Lead In 30 Podcast

Your Team Moves Way Too Slow: How To Fix It!

• Russ Hill

Share episode

They call it Infobesity. Too much information. Too much noise. Too much discussion. Too many emails. Too many direct messages. Too many meetings. Not enough execution and getting things done!

It's the biggest problem facing leaders today. Is it driving you insane? What are you going to do about it?

In this episode Lone Rock Leadership co-founder Russ Hill goes off on the issue. We explore how leaders can effectively prioritize what truly matters in their organizations amidst information overload, emphasizing the need for streamlined communication and operational efficiency. The discussion focuses on key strategies like reducing noise, setting key results, and employing first principles for successful leadership. 

• Examining the challenges of focus and productivity in large organizations 
• Understanding the implications of infobesity and data smog 
• Exploring how AI and technology can enhance efficiency 
• Strategies for reducing excessive meetings and emails 
• The importance of identifying and consistently discussing key results 
• Harnessing first principles for effective decision-making

--
Get weekly leadership tips delivered to your email inbox:
Subscribe to our leadership email newsletter
https://www.leadin30.com/newsletter

Connect with me on LinkedIn or to send me a DM:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/russleads/

Tap here to check out my first book, Decide to Lead, on Amazon. Thank you so much to the thousands of you who have already purchased it for yourself or your company!

--
About the podcast:
The Lead In 30 Podcast with Russ Hill is for leaders of teams who want to grow and accelerate their results. In each episode, Russ Hill shares what he's learned consulting executives. Subscribe to get two new episodes every week. To connect with Russ message him on LinkedIn!



Speaker 1:

How do you help your organization or your team focus and prioritize on the things that matter most? Why are so many people wasting so much time? What are we going to do about it?

Speaker 2:

This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill. You cannot be serious, strengthen your ability to lead in less than 30 minutes. You're listening to Lead in 30.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that was most stunning to me when I first started working in the consulting, the executive consulting space. So I had never worked at a Fortune 50 company, I'd never been inside of an organization, a company that had, you know, a hundred thousand employees, 200,000 employees, a million employees. There aren't a ton of companies that big, but I had never even been around one that big. And now here I am, because of going to work for a consulting firm decade, you know, more than a decade ago. I'm now walking into these executive offices of these enormous organizations with just tens of thousands of employees. And one of the things that struck me immediately and it doesn't matter the industry, right, there are restaurant chains with tens of thousand employees or retail outlets, there are manufacturing companies, there are hospital systems, there are, I mean, the list goes on and on and on, right. So it's industry agnostic. But one of the things that strikes you when that happens or at least it struck me is I thought, wow, I've worked at a company with over a thousand employees, but, and I've worked for smaller organizations with a hundred, and I, but I'm. So when you walk into these gigantic companies, one of the things that struck me was how little got done, the amount of waste, the amount of meetings, the amount of discussions that had to take place. It was stunning to me. I thought, oh my gosh, you think that companies with this many people could move so fast? And what you realize is, no, they're actually the Titanic, they're actually the slowest moving barges in the ocean. That's the visual for these large companies. And then you start to you start to realize why the disruptors, these startups, are so disruptive, because they're scrappy and they're nimble and they move. Why is that? And how do we in on our teams or in the organizations that we lead? How do we solve for that? How do we help our organization be more like that? And I want to share with you some of the research, the thinking, the, the studying I've been doing on the amount of well, there are just some terms that are just falling in love with and some data that is is relevant to all of this because, by the way, this is only going to get worse. It's and you've got to be able, we've got to be able to lead in an environment like this, and the most effective leaders, the leaders with the greatest market value, are those that are able to themselves, focus and prioritize on the things that matter and then get others to do it as well. So how do you do that? I'm glad you asked. Let's talk about it in this episode.

