0:23

Welcome to another episode

0:23

of the ANC balance Podcast. I'm

0:27

super thrilled to have an

0:27

amazing guest for you today.

0:31

Jack scales. Jack is a two time

0:31

Inc 500 award winning executive,

0:37

and former Rand senior analysts,

0:37

frequent keynote speaker, which

0:43

I just saw recently CEO of

0:43

agency agile and author of a

0:48

brand new book, unmanaged

0:48

master, the magic of creating

0:53

empowered, and happy

0:53

organizations. Jack,

0:57

congratulations on the book, and

0:57

welcome to the podcast.

1:00

Well, thank you so much,

1:00

Dave. It's pleasure to be here

1:02

and great to spend some more time with you.

1:06

All right, before we get

1:06

into the book, which is, thank

1:10

you so much for letting me get a

1:10

sneak peek of it, and I had an

1:13

opportunity to read it. Before

1:13

we get into the book, I have my

1:18

hard hitting question for you

1:18

right off the bat. And Jack has

1:22

no idea what I'm gonna throw.

1:22

What are you seeing as a

1:28

disruptor? Right now in the

1:28

industry, in specifically

1:31

talking about agencies, you're

1:31

you have the you have the pulse

1:35

as to what's going on? What

1:35

disruption is happening right

1:38

now?

1:39

You know, the one that

1:39

comes to mind? Great question.

1:42

The one that comes to mind is

1:42

that it's not clear what the

1:45

impact is, I think we all know,

1:45

this is the impact of chatbot,

1:49

AI, etc, that kind of thing on

1:49

the on the landscape of and not

1:55

so much the landscape of the

1:55

agency, but really the landscape

1:59

of the client demand. In other

1:59

words, what are clients going to

2:02

do about this? I know actually,

2:02

in fact, I know of an agency

2:06

that's actually just started its

2:06

own consultancy, to go help

2:09

clients navigate what to do

2:09

about it is just sort of a

2:14

reaction because it's so many

2:14

clients saying, well, we're not

2:16

really sure how this applies.

2:16

And so they turn that into a

2:20

business, it's a new

2:20

consultancy, basically, that

2:23

they've spun off going after

2:23

their existing clients and that

2:27

way, so they get the work the

2:27

other side of the picture, which

2:30

is, by the way, which is

2:30

consistent with a theme that

2:34

that I came out with a couple of

2:34

years ago, I did a piece for the

2:37

forays called The Future of

2:37

agencies, you can find it on our

2:40

agency agile website. But in

2:40

there, one of the things I

2:44

talked about is that

2:44

increasingly for a bunch of

2:46

other reasons, agencies need to

2:46

become more like consultancies.

2:50

So I thought was pretty funny. A

2:50

couple of weeks ago, when I was

2:53

visiting this client, and they

2:53

told me about this move. I

2:55

thought, there you go, you

2:55

figured it out. That's the new

2:59

the new agency may be in fact,

2:59

that consultancy.

3:04

I'm smiling and bobbing my

3:04

head because it is so true. I

3:08

think I'll be in countless

3:08

meetings, especially with my

3:11

partners and be like, Guys,

3:11

we're consultancy. That's what

3:15

we're consultants. That's who we

3:15

are. We're telling people

3:19

direction. We're telling them

3:19

what to do. We're helping them

3:22

with their revenue operations.

3:22

We're helping them with their

3:24

business objectives.

3:24

Consultants. The dirty word?

3:29

Well, yeah,

3:29

you know, on a good day,

3:29

you are right. I think that's

3:32

the when we one of the things we

3:32

see in fact, when agencies start

3:35

growing beyond the 2535 45

3:35

people, they start

3:41

institutionalizing some roles,

3:41

like account management, and one

3:44

of the things that happens is

3:44

the account management function

3:47

often sort of leans backwards

3:47

rather than leans forward into

3:51

it right and in account people

3:51

become well be cliche order

3:55

takers, right? That they're,

3:55

they're actually people who are,

3:59

just have the client tell me

3:59

what to do. I'm gonna run back

4:02

to the agency and make that

4:02

happen. And that's like death

4:05

right there. That's Death of the

4:05

client relationship. The

4:09

so true, yeah. Once you

4:09

stop, stop there, the day you

4:14

sign a client's a day you lose

4:14

them, right. It's just you start

4:16

losing them right away,

4:16

whatever, whatever that adage

4:19

that we said back then, but

4:19

yeah, for sure. All right. So

4:24

first off, everybody keep

4:24

listening because Jack promised

4:28

me a discount code for his new

4:28

book on managed at the end of

4:32

this episode. So we're gonna put

4:32

that at the end of the episode,

4:36

you can run out to agency

4:36

balanced.com. I'll put a link

4:39

right to Jack's new book or if

4:39

you just like me, and you want

4:42

to be able to find it quick

4:42

while you're listening to this

4:45

search unmanaged book unmanaged

4:45

book on Amazon. I did that again

4:49

this morning. It came right up.

4:49

Very good stuff. So I want to

4:54

always start with why. So let's

4:54

start with the why I have I have

5:00

my own interpretation. And for

5:00

those who are watching on

5:04

YouTube, please do that. You can

5:04

see my sticky note here. I was

5:08

going through and sticky noting

5:08

everything in this this book

5:11

because I loved it so much. I

5:11

don't know if I told you or not

5:14

Jack. But my background was in

5:14

project management. I was a PMP

5:17

as a scrum master. So of course,

5:17

this is my this is my these are

5:22

my favorite topics. So, but why

5:22

did you write this book? Yeah, I

5:26

think it's a great

5:26

question. I think there are two

5:28

things. One is the, the external

5:28

journey and then the internal

5:32

journey. Right. So the external

5:32

journey was this, we, I came

5:35

from, as, you know, sort of the

5:35

same background as well, and,

5:39

and always sort of thought it

5:39

was a job that shouldn't exist

5:43

in a way I don't know where you

5:43

come down on that. But that it

5:46

was just a little overhyped as a

5:46

job. And that the essentially,

5:51

people do a pretty good job on

5:51

their own solving things and the

5:53

like. And that's what we built

5:53

agency agile around is stealing

5:56

some ideals, behind agile and,

5:56

and helping and showing teams

6:01

how to sort of self managed and

6:01

the like, in doing that, we've

6:05

been crazy successful with it.

6:05

The situations where we've been

6:09

really successful managers that

6:09

had an attitude that was a lot

6:12

like mine originally, which was,

6:12

can we stop doing all this

6:16

management bullshit, and just

6:16

get some work done, right. And

6:20

in so in a way those those were

6:20

easy clients for us, right, easy

6:25

to make change. And on the other

6:25

end of the spectrum, and we've

6:27

had clients we've worked with

6:27

who we've done, they've been

6:30

like, wow, this is amazing. And

6:30

then six months later, they're

6:33

not doing it. Right. And the

6:33

biggest obstacle to that is

6:37

management itself. And, and I

6:37

believe, you know, in one part

6:43

there sort of negative evil

6:43

manager kind of things that

6:47

happen, right? Like, I don't

6:47

want to give up control and my

6:50

power, that kind of thing. But

6:50

there's also probably more

6:53

managers that are just like, I'm

6:53

not sure I get how to do it. So

6:57

I'm just going to do what I used

6:57

to do all the time. And so

7:01

that's what the books aimed at

7:01

is, how do we how do we just

7:04

teach managers how to have a

7:04

better posture towards the work

7:08

and that goes into, you know,

7:08

essentially, some of the things

7:11

maybe we'll talk about today,

7:11

which is, like the first law of

7:14

on managing the first and only

7:14

love on managing, for example.

