0:01

Ted Audio Collective. Hello,

0:09

everyone. Welcome back to another week

0:12

of Fixable. I'm your host, Anne

0:14

Morris. And I'm your other host,

0:16

Frances Fry. I'm your co-host. You're the host and

0:18

I'm the co-host. I think that sounds right. I'll

0:21

take it. I'll take it. This

0:23

is a show where we believe meaningful change

0:25

happens fast, and today we're

0:27

going to try something totally new. We're going

0:30

to attempt to cash that check that our

0:32

egos have written. It's the

0:35

great Commander Stinger from Top Gun once

0:37

put it. And

0:39

today we're going to try a new type of

0:41

episode, which we're calling the Quick Fix. Which means

0:43

it's just going to be me and you, baby.

0:46

We're going to tackle two listener submissions, and we're going to

0:48

do it in under 20 minutes. Hi,

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state law. Kotor

2:00

is moving to Mondays and Thursdays ground

2:02

in the second episode of the show

2:05

on Mondays. Wow! Have a classic interviews,

2:07

Ceos and other troublemakers I like. We're

2:09

gonna have to start having conversations about

2:11

how do we pay those jobs that

2:14

can't be done by a I and

2:16

on Thursdays for the explaining big topics

2:18

in the news with version porters, experts

2:21

and other friends of the show. As

2:23

a new generation of people on the internet, Google

2:25

search has always sucked for that. And so Athena,

2:27

there's no reason for them to be. Loyal

2:29

second, just go to talk. This is

2:31

going be really fun. I'm very excited

2:33

about some go subscribe reverie getting hot

2:35

as now. Our

2:39

first question comes from a listener.

2:41

We're gonna be calling Jessica Sell

2:43

let's hear her voice Help say

2:45

an incentive I am calling in

2:48

today's to. Figure out

2:50

how best to. Approach

2:52

a question with my boss.

2:55

I'm a marine scientists and I've

2:57

been working in my lab for

2:59

about ten years. And I

3:01

would like to make a big move.

3:03

Across Country which involves. Leaving.

3:07

This job leaving an

3:09

intimate relationship. It's a

3:11

small. Nice field so

3:13

I know that I'm going to

3:16

come across the soaks in my

3:18

lap again at some point in

3:20

our careers. And. I

3:22

really just make sure I'm not

3:24

burning bridges. That and maintaining his

3:27

release. The. Release. It said.

3:29

I. Hope you guys have some free advice and

3:32

full. And. Thank you so

3:34

much. As. Ah, I'm

3:36

here in the steaks and the her

3:38

voice. And this is a question. We

3:40

get a very sound this question. I

3:43

mean a lot. Yeah, which is, you

3:45

know, how do I gracefully. Quit

3:47

my job. Yeah. And

3:50

I find there's two things they have to

3:52

think about. We do it. One is, when

3:54

we're leaving her job, we tend to want

3:56

to shrink. What the world can handle

3:58

from us. And so we're. Oh

4:00

you know I have to be the small

4:03

little perfect saying and any perturbed. So we

4:05

gotta like we get it, own ourselves into

4:07

want to shrink when we're doing it. And

4:09

then the second part is when he tried

4:12

the second paragraph. You do the second

4:14

part so I i her question and you can

4:16

hear her voice I think reveals. What a.

4:19

Thoughtful and hi emphases person

4:21

see as and I think

4:23

it's really hard for. People.

4:26

Like us is I may be so bold.

4:29

To do things that will

4:31

knowingly disappoint. Other people.

4:34

So I think your point number one

4:36

is really in. Portland. For

4:38

the people out there for whom people

4:40

pleasing is our weakness and if that's

4:42

the case, I think you really want

4:45

a plan this whole thing out. Sell.

4:48

You. Gotta do the right things here.

4:50

And I think the right thing here

4:52

means. Give proper notice,

4:55

In terms of time, give people a

4:57

heads up. Give them a while. I.

5:00

Said. Give them some insight into

5:02

your decisions you don't have to

5:04

reveal. All. Of it. No,

5:06

please don't. You can be a

5:08

little selfish here, but you gotta

5:10

reveal some of that and you

5:12

have to save some for the

5:14

opportunity to learn and grow. In.

5:18

Their presence essentially. And.

