Start With A Win - Anne & Frances: This 5-Day Leadership Framework Will Change Your Business

Starting point is 00:00:00 One of the reasons we're working on too many things is that it's much easier in most contexts to add a project than it is to stop a project. Pattern we observed among the leaders who were most effective were the leaders that were both solving problems at an accelerated pace and really taking responsibility for the success and well-being of their shareholders and employees and customers. They were doing both at the same time. And we have seen very many hard problems solved in a week. Everyone, everyone needs to hear this message.

Starting point is 00:00:28 Welcome to Start With a Win, where we unpack leadership, personal growth and development, and how to build a better business. Let's go. Coming to you from Area 15 Ventures and Start with Win headquarters, it's Adam Contos with Start with a Win. We're joined by two of the most powerful voices in leadership and business, Anne Morris and Francis Fry. Their best-selling authors, Harvard Business School faculty, world-renowned advisors, and the brains behind the leadership consortium. and the TED podcast, Fixable. Their book, Move Fast and Fixed Things, is a trusted leader's guide to solving hard problems,

Starting point is 00:01:04 and it's already being called a masterpiece on trust, leadership, and business. You may recognize Anne, as she's already been on Start with a Win, and Frances is joining today to talk about their book, so let's dive in. Welcome to Start with a Win, Frances and Ann. It's great to have you both on today.

Starting point is 00:01:22 How are you? Oh, we're great. Adam, I'm thrilled to be back. and thrilled to introduce you to my wife, Frances. Hi there. Francis, it's great to have you here. So we've obviously had Anne as a past guest on Start with the Wind. We dug deep into leadership and the amazing book that you both have written,

Starting point is 00:01:42 Move Fast and Fixed Things. I love it. Francis, I want to start with you today because Harvard Business School professor, a great mind in leadership and a huge part of this book. from your perspective, why did you write this book and what do you think people should take from it? Yeah, the main motivation was that a popular ethos was that if you were going to move fast, you had to break things. Right. So that there was a trade-off. And it gave speed a bad name, quite honestly. And so we saw, certainly we saw some people feeling like it was okay to break things

Starting point is 00:02:23 if I'm going fast. In fact, we see some of that going on today on quite a grand scale. But even worse, I think, were the companies that cared so much about taking care, they went slowly. And that's a tragedy. We know that if you want to really take care, you need to do it with the momentum. You need to move fast. And so we wanted to give speed. It's rightful reputation, which is it's an essential ingredient in making the world a better place. And it is not license to break things. Oh, I like that. Yeah. Well, and I want to get your perspective on this because it seems like when we say move fast and break things, people get a little on edge sometimes, especially the, you know, maybe somebody who's a little more conservative in their

Starting point is 00:03:21 their business leadership, boards of directors, things like that. They're kind of like, what's your perspective on that? Why is it okay that we call it fix things instead of break things? Yeah, well, I mean, as Francis said, it's the, it is the pattern that has been out there. And the assumption embedded in it is that you can either move fast or, you know, or, you know, protect the things you care about, including quality, including the needs of stakeholders. And this just didn't line up with our experience of the world. You know, we work with lots of different kinds of organizations who are all taking

Starting point is 00:04:01 some kind of big swing. You know, they're not calling us in if the ambition is low. Right. Right. And so, and the pattern we observed among the leaders who were most effective in those environments were the leaders that were both solving problems at an accelerated pace and really taking responsibility for the success and well-being. of their shareholders and employees and customers.

Starting point is 00:04:23 They were doing both at the same time. And we wanted to get that message out there because there's a lot of confusion, particularly with this banner of move fast and break things, but did define the innovation economy for a while, and we moved away from that. We're trying it out in some other sectors. Our perspective is not going so well.

Starting point is 00:04:40 But it's a better way. But there is a better way. There's a better way. And the evidence is overwhelming that you can do both. at the same time. Right. I love that, that philosophy. And I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I mean, this started a lot in Silicon Valley. Is that correct? You know, like Facebook and things like that. Is it? I mean, Francis, yeah, it was pre-Facebook. Facebook just, you know,

Starting point is 00:05:06 put it on company posters. And they've been around for a lot. In their IPO prospectus, right? That's like really received worldwide attention. I think it was pre-Facebook, but it did normalize it. Because when you have someone like Mark Zuckerberg saying, we're going to move fast and break things or other tech leaders, you think, oh, goodness, I guess if you move fast, you have to break things. And we're really on a mission to help people realize those are uneducated and or ineffective leaders that think it is an aspiration to move fast and break things and that you great leaders move fast and fix things. Right. It's more of an opportunistic mindset, it seems, when we look at what can we fix by moving fast?