7:17

And then real quick, the

7:17

internal journey, my journey

7:21

was, we've been wicked

7:21

successful with this stuff. But

7:25

I've never really written the,

7:25

you know, the treatise, the

7:29

Bible, the manifesto of how it

7:29

works, and how it should all fit

7:32

together and why. And so doing

7:32

that was an amazing journey.

7:38

That just insanely amazing,

7:38

realizing that all my ideas

7:41

belong together, but they didn't

7:41

necessarily fit together, and

7:45

making it and getting it to the

7:45

point of being a narrative. So

7:48

that's there. Yeah, there's a

7:48

long answer to your short

7:50

question. No,

7:51

it's great. And right off

7:51

the bat, I enjoyed this book on

7:57

so many levels. The first is

7:57

you've made it a resource.

8:01

That's how I'm going to define

8:01

this in Dave's term. Because

8:05

what I'm going to refer back to

8:05

this, I'm going to put my sticky

8:08

notes back into it, because I'm

8:08

wanting to display it proudly

8:10

over my shoulder here for you,

8:10

but I'm gonna put my sticky

8:13

notes back and it's gonna be a

8:13

resource. And thank you, you put

8:17

diagrams and examples in this

8:17

book. And as as a former project

8:21

manager, I love to see those

8:21

process and flowcharts and

8:24

examples and diagrams. And let's

8:24

just face it, that's better.

8:28

There's less words I gotta read.

8:31

Yeah, well, thank first of

8:31

all, That's high praise because

8:34

the I have a topic I call

8:34

business porn. Okay. And that's

8:40

sort of the Jim Collins Good to

8:40

Great and other books like that.

8:44

And even like Simon Sinek.

8:44

eaters, the leader, leaders,

8:48

Simon cynics leaders, the last.

8:48

The problem with these books are

8:53

that they they're essentially

8:53

platitudinous that they have

8:56

this. They give you these ideals

8:56

it like in Good to Great they

9:00

started about companies and

9:00

people in these companies that

9:03

you will never be okay. You're

9:03

never going to be the CEO of a

9:08

Fortune 200 company making a

9:08

strategic decision. And by the

9:12

way, it's not even really clear

9:12

that some of those stories are

9:15

exactly true. But but it's

9:15

something you can read. That's

9:20

aspirational, but it will do you

9:20

no good in your job. I mean,

9:24

there's nothing you can take

9:24

away from those things, except

9:26

maybe your company sucks

9:26

compared to the stories that

9:29

he's telling. And likewise,

9:29

Simon Sinek sort of stuff.

9:33

Again, fascinating. Malcolm

9:33

Gladwell, all this kind of

9:36

thing, but tried to put it into

9:36

action. How do you how do you

9:39

eat last? If you're a leader who

9:39

wants to eat? What's that mean?

9:43

And how do you truly take that

9:43

posture? And what do you need to

9:46

abandon? And what do you need to

9:46

adopt? And so I, I love those

9:51

books. They're great. And I hate

9:51

those books because they don't

9:55

move the needle for people. And

9:55

so one of my biggest goals was

9:58

to write a book that not only

9:58

had some of that, admittedly,

10:01

business porn in it, but also

10:01

had and here's what you do,

10:06

right? And you can only write so

10:06

much of that without becoming a

10:09

massive book, but I I'm really

10:09

grateful to hear that. You as a

10:15

practitioner, feel like this is

10:15

something I'm going to go back

10:18

for because that was an

10:18

objective of the book.

10:21

Absolutely. Yeah.

10:22

And there is As great

10:22

resources throughout the book,

10:25

there's links dropped in there,

10:25

we'll make sure that we share

10:28

some of those on agency

10:28

balanced.com. So that you can

10:32

continue to bookmark this and

10:32

make it a resource for you. So,

10:37

as I mentioned, I really enjoyed

10:37

reading this. And now I love,

10:41

love, love. What

10:42

was your favorite part?

10:44

Well, I think so there's a

10:44

couple of things, right. I think

10:47

for the the the theme for me is

10:47

it made me my takeaway was it

10:53

made me challenge and rethink

10:53

how we're servicing, how we're

10:58

managing and what our offering

10:58

is, right? I love the discussion

11:02

around managers and metrics and

11:02

looking at this, I spend a great

11:08

deal and my people know, they're

11:08

gonna listen to this. My people

11:11

know, I focus on utilization.

11:11

Right as, as a small, small,

11:18

lean and mean, agency, you gotta

11:18

be maximizing everything,

11:22

everything's getting more

11:22

expensive salaries are going up.

11:26

How do you? How do you plan for,

11:26

you know, you know, churn I

11:30

liked at the end, when you

11:30

talked about D AI, which we'll

11:33

talk about. So there's a lot,

11:33

there's a lot of those elements,

11:36

but for me, I'm utilization and

11:36

metrics and looking about the

11:42

manager tax. That to me is my

11:42

shining moment.

11:46

Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah, that

11:46

was actually the manager tax was

11:50

the working title of the book.

11:50

And it is, in fact, the core of

11:55

the book, the idea that we had

11:55

to figure out sort of the,

11:59

what's the anchor idea for

11:59

managers, and the anchor idea is

12:02

you don't know how costly you

12:02

can be. And so we identify, and

12:07

I apologize, you know, it's

12:07

funny, you write the book, and

12:10

then you edit it 5 million

12:10

times, and all that kind of

12:14

thing. And then here comes this

12:14

moment, where, how many manager

12:18

taxes were there, I think six,

12:18

maybe five, one of the two, but

12:21

a bunch of different ones, and

12:21

four out of the five or six, are

12:25

completely non obvious to most

12:25

managers. And so the real idea

12:29

is, do you realize that you're

12:29

just as likely to make

12:33

productivity killing action, as

12:33

you are to enhance productivity,

12:37

and that the decision is

12:37

wickedly difficult to do a lot

12:41

of times. And so I'm glad you

12:41

love that, that that's a central

12:45

idea, because it is, if you can

12:45

get your head around that, then

12:49

you start you're on your path to

12:49

becoming a better manager.

12:52

Absolutely.

12:54

So I was saying, like,

12:54

I've leveled up, I was a project

12:58

manager, and now I'm CEO of an

12:58

agency. And so I have a personal

13:04

opinion on this, that I think

13:04

that this book is actually

13:07

pretty, I think everybody has a

13:07

lot of layers and levels. What

13:11

Who, who do you think should

13:11

read this book?

13:16

Yeah, well, you know, I

13:16

have to confess, as a first time

13:20

author, I've written a lot of

13:20

articles. But that's a whole

13:22

different thing. It's nothing

13:22

compared to writing a book, I

13:26

probably tried to serve too many

13:26

people. So my answer is vague in

13:29

that way. And so the, I would

13:29

say, if we sort of take this mix

13:35

of leaders, managers, and makers

13:35

and sort of say, we can divide

13:39

the world that way, and granted,

13:39

you know, if you're a smaller

13:43

organization, a lot of times

13:43

those can be off, you can be all

13:46

three of those, for example. But

13:46

in a sense, at the core of it is

13:51

managers, right? It is intended

13:51

for managers, project managers,

13:54

account managers, probably less

13:54

so requirements managers, but

13:59

certainly project managers,

13:59

right. So it's very, it's

14:02

probably because that's my

14:02

background at the core, it's a

14:05

book that will inform project

14:05

managers. The message about

14:09

project managers is probably

14:09

more severe in that way. And

14:13

right, I don't know how you took

14:13

it, but but in a sense, some of

14:17

the biggest problems come

14:17

because of the way we think

14:20

about project management

14:20

incorrectly, around how agencies

14:24

operate and the white. So but to

14:24

finish that answer, I did put a

14:29

whole section in Section Five

14:29

around leaders, leaders issues

14:33

and the like. And the the

14:33

challenge that see the biggest

14:36

challenge for a leader and make

14:36

them change is actually the

14:38

managers as well. So I feel like

14:38

it is a good book for leaders.