5:20

But I think we really wanna make

5:22

sure that you do. Is it You

5:24

give people a story that they can

5:27

turn around and repeat. So whether it's

5:29

to go tell their boss it's hereditary

5:31

say Here's what happened at work. but

5:33

people need to have their version of

5:35

the story that they can repeat to

5:37

others and feel good about it's he

5:39

has to give enough information to cylinder

5:42

details. Of their story. Yeah

5:44

and on the on the gratitude. Part francis,

5:47

I'm also syncing about the power of.

5:50

whom. Sincere and specific In this

5:52

know, this is a great time

5:54

to exercise that muscle of of

5:57

sincere and specific gratitude. Yes, for

5:59

lead. So chances are good that

6:01

not every aspect of the job

6:03

worked out perfectly, but. Something

6:06

did. And

6:08

if you can describe it in

6:10

the way in a way that

6:13

really feels Austin tex then it's

6:15

ah, it's gonna make that this

6:17

this whole saying this whole exit

6:20

moment that's feel better and and

6:22

go smoother. And. Then and

6:24

then if you just it benefits of eggs

6:26

and you and and what I love about

6:28

that and is that it will the gratitude

6:31

will be the highlight of the story. the

6:33

person turns around tells I that's exactly right

6:35

now I mean and and and as the

6:37

great. My. Hips

6:39

observed. People actually wants particular Remember

6:41

what you say or what you do

6:43

in the summer? Do they are gonna

6:46

remember how you made them feel and

6:48

that is that the person you're quitting

6:50

on. That's what they're gonna remember from

6:52

this whole interaction is how you made

6:54

them feel in that moment. Beautiful and

6:56

I'd like to write this. all downs

6:59

because you're a writer as I like

7:01

to talk about it in front of

7:03

the here has been I disease or

7:05

in the proper letter of resignation here

7:07

in part because I also don't trust

7:09

myself. In that moment see your point

7:12

to not. The I make

7:14

myself smaller and try to protect

7:16

people from the truth. And

7:19

so does. Get out there

7:21

but planet and. Don't. Be

7:23

afraid of this and ancient artifacts. That

7:25

is the letter of resignation. As you

7:27

say that I realize when I left.

7:30

H B S to go to Hoover.

7:32

I was in the administration was a

7:34

senior associate dean Ababa but. And them

7:36

I wrote a letter of resignation

7:38

and gave it to the dean

7:40

at the time. but. Gave him a

7:42

little preamble and read it in my presence. and

7:44

then we had the conversation and you're right

7:46

it went swimmingly well after that and i

7:49

don't think i would have been able to

7:51

in the moment capture it and so i

7:53

think we wanna make sure we don't underestimate

7:55

what people can handle that that would nor

7:57

should we underestimate the context they need They

8:00

can handle a lot and they

8:02

need a lot of context. Let's put them

8:04

in a position to wish us well and

8:06

to continue to root for us. Yeah. I

8:08

think that's beautiful and a beautiful example. Also

8:11

because in that moment, there are a lot

8:14

of emotions for us that are showing

8:16

up too. There's a lot of adrenaline and this

8:18

letter allows you to check all the

8:21

boxes you want to check without having

8:23

to rely on that moment by moment

8:25

performance. Then the last thing I'll say on

8:27

this is, plan

8:29

it all out and then don't be attached to

8:31

the results. Yeah. Because whatever happens

8:34

next, that other person's reaction

8:36

likely has nothing to do

8:38

with you. Yes. In

8:41

this moment, we're often not at our

8:44

best. We encode

8:46

this as a rejection of some

8:49

kind and it can split those emotions and

8:52

that's fine. Those emotions are likely temporary and

8:54

they're also totally out of your

8:56

control. Give yourself

8:58

permission to be at peace, whatever

9:00

then happens next. It's a lesson

9:02

that I have learned in coaching

9:04

faculty in the classroom, which

9:06

is deeply prepare so

9:08

that you can loosely teach. Francis,

9:12

we're going to take a quick break and

9:15

when we come back, we're going to talk

9:17

about how to speed things up

9:20

when we believe that they're moving too

9:22

slow. This is an

9:24

ode to one of my favorite mathematical

9:26

theorems, which our listeners might be hearing

9:28

for the first time, but my wife may

9:31

be hearing it for the first time today. Canva

9:39

presents unexplained appearances. It

9:41

was an ordinary workday

9:43

until- That presentation appears out

9:46

of thin air. Also, it's

9:48

eerily on brand. Wait, did

9:50

that agenda just write itself?