Speaker 1:

Welcome into the Lead in 30 podcast In less than 30 minutes. In each episode, we give you a framework, a model, an example, something that we've been studying, thinking about, researching experiences we've had that hopefully, will cause you to think about how you could more effectively lead the group that you have stewardship over. If you are obsessed with growth, with learning, with expanding your impact, improving the organization results being successful, then you're in the right place. My name is Russ Hill. I make my living coaching, consulting senior executive teams at some of the world's biggest companies. Lone Rock Leadership is the name of our organization. I'm one of the co-founders of it. Got an incredible team. You can find out more at lonerockio.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let me give you, let me just throw a bunch of different terms and things at you and then we'll get to the takeaways. Is this on your mind Like? Is this something that you're thinking about? Does it bother you? Do you think about it as it pertains to you? And what I'm talking about is focusing and prioritizing on the things that matter, like moving the needle on the results that matter, driving revenue in a significant way, driving margin, improving the customer experience, expanding market share, innovating faster than the competition, increasing speed to market expanding all of that Does that weigh on your mind? Do you think about it? Or am I the only one that wakes up in the middle of the night dreaming about this, thinking about it, obsessed with it? And yeah, I'm influenced totally.

Speaker 1:

By working in a leadership lab for a living, I'm constantly on Zoom meetings in the room with executives of organizations that are driven. They want to be successful. Why else would they be paying our firm, or any firm or anybody, to help them think about things they're not thinking about, make observations on things that they're missing, help their team be more effective, accelerate performance inside their organization. They're obsessed with it, and why? Well, because these are high growth individuals. These are people that want to improve, that aren't yet the best version of themselves, that see capacity that is yet untapped, that want to be effective in leading organizations and coming up with new solutions or services. They love the game, they love the market, they love solving the puzzle that is the world of business. Right, and I love being around them, I love giving them ideas, I love learning from them, I love being stretched by them, and so let me give you, let me give you some things that I've been thinking about and digging into.

Speaker 1:

There's a book that came out. I haven't read it, I haven't read it in detail, I have skimmed it. And, by the way, ai like I know, I've been talking about AI a lot I just am absolutely convinced that the world we're going to live in in two years, four years, five years from now, is going to look radically different. Do you feel that? Do you feel the seismic shifts that are happening in society, in government, in business, in technology, in hardware? There has never been a more exciting time to be alive. The ground is shifting right now in significant ways. It's never been more pronounced, more significant than it is now. That's so exciting.

Speaker 1:

For some people it's demoralizing, or they're like in the fetal position in the corner, because things are happening in the world that they don't like, or what you have no control over it. For me, it's exciting. I don't agree with all of the changes that I see around me. Who would? Nobody agrees with everything or is aligned because we don't know the outcome. We don't know the effect, the impact, but it's just exciting to be alive and to see these seismic shifts and to try to stay ahead of it or at least up with it and manage and lead through it. I just think that's phenomenally engaging, and so this book. Well, so AI let me finish that thought, like, if you aren't using AI tools whether it's Claude, whether it's chat, gpt, whether it's some of Google's tools that are out, or grok from X and Elon Musk, whatever it is, I mean there's so many good tools out there and they just keep coming out and they they're getting better like every week.

Speaker 1:

Do you remember, like when, when instagram initially came out, or facebook a long time ago, like those products were innovating and they were changing, they were adjusting and you had to get the latest version downloaded on your phone and it was exciting because there were so many different things. Or the iphone you had to get the new iphone was exciting because there were so many different things. Or the iPhone you had to get the new iPhone every year because there were so many new features on it. Well, all that technology slowed down. Like, if you're buying an iPhone every year right now, you look just like crazy, right, I mean, the improvements just don't justify the ROI. I don't care how much money you have, you just like. That's just, we might as well throw it into a, a trash can, right, and and, and the same is true for these social media apps. Or like the innovation. The amount of innovation in those areas has slowed dramatically, but it, where you're seeing it now, is in ai and it's yeah, it's scary and frightening and there's all kinds of implications, and and it's exciting too at the same time.

Speaker 1:

But so I can, I, I can do, um, I can have a book, and somebody tells me about a book, and and you can plug it into AI, and suddenly I mean you've just accelerated what would have taken you. I've got to make an order. I've got to go to Barnes and Noble that's, by the way, a bookstore, like which used to be these kind of square shaped structures in our neighborhoods or cities that you would drive to, by the way. You would get in the car and actually touch the steering wheel, drive to the physical location, walk inside, look for the book Hopefully they had it in stock you would purchase it, drive back home and, when you had time, read part of the book. Now you type into AI hey, what is this book? What? Give me the main points, tell me some of the data share. Boom, I've got the main things in 30 seconds Stunning, unbelievable.