14:42

It's a good book for leaders who

14:42

want to understand managing, and

14:46

I think any leader who doesn't

14:46

understand managing is sort of

14:50

just a flag waver in a way,

14:50

right? You're going around, hey,

14:55

let's all be kinder to each

14:55

other, let's all be empowered,

14:58

those sorts of things. But it

14:58

doesn't, it doesn't anchor into

15:02

and then you as a manager,

15:02

here's here's specific behaviors

15:05

that you need to be acting on.

15:05

Right? Yeah,

15:09

I think most I don't know.

15:09

I'm gonna say most most agency

15:15

leaders got there because

15:15

they've leveled up. They started

15:18

out doing the work. They started

15:18

out selling the work they

15:21

figured out Okay, now we got a

15:21

couple more resources, or maybe

15:24

they were part of something else, but they've kind of figured it out along the way. I

15:26

know I have. I never had formal

15:30

training. I just kind of

15:30

emulated what my last manager

15:34

did. But I tried to do it in a

15:34

better way. I tried to put

15:37

always my, my human thumbprint

15:37

on it, I have this caring thing,

15:41

I always try to come at it with

15:41

caring, right? It's like,

15:44

listen, people, we're not saving

15:44

lives here. But we can care

15:46

about what we're doing. Well,

15:46

unless, if you're like, you

15:49

know, picking drug names, or

15:49

something like that, maybe you

15:51

actually are but in my, we're

15:51

not saving lives. And, and I'm

15:57

glad, let's let's let's dive in

15:57

to the manager talks because I

16:02

know for us, my example is we,

16:02

I'm looking at, I'm reading this

16:06

and I'm like, oh my god, I got

16:06

way too many managers, I got way

16:09

too many. But, but then I

16:09

started to break it down. But

16:12

I'm like, but some of their

16:12

titles have manager in it, but

16:15

they're doing production level

16:15

things. They're they're there

16:18

are a consultant, but they are

16:18

actually doing some execution as

16:21

well. But because like you said,

16:21

we have to wear a lot of hats

16:25

here. So, you know, for, for us

16:25

at 25 person agency, some of the

16:30

managers are doing that x

16:30

execution. But for for for our

16:35

listeners who have never heard

16:35

the term manager tax, how would

16:38

you summarize that?

16:40

One of the interesting

16:40

things is if you ask managers,

16:44

how what their relationship is

16:44

with productivity. Most managers

16:49

think of themselves as as an

16:49

engine of productivity. And in

16:54

fact, this is absolutely not

16:54

true. And it's this is proven

16:58

and Nobel Prize winning research

16:58

and theory and the like, that

17:01

actually the the amount of

17:01

managing that goes on inside of

17:05

an organization. And I'm gonna

17:05

tie this to your intro to this

17:08

question as well. The amount of

17:08

managing that goes down inside

17:12

the organization, which roughly

17:12

equates to how many people have

17:15

a manager title, right, is

17:15

inversely proportional to its

17:18

productivity. And that is to

17:18

say, the more we manage, the

17:23

harder we manage, the less

17:23

productivity we get out of the

17:26

organization. I'm going to tell

17:26

you a really simple example,

17:29

which I came, came up with, like

17:29

literally the day after we

17:33

published the book, because I

17:33

was talking to someone about it.

17:37

And, and it goes like this, I've

17:37

got a factory, one man back in

17:40

factory land, and we talk about

17:40

factory land and the old

17:43

industrial model. And I'm a

17:43

manager and I have my eight

17:47

people on my assembly line,

17:47

right? And, and I'm, as a

17:50

manager, I'm measured, my

17:50

measurement is do we get those

17:54

200 widgets assembled every day?

17:54

Right? That's, that's my main

17:57

measure, right? And so maybe I'm

17:57

thinking, Hmm, time to be

18:03

managerial, I think I'll hold a

18:03

status meeting with everyone,

18:07

right. And I scheduled my one

18:07

one hour status meeting and pull

18:11

everyone off the assembly line

18:11

and, and during that hour, we

18:14

don't assemble any widgets at

18:14

all. Come the end of the week,

18:18

my supervisor, my manager says,

18:18

Hey, I noticed you only hit 192

18:23

widgets this week, what's going

18:23

wrong. And what went wrong is I

18:28

took everyone off the assembly

18:28

line, okay. And in the old

18:31

factory model, this was crystal

18:31

clear, managers knew that they

18:34

needed to minimize their impact

18:34

upon the production function.

18:38

But that was a very trackable

18:38

production function, right? It's

18:42

very obvious how many we're

18:42

supposed to produce because

18:45

we're producing the same thing

18:45

over and over it's consistent

18:47

process in the light. And I was

18:47

the only one to blame if we

18:51

didn't hit that number. Fast

18:51

forward. We're in a multi

18:55

manager environment where there

18:55

are multiple people who think

18:58

that they can conduct acts of

18:58

managing with impunity with no

19:02

cost or anything like that. And

19:02

when we take the workers

19:05

productivity down, who's

19:05

responsible, the worker, we push

19:10

it back on to the worker, and

19:10

this is crazy. But it's all this

19:14

idea of managerial

19:14

exceptionalism that it couldn't

19:17

possibly be a manager decreasing

19:17

productivity yet, in fact, as we

19:22

see in agencies, an amazing

19:22

amount of productivity gets

19:25

killed by managerial actions.

19:25

They're just sort of

19:28

thoughtless, they don't know

19:28

better. It's an ill intention,

19:31

but they just don't know better.

19:35

Yes, yeah, absolutely. And

19:35

as I'm looking at utilization,

19:39

we track that it's always that

19:39

debate of like, are you going to

19:44

track time, you're not going to

19:44

track time, like for us, we've

19:46

chosen as a service driven

19:46

company, we track our time and

19:49

but we don't, but we have our

19:49

own methods. I'm not going to go

19:52

there. That's a whole other

19:52

podcast people I'm not even

19:54

gonna get into that you're gonna

19:56

have you're gonna have me

19:56

back and we can do timecards

19:58

utilization and other fumbly

19:58

sort of metrics. You know, some

20:02

of the stuff from the book in fact,

20:04

yeah, the first year that

20:04

definitely would be part two of

20:07

this. So I'm gonna I'm gonna,

20:07

I'm gonna pivot from man and

20:11

this is a good building point

20:11

because Agile is is is a big

20:15

part of this. And Agile is in

20:15

your company name. And as a

20:20

former Scrum Master, I

20:20

absolutely love it. Agile on

20:24

certain types of projects. It's

20:24

not for everything, right? But I

20:27

love this example that you gave

20:27

about, you're on a plane with a

20:31

businessman and he picked up

20:31

agile, and I'm about to get on a

20:35

plane to inevitably, somebody's

20:35

gonna see some of my stickers on

20:38

my laptop. But I'm, you, you,

20:38

I'm going to put it in a few

20:44

short words, you basically told

20:44

him like he's struggling, he's

20:48

spending all this time on a

20:48

Sunday night to figure out

20:51

people's schedules for them. And

20:51

you just said, How about on

20:55

Monday, you just put everything

20:55

on no cards or sticky notes, and

20:58

you just make them figure it

20:58

out? I mean, that sounds so

21:04

silly. But I mean, sometimes you

21:04

kind of have to put it back. So

21:08

what Mike, my specific question

21:08

and maybe you can build on that

21:11

example, is any advice you can

21:11

give those who are listening

21:16

that have never made that leap

21:16

into using Agile methodology

21:22

that have traditionally have

21:22

just gone through a waterfall

21:25

approach? What advice would you

21:25

give our listeners when they're

21:28

thinking about approaching agile?

21:30

You know, I think that the

21:30

so this is a whole huge topic,

21:35

of course, and I'll try and do

21:35

my own short version as well.