9:53

Words appear, making this unexplainable

9:55

case- Unexplainable? It's Canva's

9:57

AI tools. I can generate slides

9:59

and- The

10:02

real mystery is why I'm only learning

10:04

this now. canva.com, designed

10:06

for work. All

10:10

right, we're cruising now, so let's take a

10:12

look at another submission. I love it. This

10:16

one is from a manager who would like to

10:18

remain anonymous, and they wrote

10:20

to us with the following question. What

10:22

is the right thing to do if

10:24

employees are very slow at work and

10:27

the work needs to be done quicker and

10:29

they say they can't work faster? So,

10:32

Frances, where does your beautiful mathematical

10:35

mind go with this one? Oh, Little's

10:37

Law to the rescue. What

10:41

is Little's Law? I'm so glad you asked. I've been waiting

10:43

for you to ask. So

10:46

Little's Law actually contemplates working

10:49

harder and working smarter. What

10:52

I'm hearing from this listener is that

10:55

they have reached the limits of working

10:57

harder, and Little's Law gives us

10:59

a way to work smarter. Say

11:01

more. It's a cliffhanger.

11:05

How do I work smarter in a situation

11:07

like this? Almost

11:09

always. We are working on too many

11:11

things. And so

11:14

I simply have too many things in front of

11:16

me, so no matter how hard I work on

11:18

any one thing, if there's 10 things in front

11:20

of me, even if I get faster at each

11:22

thing, it's still going to take too long

11:25

to get through them. So what I

11:27

as a manager need to do for my team

11:29

is remove what we call the work

11:32

in process. I need to remove some of

11:34

the things they're working on so that we

11:36

get a better, what we call throughput time.

11:38

So work goes through more quickly. And

11:41

if I recall from the work of

11:43

Professor Little, part of his breakthrough inside

11:45

here was that the length of your

11:47

to-do list, what we call the work

11:49

in process, the WIP, WIP

11:51

doesn't just matter. It matters just

11:53

as much as that. It matters

11:56

more. It

11:58

matters much more. So if you ask me... So,

12:00

can you go faster by working harder?

12:02

I'll say it's what your instinct is

12:05

gonna be. You're gonna exhaust yourself and

12:07

you're only gonna make marginal improvement. But

12:09

if you affect the to-do list, you

12:11

will dramatically improve order of magnitudes better.

12:14

Working smarter is order of magnitudes better

12:16

than working harder. Okay, so what's your

12:18

advice to Anonymous here? One

12:21

is that I would remove a little bit

12:23

of the judgment that they have on their

12:25

employees, just a little bit. Just a little

12:27

bit. It's a little judgy. And I would

12:29

bring in curiosity. And it's curiosity about what

12:32

they're working on. And I would practice radical

12:34

prioritization and remove things. I wouldn't even give

12:36

them a not now. I would remove things

12:39

from the list. And watch

12:41

what happens then. All of a sudden the employees that

12:43

we're judgy about are gonna be superheroes. And you're

12:45

gonna wonder, what did they do differently? They didn't

12:47

do anything differently. I did something differently by putting

12:49

a different set of tasks in front of them.

12:52

So, Frances, for the absence of doubt, if

12:55

I remove the whip in the

12:57

system. Everything gets done faster. Everything

13:00

gets done faster. And that's a

13:02

better strategy than trying to go faster.

13:05

Which your people call cycle time. Yes, and

13:08

I would say if you want to have

13:10

like a sense of how much, I think

13:12

it's probably 10 times more effective. It's wildly

13:14

more effective. So I shouldn't judge my team

13:16

and yell at them and make them go

13:18

faster. I should remove the number of things

13:20

that they're doing. So who is errant? You're

13:22

the problem, not them. Who's judgy now? You're

13:26

right. I got a little judgy. You take

13:28

it. I did. All right. This

13:31

reminds me of the CEO

13:33

of Etsy who we wrote about in our

13:35

book, Josh Silverman. So when he was turning

13:37

the company around, one of

13:39

the things he observed when he got there is

13:41

that too many projects were, and this was his

13:44

word, suffocating the organization. Oh, so good. It's exactly

13:46

what they do. And I just to give you

13:48

a little texture on this. The

13:51

number of employees at Etsy was under

13:53

a thousand and the

13:55

team was working on more than 800 business

13:59

development projects. And this

14:01

is in the public domain as as reporting

14:03

by Cel Lava at Sports. And so

14:05

Silverman and his team eliminated,

14:07

sas of these initiatives said:

14:10

"It's a little last for

14:12

a test drive here and

14:14

they made. Organization.