Speaker 1:

So if you're not using it, you are so far behind the times. I mean, or uploading documents from your organization or articles, or like. There's just so many advantages to it and my favorite right now is the chat GPT. I talked about this a few episodes ago, the chat GPT conversation tool. If you don't know what I'm talking about, do some digging on it. Like the conversation you could have with your phone, like it makes a conversation with Alexa or Siri feels so outdated, so like elementary, such a waste of time because those, those technologies are so behind instantly. Where now I can get on. I can choose the voice that I'm listening to or interacting with and I'm just having this conversation, free flowing as I'm driving somewhere, about whatever, with the chat GPT. It's in the chat GPT app on your phone and then you just click on that, that icon on the bottom right-hand corner. That's the voice, right, and you just start talking. It's on believable. Our youngest son he like he's like he'll he'll spend an hour having a conversation with AI. This, literally, this happens all the time. He's having a conversation about certain things and it's taking them deep into these topics and whatever. It's awesome, I love it anyway.

Speaker 1:

So, um, this book, uh, what the crap is the name of it? I don't even have the. I better look it up real quick. It's a book in 1997 that was about information overload, and so let's see here I just got to find it real quick A data, yeah, the name of the okay, my notes were right Data smog, don't you love that? So this is 1997, which doesn't that feel like, I'm saying like 1850, 1997 feels like so long ago. And a book written in 1997 called Data Smog Surviving the Information Glut what the crap did anyone in 97 think that they knew about data smog? I love the term, but, wow, I mean, if we thought we had too much data in 97, we had no idea what was going to be in place in 2025, which makes you think, well, what's it going to look like in 2030 or 20? Like insane, you can't even imagine it. But anyway, I love the title of that book data smog.

Speaker 1:

Don't you feel like there's data smog in your company? Don't you feel like there's this information glut, that there are productivity clogs, that I just feel like I see it in so many organizations, I see it in our firm Like, how does it take us? We're not even close to one of these big, gigantic organizations, but as the co-founder of a company that five years, six, seven years ago was just me and then a few months later I had a business partner, and then a few months later I had another business partner and then we started adding team members and then the team started expanding and then we got a training company and we've got the consulting firm and we're we're growing right and we're our client list is getting bigger and all. And so I've just watched it in our own organization Like, how can it take us so long? What would have taken us a month five years ago now takes us six months. Why? Because as you increase the amount of people, the speed goes down dramatically. Why is that? There are lots of reasons. One of the reasons I want to talk about in this episode that's on my mind is the amount of data, the amount of information.

Speaker 1:

I was listening to a podcast recently and this person, who's extremely wealthy, very successful, doesn't need to work anymore just by every definition of the term very well off and this person was talking about. I find a lot of value in listening to them. I don't agree with them on a lot of things, but they have strong opinions and they've got thought behind them, behind their opinions, reasoning behind it, and I like to be challenged and I like to be, I like to like, I just like that process and mentally, and so I'm listening to this and this person's talking about, they get on a kind of a side tangent and they start talking about getting rid of this. Somebody who owns obviously multiple homes and different countries and yada, yada, yada. And this person is talking about how they have been on this kick for the last few years of getting rid of things. And they're talking about the amount of mental, emotional, even physical, stress or anxiety or weight, the weightiness of owning a lot of things. And yeah, this is a first world problem. And some of you listen to that and you go, oh my gosh, serious. Well, but it's real for people in that situation and so and and I think, once you get past 35 years of age or something, and maybe you've had a few kids and and even if you've got one house or maybe you've got a couple and you've got all, you get all this crap, like I.