Starting point is 00:05:51 And, you know, the old adage, you know, your first plan never survives the first contact with the enemy. And, you know, the enemy being business challenge or leadership issues in most of these cases. So, Francis, you teach at Harvard Business School a lot of leadership and technology. And I do want to touch on the technology aspect a little bit during this pod, especially with, you know, moving fast and fixing things in AI, because that's obviously the key word of the day. But, and I think it will be for quite some time. But how did you start getting introduced to this in higher education and the business school environment?

Starting point is 00:06:38 And what were your first perspectives on that? So I'm in the technology and operations department. So the operations part, it was always offensive to me that people told me that they were with some intentionality going to break things. Like, I just, it just didn't compute. You don't want to invite them over, that's for sure. No, and it was, like, those were the people that got the low grade, not the high grade. Right.

Starting point is 00:07:02 And out in practice, they were not the people that thrived. But then we saw people getting funded at unbelievable rates when they said they were going to move fast and break things. Like, it was almost a virtue as opposed to what my. deep roots tell me is that that's not at all a virtue. And so I think I came there out of protecting the operations of it all. Like I really care about sustained excellence. In my DNA, I care about winning and I care about sustained excellence. And I saw this virtue out there that was going to make things worse and people weren't embarrassed about it. I wanted to bring shame

Starting point is 00:07:46 to that and bring aspiration to the real solution. That's incredible. And Ann, you threw the word trust at this really quickly when we spoke last time. Obviously, that's got to be a big part of this. How did that start playing into it? Because, I mean, it's, I'm not going to trust somebody who's going to keep breaking my stuff, but, you know, or wasting money that is, you know, our shareholder or stakeholders money when I look at it from a true leader's perspective.

Starting point is 00:08:20 How did the trust start playing into that? Yeah. So the second part of the pattern we observed is, yes, you can both build trust and speed. But the secret sauce is to sequence them. And so we want you to build trust first, at which point you earn the right to sprint. And so when we talk about our playbook and we have fun with it with Monday 3, Friday. Really Monday through Thursday is not about going faster. It's about slowing down. It's actually about creating some good friction. Make sure you're solving the right problem. You know,

Starting point is 00:08:58 make sure you have the right people around the table. Make sure, you know, you're running smart experiments before you scale them. Make sure you're telling the right story so people know what the hell is going on. Then you get to sprint. And so when we pop the hood a little bit on, okay let's how do we do both at the same time the pattern that that shows up is let's do let's let's build trust first and then we can run gotcha okay yeah so they're not at odds and you brought up AI Adam it it it really what's really interesting to us is that it's a huge opportunity to both go faster and that's where most of the world's attention is right now but also to build more trust and what when we get involved in the AI conversation we're really trying to point people to the

Starting point is 00:09:42 build trust part because it's a huge opportunity there. We can, I mean, everything, you know, back to our, you know, playbook, everything we talk about, make sure you're solving the right problem, right? There's a huge AI opportunity there to actually get, get to, you know, get to the heart of the issue faster. That's amazing. Francis, I mean, it's, what does that trust concept mean to you as it's and it seemed i've heard you both repeatedly say these aren't at odds with each other yeah i mean it's and they're sequential it's yeah and i the way i would frame it is that trust is a foundational okay and you build other things on top of the foundation you may you can't build the house and then go to the foundation so trust is not something that can be postponed

Starting point is 00:10:33 and will fix it later doesn't work you have have to do it first. And if there is a breakdown in trust, you have to address it immediately. Now, what's fortunate is that the myths about trust that are out there don't hold. One of which is that it takes a long time to build. Not if you know how it's constructed, it doesn't. So we have to do it first, but in our cheeky Monday to Friday, you know, suggesting that hard problems can be solved in a week. And we have seen very many hard problems solved in a week. And if you're taking a year, we think you are just way taking too much time. So a week is a useful metaphor, but you can't go fast until Friday. And to give you a perspective of trust, it's a Tuesday thing.