21:39

One of which is the majority of

21:39

Agile transformations, in my

21:43

opinion, turned out to do almost

21:43

nothing except maybe make people

21:47

feel a little bit better. I was

21:47

at a conference that was in the

21:51

Midwest, and it was the

21:51

heartland developers conference.

21:55

So the 800 people in this

21:55

audience, and yeah, like,

21:58

probably a third of them are

21:58

project managers, or some form

22:01

of quasi manager, like you're

22:01

talking about. And I had this

22:05

great presentation on the fact

22:05

that you need to only take a few

22:09

pieces out of Agile to be

22:09

successful. But if you take them

22:12

all, kind of like, you can over

22:12

agile yourself, right? And do a

22:16

bunch of rituals that don't add

22:16

anything and the like. And I

22:20

asked everyone to raise their

22:20

hand, I said, How many of you

22:22

here use agile, and this was

22:22

five years ago, but it's still

22:26

it's crazy popular, then you

22:26

could hear the air move in the

22:30

room, the hands went up so

22:30

quickly, kind of thing I do. I

22:32

do, you know, that kind of

22:32

thing. And then I said, How many

22:36

of you and by the way, there's a

22:36

great book, the business case

22:40

for Agile software development

22:40

that rolls up a bunch of

22:43

research from about 10 years ago

22:43

left, put a link in your, in

22:46

your podcast. The end, they

22:46

point out that well run Agile

22:51

projects return five to 10x,

22:51

productivity gains. I said, so.

22:56

So who here has gotten a 2x

22:56

productivity gain from

23:00

implementing agile? And I

23:00

assumed like this is these are

23:03

developers software. Agile is

23:03

invented for software projects.

23:07

No one raised their hand. Now

23:07

we've got clients who've gotten

23:09

100%, productivity gain double

23:09

bottom, but absolutely. And so I

23:13

said, who's got a 100%?

23:13

Productivity game? No hands, I

23:17

worked my way. Now I'm freaking

23:17

out. Because by the way, my

23:20

whole presentation was based on

23:20

the idea, someone would raise

23:23

their frickin hand during this

23:23

thing. Finally, get down to 25%.

23:27

Who here 800 People, this is

23:27

pretty good sample of 800 people

23:32

who here has gotten a 25%

23:32

productivity gain, which by the

23:36

way, if you don't get 25%, using

23:36

agile, you're just on the wrong

23:40

train. You're not You're either

23:40

not doing it right, or it's not

23:42

the right situation, whatever.

23:42

Like, I think maybe six hands

23:46

went up, eight hands, something

23:46

like that. And I think I felt as

23:50

bad for them as they felt for

23:50

themselves in that situation.

23:54

And so I had to wrap with

23:54

something like, Who here thinks

23:58

it's better? And everyone raises

23:58

their hand again, right? And so

24:02

but that was a scary moment for

24:02

me when I realized that

24:04

actually, most people don't

24:04

understand how to make agile

24:08

techniques work really well for

24:08

you. And that's the answer.

24:13

Really, the thing that works,

24:13

we've proven this over and over

24:15

is that some pieces of agile may

24:15

work for you. But a very

24:20

important lesson is software

24:20

agile was made for large scale

24:24

agile development with dedicated

24:24

teams with Bob and going on, you

24:28

know, three year planning

24:28

horizons, etc. Those things look

24:32

nothing like your world 98% of

24:32

the situations where software

24:37

agile get gets applied, that is

24:37

not the situation. And it's just

24:42

sort of like, Hey, here's a tool

24:42

that my friend used to repair an

24:46

airplane, maybe I can use it on

24:46

my car, or something or on my

24:50

dishwasher. Right? So there's

24:50

this applicability problem.

24:53

That's, that's very huge and,

24:53

and leads to a lot of

24:56

challenges. And so aside from

24:56

calling us to help, of course,

25:01

but the it's pick and choose

25:01

wisely and do things very

25:04

incrementally and like you

25:04

started off with Dave, you've

25:08

got to measure, okay, you got to

25:08

figure out how to measure how

25:11

well you're doing now and then

25:11

when you apply a technique is it

25:14

getting better? Hope that it's a

25:14

big topic, right? So sorry about

25:20

the long answer.

25:21

It's a huge topic eight

25:21

years ago. I walked into my

25:25

director of Project management's

25:25

office once and I don't think we

25:29

were doing using agile than I

25:29

was, I was, I knew about it, I

25:33

don't think I ever managed a

25:33

project had a couple of years

25:35

under my belt. And he drew a

25:35

triangle. And he's like, I'm

25:40

gonna draw the project

25:40

management triangle for you. And

25:43

I'm like, Okay, here we go,

25:43

budget time scope. And when one

25:47

of those those sides goes off,

25:47

the other two have to adjust,

25:52

right. So a lot of times, it's

25:52

too late, when you're in the

25:56

middle of something to try to

25:56

change course, or change

25:59

methodologies. He's like, You

25:59

need to be planning this, he's

26:01

like, I need you to build a project plan, I don't need you to build me a project schedule,

26:03

the project schedule is just the

26:07

time it's going to take it's the

26:07

timeline, I need you to plan how

26:11

you're going to do this work.

26:11

And we use this with our, with

26:16

our website redesign this year.

26:16

So cobblers, kids, we never get

26:20

to update our own website. And I

26:20

said, we need a we, our

26:24

conversation is so far ahead of

26:24

where our website at, I want to

26:28

website in three weeks, and

26:28

everybody looked at me like I

26:30

had four hands, not three heads,

26:30

foreheads. And I said, we're

26:34

gonna use agile, I said, here's

26:34

what we're gonna do, the first

26:37

version is going to be very bare

26:37

bones. But you need to figure

26:42

out you have these amount of

26:42

resources, you have this much

26:44

time, there's a priority list,

26:44

rank it high, you know that you

26:49

have to launch it. So there's

26:49

going to be certain things that

26:52

just cannot happen in launch.

26:52

So, you know, I think I think

26:57

there's a way for agencies who

26:57

haven't done it before, or if

27:00

they don't have a huge pool of

27:00

resources, right? To do it a

27:04

hybrid approach to take elements

27:04

of of agile, absolutely. And

27:08

apply it right. Yep.

27:10

So what you were doing, by

27:10

the way, and people can Google

27:13

this, what you were doing was a

27:13

technique that came out, I

27:16

think, in 81, or 82, I was like

27:16

a really young programmer,

27:20

project manager back then. It's

27:20

called ie PM, and we can we can

27:24

find a link again, for you guys.

27:24

Iterative enhanced project

27:28

management. And it was literally

27:28

exactly that was the new way,

27:32

the new idea around project

27:32

management, which which was,

27:35

figure out what the most

27:35

important things are to do

27:37

during the next week or two. Do

27:37

those stop, reflect on where you

27:42

got to and then figure out what

27:42

the next most important things

27:45

to do are? And oh, by the way,

27:45

talk to your customer. Okay,

27:49

that was it was it? It was

27:49

amazing. So I had this

27:52

experience. And by the way, I

27:52

didn't, I didn't really even

27:55

believe in Agile because I didn't believe in project management. But it's a great way

27:57

to not have to do much project

28:01

managing right? Is actually I

28:01

would have the team define what

28:04

like you did beautiful practice.

28:04

By the way, congratulations.

28:07

Have the team to find what it is

28:07

we should be doing. What are the

28:11

most important things to do.

28:11

It's amazing. And that

28:14

essentially, if you go back to

28:14

the example you started with,

28:17

which was the the vignette about

28:17

the guy on the airplane, I

28:21

basically said, Why are you

28:21

trying to solve this problem

28:24

that they should be solving?

28:24

Basically, we we that I want?