Speaker 1:

And even if you've got one house, or maybe you got a couple and you get all this crap, like I'm at the point now where I'm going to I think I'm about to ask everyone that I know and love and care about to not get me another gift. Or like, if they give me a gift, make it edible, like some gummy worms or Mike and Ike's, or I like something or or I don't know what, but something small and whatever, because I've got so much junk and I don't mean that rudely because I bought most of it for myself or, but you get these gifts and I'm like, oh my gosh, I just spend so much time cleaning the garage, emptying out storage containers, emptying out cupboards, like there's so much stuff, and, and so I've been in the process I'm in it right now of cause. That really spoke to me when I was listening to that podcast and interview or that conversation. This person's talking about the freedom, the liberating impact of getting rid of things and I, and so I thought you know what I? I, I believe in that I, I'm weighed down by junk and messes and whatever else, and I've never been good at at keeping all that stuff organized, cause I'd rather spend my time on something else making money or expanding something at work, or studying, or thinking or working out or whatever else. So, whatever, Anyway. So I put some time and energy into this. I'm in the middle of it right now and it's actually the mental, emotional, um impact of it is real and that causes me to. So you think about that physical stuff.

Speaker 1:

The same is true in organizations, and so you, as a leader, how do you focus and prioritize, help your team to focus and prioritize? How do you spend your time focusing and prioritizing on the right things? One of the things that you might considering, you might consider, is reducing the amount of information and noise, the data smog Recently. Well, I talked to you, uh, many episodes ago, like the amount, the volume of email just in our own firm was driving me insane. I'm was terrible. I still am terrible at responding to emails because there's so much junk and there's so much whatever that it's just an insanely inefficient way to communicate in my mind. And so that's when we you know we started really leaning into Slack in our organization. It is so much more valuable the amount of emails back and forth between people that work in our firm. I bet I get emails internally in our organization. The amount of emails in our firm now, granted, not, we're not stinking amazon with two million employees, right um but the amount of emails I get internally each day is probably around two, three, four.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but that took a lot of effort, like I, literally I would respond to an email and say hey, you all, um, can you take this offline into Slack, our messaging platform? You've got one too, whether it's you know teams or this, that or the other, where you have to have a literal channel and and that channel is centered to a certain topic, and then you post to that and whatever else, right. And then now you've got AI tools in things like Slack and productivity, tools that can summarize the conversations and you can get up to speed, and then, and then you have to make sure I mean, there's some effort that you have to put into this and and and so take it into a messaging platform and then make sure there aren't too many. I can't tell you how many channels we've deleted. We don't need that anymore. No, let's do that. And I'm literally in there and other people in our firm are like, hey, can you take this over to that conversation or can we do this or whatever, like we're managing that and the reason is to reduce, focus, the noise.

Speaker 1:

One of your jobs I my one of my contentions. You tell me what you think about this. One of my beliefs is that your job yeah, you, one of your jobs as an effective executive manager, supervisor in an organization, is to reduce noise, reduce noise, reduce noise. That is one of your key priorities, jobs, responsibilities. I really believe that If you're going to increase productivity, increase speed to market, increase focus and prioritization, you've got to reduce the noise. There have to be fewer meetings and more time spent doing this stuff. There have to be fewer emails. There have to be fewer, like, the info. You're not helping, not meaning you, the individuals in our organizations that just nonstop messaging, nonstop emails, nonstop meetings Like it's insane, and those of you that work at us, especially large organizations, doesn't it drive you nuts? Well, what are you doing about it?

Speaker 1:

And so a couple other terms that 97 book in 97 about um data smog. There was a term actually I don't think it came from that book, it came from somewhere else the term infobesity. I just love that term infobesity. We are bloated, we are obese, we are overweight, we need to, we, we need to get our organizations to be fitter. So we have infobesity too much information, too much data, too much conversation. And now there's an extreme of this. Right, we teach this first.

Speaker 1:

Secondly, third leader, third leader concepts and patterns in Lead in 30, in the leadership development course that some of you have been through, and the second leader would what we call the second leader of the general, a person that micromanages, leans into position power. They would be the extreme of this, potentially where they'd be like well, we don't need any conversation, just go execute. Well, that's the extreme. This potentially where they'd be like well, we don't need any conversation, just go execute. Well, that's the extreme. I'm not advocating that, but I am advocating closer to that than we are right now in so many organizations where there's just I don't know what it is, but people feel like they get.