Starting point is 00:11:20 The only thing that comes before trust is make sure you're solving the right problem. Okay. Because we get enamored in the symptoms. We get seduced by the symptoms. But it's an infinite game to address symptoms. You two are the perpetual GSD people. get stuff done. I love this. And the and your book, I love the playbook part of it, that Monday through Friday that you've mentioned. And you brought that up a moment ago also. So let's let's dig into this Monday through Friday because we do have a lot of action oriented people on the podcast. They want to, they want a GSD. And by Friday, I mean, I'd like to have a weekend where I'm like, whoa, I got some good

Starting point is 00:12:05 stuff done this week. And foundationally, obviously, it starts with leadership and the alignment around the organization through that. But, you know, you mentioned solve the right problem, Francis. Take me through that real quick. Let's, you know, let's dig into this week. I think you guys had to pump the brakes with your publisher because you guys wanted to do things like hour by hour. We really did. We had it eight to nine, nine to ten. And they were like nobody, nobody wants to read this. This only is appealing to you too. And I think they did a real, our publisher did a very, very helpful intervention. Well, for the record, I would have fallen into the like the hour by hour piece. So I'll be the third person there. I know. You and four other readers. So I think

Starting point is 00:12:51 it was a commercial intervention. There we go. But I'll take the weekly thing. I mean, that's how my calendar is blocked out is. What am I doing the next five minutes? So, So Monday, when we think about solving the real problem, it goes, there are some fundamentals it goes back to. From my operations perspective, I always think of like the classic operating systems and the Toyota production system, if anyone is an old school operations thinker. This was the first world famous operating system that even though they had the exact same ingredients as every other auto manufacturer, they were 10x more effective. And I love 10x. And when we went and looked at like, why are they 10x more effective?

Starting point is 00:13:34 One of the reasons was what they called the five Ys. And the five Ys was what the rest of us loosely think of as root cause analysis. But whenever you see a problem, please don't solve it, even though you want to. Because you will never, it will never be satiated. And so ask, why does this problem exist? And don't solve that either. and ask why does that exist and don't solve that either. And the five whys is that in the auto manufacturing context,

Starting point is 00:14:08 they found that it typically took five whys before you should start solving what is much closer to the root of the problem. Now, in practice, we find that things are typically not as complicated than that. But my goodness, if you are solving the symptom or one or two whys, you're probably doing it prematurely. So it's not as catchy, but the three-wise is probably for the rest of us is doing there. So I think that's a very big part of it. Now, when you ask why does this exist in a non, it's not like things you can drop on your foot, right?

Starting point is 00:14:45 And that's the benefit of an auto manufacturing environment. But it's more in the leadership realm. It's more in the interaction realm. Oh, you're going to come across some sensitive topics. And this is where it is really important. in the words of the great organizational theorist, Chris Argerus, you need to learn to discuss the undiscussable. And I promise you, if it's a problem of any kind of magnitude

Starting point is 00:15:14 that's worthy of your time and attention, there will be an undiscussable. And having the courage to discuss it, here's the catch. You don't even have to be very skilled at discussing it, but you have to have the courage to discuss it. You are almost certainly going to find an undiscussable on your journey to the three to five wise, and we need to discuss it or else you'll veer off. And if you're solving the wrong problem, it really doesn't matter what else you do.

Starting point is 00:15:43 Wow. Have the courage to discuss the undiscussable. There it is. Thank you for that, Chris Arjuris. Yes. Yeah. If there's one thing your listeners take away from this conversation, it's that, bad headline as a way to unlock performance. The research is overwhelming and Arjuris really got it

Starting point is 00:16:03 started, but teams that not only tolerate conflict, but lean into it, get curious about it, make it discussable, can reach orders of magnitude more impact than other teams, even with the same level of talent in the room. Amazing. I love this. I mean, we're starting a week strong here, folks with Monday. I know. I love it. All right. So grab your cup of coffee. We're headed on to Tuesday. Yeah. And you talked about trust. Take us into this. Tuesday, Tuesday, you know, Tuesday morning, you're waking up with what we call Tuesday morning confidence because you know you're solving the right problem and you're starting to build some momentum. So what we want you to do on Tuesday is come up with a good enough plan to solve the problem. This is distinct from a perfect plan,

Starting point is 00:16:54 which we have never seen out in the wild. We want you to get into the organizational sandbox, give yourself permission to play. We look at problems through the lens of trust. We think it's a very powerful lens. So we advise people to start there, but you don't have to stop there. We really just want you to be trying on Tuesday.