28:27

Here's another part of that

28:27

answer I want to come back to.

28:31

Back in the old factory days, we

28:31

develop this idea about managing

28:35

it was based on the fact that it

28:35

wasn't necessarily true. But it

28:39

was true at the moment, which is

28:39

the people working in the

28:42

factory were largely rural farm

28:42

workers are immigrants with

28:46

little or no education or

28:46

English language skills or

28:50

anything like that, in a way we

28:50

were sort of just putting meat

28:54

in an assembly line, right? And

28:54

it was really more about and in

28:58

fact, the founder of this,

28:58

Frederick Taylor said,

29:03

basically, you need to treat

29:03

these people like animals like

29:05

oxen, you need to just command

29:05

them to go or they won't go. And

29:09

there's that idea of managerial

29:09

superiority or exceptionalism is

29:15

something that still pervades

29:15

and that guy on the plane had

29:17

that is like somehow he was

29:17

better at solving puzzles than

29:21

than the rest of the people in

29:21

his organization. By the way, he

29:23

was a it was a CEDIA consumer

29:23

electronics distribution

29:28

installation association. So

29:28

they do they're the MacGyver is

29:32

of installing like in a you want

29:32

a refrigerator that pops out of

29:35

the for that kind of thing. The

29:35

funny thing is, they were

29:39

probably better solved. Some of

29:39

them are probably better solvers

29:41

than him even because that's

29:41

what he hired them for us these

29:44

amazing feats of engineering. So

29:44

I think we as managers

29:47

underestimate how powerful our

29:47

people are even things that we

29:51

think are managerial functions.

29:56

Absolutely. Let's talk

29:56

about the F word not that F word

29:59

failures. Let's talk about

29:59

failures. This is something that

30:04

I came away with you were you

30:04

were speaking at Mind Your Own

30:07

Business Conference, which I

30:07

attended in Atlanta a few weeks

30:10

back, and I it's something I

30:10

wrote down and it's just a

30:13

reminder is like you spent so

30:13

much time especially as a

30:17

manager as a leader of like

30:17

improvement. You're always

30:20

focusing on trying to get

30:20

everything perfect. And I fall

30:24

into this trap all the time. And

30:24

I have to remind myself, so if

30:27

you're listening, you're not

30:27

going to get it perfect. It's

30:30

not gonna happen. It's not going

30:30

to be perfect. So what advice

30:35

would you give our listeners,

30:35

when you're talking about

30:39

rebounding from failures? Or

30:39

even going into a failure type

30:43

situation? I know you've, you've

30:43

struggled, you've probably had

30:46

them, you know, over over over

30:46

your career many times over.

30:49

Right?

30:50

Yeah. One is the there's

30:50

an inevitability to project

30:54

failure that most people don't

30:54

understand. I would recommend a

30:58

resource called the Standish

30:58

Group, as a source for this

31:01

information, they do a bi annual

31:01

survey of project, what they

31:05

call project outcomes or

31:05

something like that. And what

31:09

they do is they track truly

31:09

successful projects. We have fun

31:13

with this, by the way, we used

31:13

to ask clients all the time, our

31:15

clients, what's your project

31:15

success rate, and they say 100%,

31:19

which is kind of true, but it's

31:19

kind of not. And Standish Group

31:23

says, well, successful means on

31:23

time on budget, feature

31:26

complete, client happy,

31:26

everyone's CFO, happy, all that

31:29

kind of thing. Challenged is the

31:29

next category down the down the

31:34

order, right, which is

31:34

basically, some of those things

31:37

aren't true, maybe all of them

31:37

are not true, right. And and

31:40

then failed, of course, is the

31:40

bottom of the thing where one or

31:44

both parties stepped away from

31:44

the project in one form or

31:47

another. Now, the stats look

31:47

like this is that the majority

31:52

of all projects that Standish

31:52

Group tracks are either failed

31:56

or challenged projects. In other

31:56

words, your your likelihood of

32:00

having a truly successful

32:00

project is way less than 50%.

32:05

And so and this is driven by

32:05

size, also, the larger the

32:08

project, the more likely that

32:08

that is true. But there's an

32:12

inevitability to failure. And

32:12

and what I call being having

32:17

challenged projects, projects

32:17

that struggle that really it and

32:22

you and I love the mentioned

32:22

project plans, okay? The project

32:25

plan is usually a it's a, it's a

32:25

wished for list. It's a dream

32:31

that we construct, saying, If

32:31

only everything goes perfectly

32:34

on this project, and this

32:34

project plan will be true. And

32:38

in the agency world, and this

32:38

very important takeaway I hope

32:41

people get out of the book is

32:41

that in agency land,

32:45

intrinsically, you have worked,

32:45

it's not that plantable because

32:50

you're figuring out what it'll

32:50

be. And there's so many

32:52

uncertainties, and there's just

32:52

no way anything you write at the

32:56

beginning of the project is

32:56

absolutely going to be wrong.

32:59

You want to write great project

32:59

planet and agency, wait until

33:02

the project is over. It'll be

33:02

perfect.

33:06

Yeah, you're starting at

33:06

the beginning of that, that

33:09

project with so many undefined

33:09

requirements, and as you're

33:12

getting closer and closer to the

33:12

end that trying that other than

33:16

starting to come complete. So

33:16

you should be, you know, better

33:19

on track there. So there's a lot

33:19

of different types of

33:22

organizations out there. And you

33:22

talk about this about product

33:25

driven versus project driven

33:25

versus process driven. And then

33:29

the messy middle. You know, for

33:29

us, we're mostly retained, we're

33:34

mostly MRR 80 plus percent of

33:34

our business is is is that

33:37

model. So you can have your your

33:37

your pitfalls there, too, on how

33:42

that can come up. Come around.

33:42

You've talked about that late in

33:44

the book as well. And about

33:44

staying in your lane. What

33:48

advice can you share about help

33:48

staying in your lane? Versus and

33:53

trying not to offer everyone

33:53

everything to everyone?

33:56

Especially like in that? Like

33:56

for me in that retainer, MRR

33:59

situation wherein we're like,

33:59

yeah, we're just your bolt on

34:01

marketing agency? Sure, we'll do

34:01

that.

34:05

Yeah, you know, what,

34:05

look, it's a beautiful thing.

34:07

I'm a multi time entrepreneur.

34:07

And, and yeah, they're the, the

34:11

language of entrepreneurs is

34:11

filled with all sorts of

34:14

vernacular, like, pivot and, you

34:14

know, adaptation and service

34:20

extension and things like that.

34:20

And they're all valid. The

34:23

reality is all of them are far

34:23

more costly than you think they

34:27

are. And we did this great

34:27

study, I think, did you day, or

34:32

one of the publications

34:32

published the the roll up of it,

34:35

that basically, when you stay in

34:35

your lane, you have maximal

34:39

productivity? The The challenge,

34:39

though, is that you've got you

34:43

have more fragility, in other

34:43

words, the maybe, maybe you're

34:48

into, you know, copywriting and

34:48

all sudden chatbot comes along,

34:52

right. And so that's a tough

34:52

business to be in. So the

34:55

diversification is a business

34:55

strategy. It's a valid one as

34:59

well. But one needs to temper it

34:59

a little bit. I, you know, I

35:02

know a lot of agencies that your

35:02

size that are they dream of

35:05

being full service, and I'm

35:05

thinking, Well, how about just

35:09

to service rather than full

35:09

service, right. And so I think

35:13

one needs to be a little bit

35:13

careful around that. I'm not

35:15

advising people to not take new

35:15

business. I think they have a

35:19

couple of the things that came

35:19

out of that research, I should

35:22

probably dig up that hole study,

35:22

we never got the full thing

35:25

published, unfortunately. But

35:25

one of the things came out. And

35:30

it's it's in the literature, the

35:30

research literature as well is

35:33

that if you're going to extend

35:33

your capabilities, the best way

35:37

to do it is with a good existing

35:37

quiet. The most dangerous way to

35:42

do it is when you have no talent

35:42

to do it, it's a new client

35:45

situation. And of course, you've

35:45

never done it before. Those are

35:49

those are blood baths. And maybe

35:49

you gained enough experience,

35:52

you'll probably not keep that

35:52

quiet. And so that's that's sort

35:56

of the challenge. The the

35:56

entrepreneur literature is

35:59

really cool on it. And they said

35:59

that basically the best

36:02

capability enhancing activities

36:02

for for startups and small small

36:07

businesses are getting your

36:07

existing clients to pay you to

36:12

develop that capability as an

36:12

addition to what you're doing

36:14

already.