Speaker 1:

I absolutely believe that people feel like they get paid to show up, like literally, that's what they're paid to do to show up and and just like make, make noise, engage in conversation, and and the older I get, the more that drives me insane. Like at 25 didn't really bother me. I'm like, oh, you got a corporate job, you hang out here, you get paid for it. This is kind of cool. Some of these people are nice and fun to be around. I kind of like them and we get along and the wow, the, the office is nice and all the perks and the break room and this, that and the other like that used to get, like I used to be. Wow, this facility is unbelievable, the campus is, whatever, and this is just such a cool place to be. Yeah, I'm not into that anymore.

Speaker 1:

Not impressed Doesn't do it for me. I'd rather be home. I'd rather be at the gym. I'd rather be at the lake. I'd rather be at the beach. I'd rather be reading a book. I'd rather be hanging out with my family. I'd rather be reading, like learning something. So if I'm going to be here, I really don't care what perks you have, doesn't matter to me anymore what the break room has in it or how cool the office is. Like I'm totally willing to come in and work here. But let's get crap done, because I don't want to be here all day and we, there's somebody we're meeting with one more example and then I'll. I'll a couple more thoughts and then we'll wrap. I hope, I hope you.

Speaker 1:

I got the wheels in your head spinning. Can you tell I'm passionate about this. Are you passionate about it? What are you going to do about it? Like we've got to solve some of this, and who's going to solve it? You are, I am, we are, we're the leaders, the executives tasked with leading in this environment. Did you know that?

Speaker 1:

The average, the amount of information this is an interesting stat. There's more information generated in a single day back in the mid nineties Imagine this now. More information generated in a single day back in the mid 90s. Imagine this now More information generated in a single day than the average individual in the 16th century encountered in their entire lifetime. I'll say it again In the 90s, more information was generated in a single day than the average individual in the 16th century encountered in their entire lifetime. Think about what it is in 2025 stunning, or whenever you're listening to this.

Speaker 1:

We've got to help our teams, we've got to master this, we've got to reduce the noise, we've got to take this info beast, uh, organization, team, society, and we got to get it focused on what matters. Well, a couple of things that you do. Okay, actually, I just got to give you the takeaways. A couple of them are you've got to have key results. You've got to be talking about them constantly. These are the three things that matter. Yes, there's 80 million things out there. These are the three that matter. It's these three metrics, it's these things. Whatever your team has to have those, you need to. They need to be in every deck, every meeting. You need to be talking about them constantly. All these other metrics, they don't matter as much as these. We've got to move the needle on these three things and if you're not working on them actively every day, shift what you're doing, get, carve out the rest.

Speaker 1:

It's infobesity, it's waste. We need a diet in the amount of conversation, the amount of meetings like work on these things. Stop making so much noise. You're distracting people from getting things done. We need less noise in the system. Okay, we need less data, the right data. Only share, only hit submit, only hit send if it's going to impact these results and it's absolutely critical. Otherwise, don't send the message, don't send the email, don't create the slides, don't have the conversation. I'm reducing the noise, so key results out front and center conversation. I'm reducing the noise, so key results out front and center and then we used to call these things cultural beliefs or a culture principles.

Speaker 1:

I'm now a huge fan of the term first principles. It's a term that technology companies have used quite a bit. People some people I've interacted with have talked a lot about it in the last year. I'm converted. First principles these are the first principles of this organization, and there are four or six of them. These are the way we need you to think and act and you need to adapt these. We used to work with organizations and keep them around for three or four or five years. Now, I think, the shelf life is two years max in most cases and a lot of cases, 12 months. We're updating them. This is the way we need. These are the things we need you to be thinking about. These are the principles that matter most in 2025.

Speaker 1:

If we're going to achieve these key results, then I need you thinking and we need to be acting in these four ways. They are our first principles. Before you think or do something different, consider this is what you're about to do. Does it match these things? In other words, like being scrappy or speaking up, or impacting the customer experience, or taking accountability, or looking ahead and being proactive like these things. That's the way we need you to think. So how do we help an organization focus? We give them key results. We have a set of first principles that are very applicable to right now. We're talking about them constantly and we're reducing the noise in this organization. We're making this organization lean, not only when it comes to the amount of people and departments and whatever else, but the amount of noise, because we're focusing on what matters most. That's what's on my mind in this episode of the Lead in 30 podcast.

Speaker 2:

Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a friend. Tap on the share button and text the link. Thanks for listening to the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.