Starting point is 00:17:13 But if you are going to use trust, and we recommend it, again, you've got to pop the hood. And so trust is driven by, it's an output of a combination of logic, authenticity and empathy and we want you to look at your problem through that lens there is a we like to make it personal problems right there is a stakeholder in pain at the center of your problem if you have a call even if you have a culture problem like really get in touch with

Starting point is 00:17:44 who's who's in pain at the center of the problem bring in this trust lens tip it's not the trust collapse all at one that these pillars you know all get wobbly at the same time it's typically just one and so figure out is it authenticity logic or empathy and then come up with a draft plan to steady that wobble okay so i'll i'll give you an example just to bring this to life uh you know we did a lot of work with uber back in the day francis led that and can field any questions I was cheering her on from the sidelines. But Uber was wobbling on empathy, in our language, wobbling on empathy with many of its stakeholders.

Starting point is 00:18:30 All. You could probably round it off to all. But, you know, drivers were having trouble making a living wage. Riders were afraid of drivers. Drivers were afraid of riders. And so in that period, the organization just ran a bunch of experiments about how to bring empathy into those relationships, you know, tipping, adding tipping to the app was a game changing

Starting point is 00:18:58 for drivers at the time in terms of the economics of taking that gig. They added a whole bunch of safety features for both riders and drivers that everyone felt comfortable, you know, getting into this, you know, tiny little car with a stranger. So that's what we're talking about. We're talking about experimentation. We're talking about trying about trying things. And at the end of the day, on Tuesday, you're going to be a whole lot smarter than when you started. It seems like you need a pretty strong culture by the time you're deep into Tuesday. I mean, this is the formation for a lot of that, doesn't it? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:29 Sometimes culture is the problem you're solving, though, Adam. And so I would say that independent of the problem, this is the playbook for the solution. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, it's we're really stretching our leadership muscles right now. I mean, clearly. Yeah, the culture we care about by Tuesday is that you are taking action. Gotcha.

Starting point is 00:19:54 Yeah. That you are in motion in response to a problem, which typically introduces a whole bunch of relief into the system. People know these problems. It's not lost on anyone that these problems exist. But what you're doing by Tuesday is you're in motion and taking action. Okay. And that's a huge cultural ad. The pace point that Anne is making is really essential.

Starting point is 00:20:22 You know, if you've ever been in an organization that did an employee engagement survey. And they get back to you three months later with the results. Why was it not three hours later? Like, why was it three months later? And then they tell you what their plan is. It's been three months. You haven't solved everything and you're coming to take the victory lap. Like pace matters.

Starting point is 00:20:42 You will be forgiven so much if you do it with pace. And that pace of three months, Literally, that pace should go from months to hours. The employee, the employee, it's such a good example. So usually nothing happens between like when you take the first time you take the survey and then a year later when you take the survey again, you have the same answers. You are identifying the same problem. So at minimum, for three months is, you know, that's a stretch goal.

Starting point is 00:21:09 At minimum, you've got to beat that year marker because you're sending out the same fucking survey. It's so true. and they're digital for crying out loud it's not like you're manually computing these things so yeah i'm with you i mean right now with ai you could you can complete the employee survey i literally think the analysis is done in hours and your plan for many of these things i don't even think it would take a week to solve but let's say you're going to take an entire week okay but that's not the that is not the metabolic rate of almost every organization and you're You know what? It's accepted practice. It boggles my mind. But the solution isn't to come in

Starting point is 00:21:52 and move fast and break things, which is the license that some people want to take. We want you to move fast and fix things along the way. And you will get in your wake, you will get so much credit and you will create such a positive externality. Well, we're going to move slow and we're going to create committees about things. Definitely create a committee. Oh, we could just have a whole free form on committees. Committee with no decision rights. No decision rights, but a lot of time. Go have some meetings.

