That then remembers
and does them, like dishes and that's what I
want my AI assistant to do. Load and unload the
dishwasher. Sweep the house, grab dirty clothes,
load and unload those. I don't think we're there
yet. No. Those are the tasks. I did have a, this
will be our parting shot here. I did have this
thought around like how long it takes to do the
dishes. Yeah. Right. Like have you ever done
that where you time it with your kid and it takes
like a total of like three minutes and 30 seconds?
and like the amount of complaining even internally
or with your kid or whoever takes a good like
45 minutes and you're like why don't we just
do the thing like we are like it kind of goes
back to that like we we love homeostasis like
we we we love to sit in the mud like we really
do it and wallow correct i know correct no all
righty man well we made another wake it is and
we're all logged in all right we'll catch yeah
We'll catch you next week. Thanks, man.