14:17

Level commitment As you said to working

14:19

smarter. And it's usually we

14:21

can't usually work smarter on our own

14:23

because we don't get to pick what

14:26

we work on unless we're in very

14:28

specific sealed. So this is actually the

14:30

person who called in. That's exactly. It

14:32

is within your power to have the

14:34

work go faster and you know what

14:37

else is gonna happen. Qualities can be

14:39

higher. Sentiment is gonna be higher. Like

14:41

you have a beautiful thing that's about

14:43

to happen. but you have to take

14:45

responsibility for what you're giving them to

14:48

work on. and you have an. Etsy

14:50

problem is. My guess the other fun

14:53

side to that little law. That I

14:55

had retained is that it's often just

14:57

some one time effort but that to

14:59

pull whip out of the sir? Yes

15:02

sir, That's a really important part that

15:04

is a it's usually like. The classic

15:06

example is a call center. And at

15:08

the Common with a problem and it takes two weeks to

15:10

hear back and you're like oh my gosh, it's too weak.

15:13

And it's because that's how many things are in line. And

15:15

front. but they're stacked correctly. that is,

15:17

they have the right number. Of. People: For

15:19

the number of projects they're working on, there's just

15:21

a two week backlog and if you do, the.

15:24

One time effort to remove the

15:26

backlog as those. Effortlessly so by

15:28

deception their prep might not have

15:30

helps. But it nearly one did hi

15:32

my friend or if I brought in a

15:34

crap team or one we went removers. For

15:36

a week and the promise of the problem. Is

15:38

solved and the only thing us to do

15:41

is now monitor. Work in process and

15:43

you know has builds, Work and process.

15:45

When. We think no idea as bad idea. oh that

15:47

sounds good. Let's do that too. That's. How

15:49

we end up with the problem. So

15:51

as long as at sea resist

15:54

the mission creep of new projects.

15:57

Than the company gets to maintain this

15:59

new speed. that's Silverman inspired and

16:01

that's the beautiful part of it. Alright

16:08

that's our show. Thanks for listening everyone. As

16:10

always please get in touch if you want

16:12

to figure out your workplace problem together or

16:15

not together as in this

16:17

format. Email us

16:20

with any thoughts, emotions, and

16:22

feelings you have at

16:24

fixableithead.com or call us at 234-Fixable,

16:26

234-349-2253. You

16:31

can even text us if that's easier.

16:33

I really like this one. It's so nice

16:36

to go fast. Yes it is.

16:38

Thanks for listening everyone and thanks to everyone who's

16:40

reached out with a problem for us to solve.

16:42

We couldn't make this show without you. By the

16:44

way we have been running some really interesting polls

16:47

on Spotify and wanted to share a striking

16:49

result from one of them which

16:51

is that when we asked people if

16:54

they feel comfortable speaking candidly about mental

16:56

health at work almost 60% of

16:58

people said no. So we

17:01

definitively do not feel comfortable talking about

17:03

this critical issue in the workplace. It's

17:05

super striking and that was the Lauren

17:07

Cohen episode and it really underscores a

17:09

lot of the things that he said

17:11

about the scope of the problem and

17:13

that we can make a lot of

17:15

headway in addressing it immediately just

17:17

by getting more comfortable being honest about

17:20

it. Half of us if I can

17:22

round off half of us don't feel

17:24

comfortable. Imagine if we could move

17:26

the needle on that. Wow. Fixable

17:29

is brought to you by the TED

17:32

Audio Collective and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted

17:34

by me and Morris and me for

17:36

instance. Our team includes Izzy Carter,

17:39

Constanza Gallardo, Ban Ban

17:41

Chang, Michelle Quint, Corey

17:43

Hageum, Alejandro Salazar and

17:45

Roxanne Hylash. This episode

17:47

was mixed by Louis at Story Yard. If

17:49

you're enjoying the show make sure to subscribe

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