Starting point is 00:22:24 All right. Wednesday. Francis, take us into Wednesday here. Yeah, so if we end Tuesday with a good enough plan, we're going to end Wednesday with an even better plan. And here's how we can guarantee whatever plan you have will get better, which is talk to people who you haven't already spoken to. So whatever you did on Tuesday, you probably did it with the usual suspects, which is your go-to people that you use in either your organizational structure or the people

Starting point is 00:22:52 you use to solve problems. And it's great. We want you to do that on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, we want you to look around the table and say, whose voice is not represented here? And let's invite them into the room. I always, my classic example of this is that at the Harvard Business School, senior faculty get together every single year and talk about the woe of June, the woe of the woes of junior faculty. And we repeat, just like we were just mocked, we repeat these woes. I've been at this school for 27 years. We repeat these woes every year. And we seemingly make no progress. Well, we have a Wednesday problem because we never talk to the junior faculty about the problems. No junior faculty are in that meeting. No, no. We get into a room that we call the big room,

Starting point is 00:23:38 I'm not making it up, and only senior faculty are there. And that's where we talk about junior faculty and it's Groundhog Day. So we have a Wednesday problem. So many organizations have a Wednesday problem. And so the metaphor we have is bring empty chairs to the table, point to them and say whose voice is not represented here, who has a stake in this conversation. Invite them into the conversation. That's like the first half of Wednesday. Guaranteed to make things better if and only if you convince them to give their unique perspective, not their perspective that's in common with you. And if the Harvard Business School, senior faculty, invite junior faculty, what they're going to try to do is impersonate senior faculty. So they're just going to say

Starting point is 00:24:18 what they think we want to hear. So you have to overcome that by not celebrating what's in common. It's by celebrating what's uncommon. I want to bring your different perspective, but then I have to convince you, I want your different perspective because everything you're going, you're going to believe that you're going to get scooby snacks from us. If you say things that we already agree with don't want you to say those and so that's what wednesday is bring new people to the table and set the conditions that we cherish their unique perspectives guaranteed i don't care what your problem was i don't care what you had at the end of tuesday guaranteed at the end of wednesday you will have an even better plan i love that so many people enter that room thinking it's a popularity

Starting point is 00:25:02 contest and it's we or that it's consensus or that i want to or that we're going to look for common ground scarcely, I can think of very few things that have done more damage than consensus and common ground. Right. Tell me about blind spots. Or that it's gratuitous or that it's political. Like we're talking about being more effective at solving problems. I love that. And solving problems quickly.

Starting point is 00:25:29 That is the value of opening up that room. You know, another example that we see all the time is like social media totally missed the boat on child safety, in part because very few decisions were made with people who had children around the table. You know, so these are Wednesday, there are very serious consequences to getting Wednesday wrong. I mean, once you have this lens, you'll just walk around and you'll be like, how did they come up with, oh, it was a Wednesday problem. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:02 Like, how could you, oh, right, because you only had these sorts of people around the table. Of course, that's what you thought. Of course. a little crazy. And we really like people who are really like us. And so our our mantra for Wednesday is make new friends. Yeah. I love that. I love this Wednesday problem. I mean, it's, we're recording this on a Thursday. So, you know, we're hopefully we made the Wednesday problem work this week. But that's, talk to people you haven't talked to yet. I love that concept. You have a stake in the problem. And convince them. Yeah. That you want their unique

Starting point is 00:26:38 insights. And it will take convincing. Because I promise you, the first words they say, without you knowing it, are going to be trying to be like you, are going to be to try to mimic you. Yep. Amazing. All right. Ann, let's talk Thursday. Are we at Thursday? We're at Thursday. Thursday's storytelling day, Adam. And for the simple reason that we have to work with our human biology here, we're now telling people about the plan. By the end of Wednesday, we have a plan that we feel really good about. And now we got to tell people about it so they know what to do, not only in our presence, but also in our absence. Right. We want to influence behavior at scale as human beings. We think in metaphor and learn through stories. It is, it is literally embedded

Starting point is 00:27:26 in our DNA. And so we really want you to work with that reality when you are out there telling people now what you want them to do differently. We're solving problems. We're taking new actions. So there's a structure to effective change storytelling. We want to honor the past. We want to create a compelling change mandate, a very strong why to behave differently. And then we want to describe a rigorous and optimistic future. We want to describe the future in vivid detail and make it clear how everyone in the system is going to benefit. And to do that well, you can imagine, please don't share your first draft, nor your second, nor your third. And so eight to nine, draft one, nine to ten, draft two.

Starting point is 00:28:17 And this is a ten hour day. Like, I think we share things like at draft one and a half when we should be sharing things at draft 10 to 15. Great writers I have learned and I'm not one. they revise so much more than people like me do. And it is that revision. It's the great quote of, I apologize for sending a long letter. I didn't have time to write a short letter.