36:16

Great advice. We try to

36:16

practice this with our long term

36:23

clients, I'll just have a

36:23

conversation with the business

36:26

owner or whoever the point of

36:26

contact is, and be like, Hey,

36:29

listen, we're going to try

36:29

something new here. Are you

36:32

interested? And this whatever it

36:32

is your new piece of technology,

36:36

are we you know, looping this

36:36

back to trying to stay in your

36:39

lane, but paying attention to AI

36:39

and how you're going to work

36:42

that into your business? And I

36:42

just have that conversation?

36:46

They'll probably be like, Heck,

36:46

yeah, we'll take it. That's why

36:49

they hire an agency to begin

36:49

with, is they want, they want

36:54

that innovation. They can hire

36:54

people to do this stuff, but

36:57

they're paying you for that

36:57

intangible they're paying you

36:59

because you should be smarter

36:59

than them in steps ahead of

37:03

them. And and that we talked

37:03

about that earlier is like

37:06

that's the difference between a

37:06

consultant and innovator versus

37:10

an order taker. You do not want

37:10

to be an order taker, you're

37:13

going to lose them. Yep,

37:15

exactly. And I'm going to

37:15

throw out another thing for your

37:18

listeners as well. You can

37:18

actually go to your clients and

37:22

say, what else should we be

37:22

doing for you? Okay, now, this

37:26

is actually a really clever

37:26

move. Because if the client

37:29

says, oh, yeah, I'd like you to

37:29

pick up this whatever funnel

37:32

optimization or something like

37:32

that for us as well. If you if

37:36

they say that now they're part

37:36

of the project, right. And

37:41

literally, like your failure,

37:41

cost goes down. Because,

37:44

frankly, if you do Moffitt and I

37:44

hope you don't, but if you do

37:47

Moffitt, you can turn to them

37:47

and say, Thanks for the

37:50

opportunity. I'm sorry, we

37:50

didn't do as well as we could

37:53

have. But it wasn't you pitching

37:53

them to trust you. They had

37:56

actually pitched you to help out with it.

38:00

My next favorite topic,

38:00

meetings, meetings. Can we can

38:06

we just spend a few minutes

38:06

talking about everyone's

38:08

favorite part of their day,

38:08

which is meetings? So there's

38:12

the manager tax, which we talked

38:12

about, but there's also the

38:15

meeting tax? You have a formula

38:15

for lists as well, right? Yeah.

38:21

So I do want to do just a

38:21

little author thing here, which

38:24

is the books 340 pages, okay.

38:24

And you know, the you want to as

38:30

a business author, you really

38:30

would love to have a really

38:33

tight 180 page book, that makes

38:33

one good point, and everyone

38:37

gets it. And you know, you'll be

38:37

famous, there'll be Patrick

38:40

Lencioni, or something like

38:40

that. Right? The I had, I'd

38:45

written the meeting section. And

38:45

when we were on the next to last

38:48

edit, I cut it out. And my

38:48

editors and reviewers said, you

38:53

can't take meetings out. And,

38:53

and so the book is a collection

38:57

of those things that you can't

38:57

take out of the picture. So I

39:00

thank you for bringing it up. It

39:00

is a shorter version of a bigger

39:03

topic, of course. So the one of

39:03

the things back to that. I'm

39:08

glad I used that assembly line

39:08

example of the manager pulling

39:11

people off the assembly line for

39:11

meeting, that one of the things

39:14

we do that if you'd ask those

39:14

workers, how much what was your

39:18

return on time invested? We call

39:18

it the roti score. Someone else

39:22

called it that but we we put it

39:22

in the book that way? Return on

39:26

time invested? In other words,

39:26

you spend an hour in this

39:28

meeting, how much value did you

39:28

get back? And this is really

39:32

interesting. First of all the

39:32

meetings research data on this

39:35

type of thing is ridiculously

39:35

bad. The research itself is

39:39

good, the the findings are

39:39

horrible, which is typical

39:43

roadie score, the equivalent is

39:43

about 50%. So I can pretty much

39:47

guarantee I'm going to at least

39:47

kill 50% of the time

39:51

productivity that I steal. And

39:51

and the problem by the way, I'm

39:54

gonna do a little tangent here.

39:54

The problem is that if I had one

39:59

manager, like I talked about

39:59

before, okay, then that's my

40:02

time to steal from these people.

40:02

But when I've got a multi

40:05

manager environment, which I'm

40:05

sure you do multiple project

40:08

managers, multiple COGIC, client

40:08

managers, multiple department

40:11

managers, each of those managers

40:11

gets to steal time and the like,

40:16

and there's no way to, to really

40:16

attribute it back to them and

40:19

the like. So we have this

40:19

situation where we're calling me

40:23

meetings and we did some roadie

40:23

survey for a couple of years.

40:26

It's just so dismal that it was

40:26

dismal one is interesting, but

40:31

it's dismal because it it showed

40:31

the agency how bad the situation

40:35

was. And we didn't have an

40:35

offering at the time we do now.

40:38

But we didn't have an offering

40:38

at the time. People who weren't

40:41

the meeting organizers generally

40:41

rated the meetings around 25%

40:45

effective. And so if you think

40:45

about you call a meeting with

40:48

six people in it, and the math

40:48

gets like ridiculously wonky,

40:52

like six times 45 minutes. And

40:52

so it's like, what, 250 minutes

40:57

or something like that, which is

40:57

four hours of productivity for

41:01

me to have this stupid status

41:01

meeting. It's just really,

41:04

really bad.

41:07

I've tried so many different things over the years, we still use a fraction of

41:09

these. Well, we do rate all of

41:12

our meetings at the end of the

41:12

meeting. Cool. Yeah. So we're

41:15

reading those. And we keep

41:16

track of that, by the way,

41:16

that's, that's a dangerous way

41:19

to collect the data. Okay,

41:19

because there's a lot of social,

41:24

social conformance stuff that

41:24

goes on and that sort of raise

41:28

the hand who thought this was a

41:28

valuable meeting or whatever?

41:31

measure you use the, there's

41:31

research on diaries, like we

41:35

talked about in the book using a

41:35

roadie diary. Okay. versus using

41:39

a meeting and survey, but go

41:39

ahead. Sorry,

41:41

no, I want to Yeah, let's,

41:41

let's dig into all of them.

41:45

We've tried like, so the other

41:45

thing is, if you book an hour

41:47

meeting you're gonna use up all

41:47

the time. So like, think about

41:50

the increments, we've tried 21

41:50

minute meetings, so you have you

41:53

no flexibility. So that's a

41:53

weird time. It throws your

41:57

schedule kind of off, it gives

41:57

you some buffer, it forces you

42:00

to cut out the fluff, like, Hey,

42:00

how's the weather in California

42:04

today, Jack, you know, and it's

42:04

just, there's, there's time in

42:07

place for those type of things.

42:07

And then it's like, let's get to

42:10

the point. When when I was a

42:10

Scrum Master, we had daily stand

42:14

ups. And it was called stand up

42:14

for reason, when someone sat

42:17

down and be like, We're not

42:17

sitting, that's a seven minute

42:20

stand up, because we're going to

42:20

get comfortable and you're going

42:23

to you're going to drift. So

42:23

there's a lot of strategies be

42:25

you know, behind that about the

42:25

length of meetings. i This is

42:30

advice I always give I still do

42:30

this is always put a purpose in

42:34

your meeting, especially if it's

42:34

an internal meeting, right? When

42:38

you before you submit, and hit

42:38

send, to all the attendees put a

42:42

purpose. And whatever the action

42:42

item is, or even for example, if

42:46

there's a discussion topic, put

42:46

the put Google does this, put

42:51

the link in there, spend, tell

42:51

everyone to spend 30 minutes, 20

42:55

minutes ahead of it, go through

42:55

it. There might be some

42:58

questions we can get answered

42:58

that we don't even need to

43:00

discuss and then multiply that

43:00

there's so much strategy around

43:04

how to make an effective

43:04

meeting. But it's just it we

43:08

spend too much time in them.

43:10

Yeah, in the book, I give

43:10

a couple different formats for

43:14

dealing with this. One of which,

43:14

and I won't go into it is the

43:17

idea that Ricardo Semler, the

43:17

CEO Semco, he wrote two books

43:21

Maverick and Seven Day weekend,

43:21

I think this is in Seventh Day

43:24

weekend, he talks through a

43:24

strategy that's really a top

43:28

down policy thing, which is what

43:28

you need to do. So I'm glad

43:31

you're doing that. You're,

43:31

you're driving how you do it. I

43:34

think I think the the challenge

43:34

and you sort of getting at it

43:37

with purpose. The challenge is

43:37

the purpose needs to be

43:41

singular. The research is very

43:41

interesting, which is compound

43:45

meetings are judged as the worst

43:45

meetings of all compound meeting

43:49

is where we're going to go

43:49

through the seven topics related

43:52

to this account. And I think

43:52

there are two things that

43:54

happen. One is I as the meeting

43:54

organizer, go, wow, I don't know

44:00

how long I'll need for that. So

44:00

I'm just going to do an hour,

44:03

right? Versus if I said, we're

44:03

just going to talk about this

44:06

one thing. I'd be like 10

44:06

minutes max, right. And so that

44:12

those are, that's very

44:12

different, because it probably

44:15

is only about 10 minutes. And

44:15

it's definitely not an hour for

44:18

the other one. And so that

44:18

essentially getting narrow about

44:22

your meetings will actually make

44:22

for better meetings.

44:26

And then when once you do

44:26

those narrow meetings, now

44:29

you've increased your time to do

44:29

more work, right. But we still

44:33

struggle throughout our day to

44:33

try to look at our calendar

44:36

that's just too full. Even when

44:36

we were getting on we were like

44:39

I'm doing this and doing that,

44:39

right. But I want to share

44:42

something that was really neat.

44:42

And it's something that I'm

44:45

going to be trying we have

44:45

focused Thursdays which is like

44:48

one Thursday a month where it's

44:48

like no meetings, no email, no

44:50

nothing. Just work on one client

44:50

do something and get it together

44:54

come together. So now you have

44:54

three people, six hours a day or

44:57

whatever applying to it. How

44:57

much can you move forward in

45:00

that time? A couple of weeks

45:00

ago, we had our Day of Caring

45:04

and we went out to this farm and

45:04

we wasn't glamorous by any

45:11

means. We are in mud. We were

45:11

clearing out brush we were

45:15

clearing out this area around

45:15

this pond we were beautifying

45:20

their area for for people to get

45:20

close. Sir with nature, and

45:24

there's a lot of great story

45:24

behind it. But the point was, it

45:28

hit me at the end, I was I

45:28

looked at I go, we really didn't

45:31

do that much like, I don't know,

45:31

like, we cleared this. But the

45:36

gentleman comes in, he goes, it's just me and one other person. He's like, this wasn't

45:37

even on our list. We couldn't

45:41

even get to this till next year

45:41

is like what you guys did as a

45:44

team in a few hours, would have

45:44

taken me a week in the half next

45:49

year. And now it's done. Wow,

45:49

wow. So why can't we do that in

45:54

business? Why can't we come

45:54

together? Stop working on it a

45:58

little bit here a little bit

45:58

there? Why can't we just stop

46:01

what we're doing and come

46:01

together and work together as a

46:03

team. So what I'm going to try

46:03

to do in our next focus is, is

46:07

do more of that. And like have a

46:07

punch list of saying, hey, we

46:10

need to create this campaign.

46:10

We're doing it this afternoon.

46:14

Yeah,

46:15

no. And in fact, you know,

46:15

you're bringing this up, because

46:17

we actually go into this in some

46:17

detail around just how effective

46:22

it can be to, to concentrate

46:22

work inside of an agency. And it

46:27

really points to another

46:27

problem, which is the

46:29

concentrating of work and focus

46:29

is solving a problem, which is

46:33

we don't realize how costly it

46:33

is to not concentrate, work.

46:37

workflow management systems, God

46:37

forbid project managers, account

46:42

managers, everyone tries to

46:42

slice and dice and multitask

46:46

people's attention. And in fact,

46:46

that's extremely costly, I'd go

46:50

into this in great detail inside

46:50

the book. It's so costly that in

46:54

fact that when you collapse that

46:54

as you're suggesting, okay, by

46:58

the way, two things happened, by

46:58

the way, when you collapse that

47:01

one is you regain a lot of lost

47:01

productivity and focus, because

47:04

people have to get back into the

47:04

work and not get interrupted and

47:09

all that kind of thing. So huge

47:09

productivity gains. The second

47:13

is you improve your culture,

47:13

because there's nothing we love

47:17

more than actually accomplishing

47:17

something together. This is

47:20

shown in some cool research that

47:20

back in the 19, I think 1960s or

47:26

1970s, were in group out group

47:26

animosity, this is the fact that

47:32

I don't I don't like working

47:32

with so and so because of some

47:35

arbitrary bias, that animosity

47:35

shrinks dramatically when we go

47:39

work on the same thing and

47:39

accomplish it. So it's amazing,

47:43

you built culture, you're

47:43

absolutely spot on. And you got

47:47

to see the concentrated effort

47:47

of productivity. Very cool.

47:51

Last few things I want to

47:51

talk about is the DEI and

47:56

change. So you said in the book

47:56

are regarding diversity, equity,

48:01

inclusion, inclusion, inclusion,

48:01

you said creating and retaining

48:07

a diverse workforce is probably

48:07

the best way you can grow on. So

48:13

talk, talk more about choosing

48:13

the right or the ready people

48:18

talk. Talk to me about that.

48:18

Yeah,

48:20

I think what happens so

48:20

this underlying this is a as a

48:23

fundamental problem about us as

48:23

human beings, is, we are

48:27

incredibly biased. And it's not

48:27

like I'm intended, there are

48:32

people who like, who jump on top

48:32

of that bias, and then develop

48:36

that as a social style as well.

48:36

I hate I hate such and such

48:40

group of people, that kind of

48:40

thing. But that's, that's not

48:43

what I'm talking about. I'm

48:43

saying that we can't assess very

48:46

well, the there's some great

48:46

research I cite in there done by

48:50

Deloitte and some researchers at

48:50

a university. That said the

48:54

single most significant factor

48:54

in performance reviews, in terms

48:58

of the quality of the review,

48:58

someone got like the rating that

49:01

they got, was how much the

49:01

reviewer felt the person was

49:05

like them in terms of their

49:05

values. Okay, whatever that

49:09

means. They like find footwear,

49:09

they, they like coffee, like I

49:14

like coffee just doesn't, but

49:14

it's just it's highly

49:17

subjective, has nothing to do

49:17

with the work. In fact, it was

49:20

the third factor, I think it

49:20

accounted for 27%. If I

49:23

remember, right, only 20% of the

49:23

review was attributable to

49:27

actual performance. So if you

49:27

step back, and this is really

49:31

good, just no one's disputed

49:31

this research, if you step back

49:34

and say, well, that's, that's

49:34

that's the research done on

49:38

hundreds of managers and the

49:38

like, am I the exception to

49:41

that? No, probably not. In fact,

49:41

you can bet that you have zero

49:46

ability to choose well, and so

49:46

what I what I, what I put in

49:50

there is that. One is there's to

49:50

your point about the inclusion

49:54

building a diverse workforce.

49:54

The reason people drop out of

49:57

your workforce who are diverse

49:57

is because they get they get

50:01

this, this intrinsic bias and I

50:01

don't I use some of the terms

50:05

that are used these days around

50:05

this, but they're essentially as

50:07

a inability to, to do to make

50:07

fair decisions. It's just wired

50:13

into us. It's not an evil thing,

50:13

nothing like that. And so what I

50:17

really propose is managers need

50:17

to abandon the choosing role and

50:23

Tell a great vignette about a

50:23

guy who was a yo yo champion who

50:27

was on one of our teams. And we

50:27

gave him one of the hardest

50:30

things. And everyone's like,

50:30

they rolled their eyes at me

50:33

when I suggested that this guy

50:33

do this part of the project. And

50:36

and he killed it. Now they

50:36

supported him and everything

50:39

like that. But the reality is,

50:39

he'd never done it before. And

50:42

he killed it. And they all

50:42

supported him. And he he'd

50:45

become their new project and the

50:45

like. But this is really an

50:49

example of of inclusion. Now

50:49

there's if we don't give people

50:53

chances to succeed, they will

50:53

fulfill our expectations that

50:57

they can't succeed. And so the,

50:57

again, this is that I truly

51:03

believe everybody takes turns.

51:03

And how do we how do we go

51:07

through our process and make

51:07

sure that it's not just the

51:11

people who we know can get it

51:11

done that get the assignment?

51:14

But how about the people that

51:14

need to learn how to get it

51:17

done? Getting the assignment as

51:17

well?

51:21

Very well said very well

51:21

said, four stage change model,

51:25

contemplation, planning,

51:25

implementation sustaining.

51:28

Let's, let's break that down for

51:28

us.

51:31

Yeah, so it's a it's

51:31

really interesting. And

51:33

actually, it comes from a five

51:33

stage change model by David

51:38

Picasa. And again, I was

51:38

struggling to keep the word

51:40

count down a little bit. But one

51:40

of the key ideas is that, how

51:44

does change happen? How does

51:44

effective change happen? Because

51:47

it's hard to implement new

51:47

processes at an agency for a

51:50

whole bunch of reasons. But one,

51:50

probably the biggest of which is

51:54

everyone's just so busy anyways,

51:54

why should I change the web,

51:58

Prakash? Because work does as he

51:58

points out that if people don't

52:02

understand the origin of change,

52:02

in the reason why then then it

52:07

just won't happen. And most

52:07

change efforts are like if

52:11

you're implementing Workfront,

52:11

or Hive or something at your,

52:14

your agency, you like you've got

52:14

your, your operations officer

52:19

and your PMS or whatever,

52:19

they're all configuring

52:21

everything and telling everyone

52:21

don't worry, we're gonna roll

52:23

this out on the first and we'll

52:23

show you what to do and, and

52:27

what they're doing is they're

52:27

skipping contemplation and

52:29

planning. Well, they're

52:29

thinking, Oh, planning is we

52:32

plan it, and then we actually do

52:32

it with them. And in fact, what

52:36

you need to do is you need to

52:36

enroll everyone in the whole

52:39

process along the way. And this

52:39

does tie to another thing, which

52:44

we talked about why what go grow

52:44

as a model for how to how to

52:49

actually make projects succeed

52:49

as well, they both have the same

52:52

idea, which is, if I don't

52:52

understand this thing, then how

52:56

am I going to do it. And if I

52:56

don't understand, I don't even

52:59

know how to think about how to

52:59

do it. And so that it's this

53:04

basic idea that we really need

53:04

to go back to this very early

53:07

thing. And when you're

53:07

implementing changes, we found

53:11

this at agency agile, we would

53:11

be successful to the degree to

53:15

which people understood why they

53:15

had a problem, what the problem

53:19

was, and what they could do to

53:19

change it. So that's

53:23

essentially, the, the focus is

53:23

usually on the last two steps,

53:27

which is the actual execution of

53:27

it and the sustainment of it.

53:32

And if you put about half the

53:32

focus on actually just enrolling

53:35

everyone, then along the themes

53:35

that we've talked about, that

53:40

means my my implementation team

53:40

is everyone. Okay? This is the

53:44

difference between my three

53:44

person implementation team

53:47

that's going to try and jam

53:47

Workfront down everyone's

53:50

throat, and everyone going, Hey,

53:50

how can we make this system work

53:54

and implement it and sustain it

53:54

and that kind of thing. So big,

53:57

big difference, very thematic

53:57

with the book. And I think it's

54:00

the thing for leaders to

54:00

consider is that, and I think I

54:04

mentioned this in the book,

54:04

almost every client we worked

54:07

with is on their second or third

54:07

workflow management system. And

54:12

I believe that at least half

54:12

that failure rate is not the

54:16

system's themselves. But in

54:16

fact, the way that they got

54:20

implemented and the way that

54:20

they, in essence, were never

54:24

shaped and formed to fit the

54:24

work processes that everyone

54:28

had, and you didn't get the

54:28

enrollment, so you don't get the

54:30

people using it. And this next

54:30

system is just a response to the

54:35

complaints in the old system.

54:35

It's not a solution, right? And

54:40

it happens so often with us

54:40

third, fourth, even of the

54:45

systems, that it just can't be

54:45

the systems right and, and the

54:48

names just rotate, because you

54:48

know, someone was on Workfront.

54:51

Now they're going to hive hive

54:51

will save us, right, someone was

54:54

on the hive, and now they're

54:54

going to Monday or something

54:57

Monday will save us. And so it's

54:57

just this idea that the

55:01

challenge of implementing things

55:01

isn't the actual implementation.

55:05

It's the enrollment before that.

55:08

Great, great Mike drop

55:08

there, Jack that I'm with you

55:12

for sure. First of all, thank

55:12

you so much.

55:17

This has been great, man. Great questions.

55:19

Well, all my pleasure.

55:19

It's definitely been my

55:22

pleasure, Jay. How can our

55:22

listeners get a copy of

55:25

unmanaged it's

55:26

on amazon.com Now is a

55:26

soft back we'll, depending on

55:30

when this comes out should have

55:30

the ebook available as well and

55:34

maybe even a hardback. We'll

55:34

give you guys a code. Also,

55:38

Amazon doesn't really discount

55:38

this as arcane stuff, but we'll

55:41

be up on Barnes and Noble where

55:41

we can do a BOGO or some sort of

55:46

promotional thing like that as

55:46

well. Awesome.

55:48

So head on over to agency

55:48

balanced.com will link up all of

55:52

the great resources that Jackie

55:52

shared along the way as well and

55:56

the exclusive discount code for

55:56

agency balance.com. Also, he I'm

56:01

going to drop it right here

56:01

unmanaged book.com/resources

56:05

Jack is already putting up some

56:05

things there. You can take a

56:07

look at that relate back to the

56:07

book. Jack, thank you so much.

56:11

It was an awesome

56:11

pleasure. Thank you, Dave. Happy

56:14

to do it again. We still got

56:14

time cards to go visit at some

56:17

point.

56:17

I look forward to that.

56:17

Take care