Starting point is 00:28:48 This is a really crucial part to layer on top of Thursday. Yeah, you know you're getting closer if the message is getting shorter. Yes. And so we love the example. of T-Mobile's Uncarrier campaign because they got the entire,

Starting point is 00:29:07 they reduced the entire story to a single word that they essentially made up, which is we're going to be everything this industry is not. You know, it was introduced to a moment of time when the thing that united us

Starting point is 00:29:18 as an American people was how much we hated our cell phone providers. And so they saw this open space on the chess board and they went for it. They came up with this beautiful campaign. We experienced it

Starting point is 00:29:31 as an external campaign, but the power of it was that internally, everyone got it. And you, you know, because the employee handbook, you know, the strategic plan only goes so far in terms of telling you what to do. We have to understand it in a way that in that I can make a, I can make a decision that is on plan, on mission, on strategy in the absence of someone telling me what to do. And that's going to require a very compelling story. So we have a, you know it when you see it test, Adam. And it is, if I tell the story to Anne, when I've understood it deeply and can describe it simply, I tell it to Anne, Anne tells it to you, Adam. Do you, Adam, understand it as if I said it to you directly? Oh, good question. And now here's the real test. You're going to go home, Adam, and describe it to a loved one at home. Do they understand it as if I did it directly? That's when you're done. So understood in our absence, by their family.

Starting point is 00:30:30 Okay. The only way that works is if I took, I have to understand it so deeply. So T-Mobile didn't start with a word. They started with a huge, rich campaign, and they revised, revised, revised. So they understand it deeply so that we can describe simply so that it's understood in our absence by their family. That's what you're doing on Thursday. It takes all day. It takes all day.

Starting point is 00:30:51 I love this. We need to talk more about this in higher education, I think. I mean, somebody in higher education here, you, you, you, all are in higher education for crying out loud or to boards of directors things like that yeah everyone everyone needs to hear this message absolutely leaders are teachers and i actually think this message needs to be uh internalized by all of us right i agree there's something to be said about you know clear simplicity and we give each other false credit like if you like take the finance shop in any organization

Starting point is 00:31:28 and they speak with a lot of acronyms and a lot of numbers and we somehow give them prestige for being inaccessible and complicated again i want to bring shame to inaccessible and complicated i want to reserve the greatest praise to simplicity on the other side of the complexity i don't want shallow simplicity but we have to understand deeply and describe simply but we just it's that same false credit that we that we were giving so so much of food fast and fixed things is just reassociating who the heroes are like just re-attributing who the heroes are i love this it's it's so funny and i have to give a shout out to my wife kelly when i bring a problem home to her a solution or some strategy or something like that she always looks at me at the end of it and she goes clarity

Starting point is 00:32:15 is kindness yes it's so kind it's a wonderful good it's a beautiful mantra yeah clear is kind Which means, Adam, go try again. Well, it's, but try again, honey. And that was adorable. Go try again. Exactly. Exactly. The other communication, I'll just say one more thing in cases helpful to your listeners.

Starting point is 00:32:39 The other communication challenge we see is that people count themselves out. They give the long version. It doesn't land. And they decide that they're not good messengers that, you know, know, oh, public speaking is in my strength or, this is a learning by doing sport. You look at the best comedians in the world. They would never dare get up on a stage where there were serious stakes without workshopping it in small rooms, you know, sometimes dozens of times. And then we expect as leaders to be able to get up there and do it the first time. And if we can, you know,

Starting point is 00:33:20 we just, we count ourselves out. We decide, oh, we're not good at this. No, this is, this This is all about practice. Every one of us can be a good enough communicator. You don't have license to call yourself a good, bad communicator to not do Thursday. It is simply about the repetition. You have to go. And listen, you don't have to go to Cleveland and Akron and all the small cities. We get to do it now remotely.

Starting point is 00:33:42 Like, thank goodness. There we go. And we can test it on AI as well. You can test it in so many places. Going back there. Put a virtual audience up there to beat you up. Ask AI to create. you as if you're in Akron and then ask it to critique you as if you're somewhere else do it I love that

Starting point is 00:33:59 all right Francis take us home Friday so Friday's my favorite day because now we finally get to go fast because we've earned the right and there are a and so we give a whole host of speed accelerants of how to go fast I'll just tell you a couple of them um the main one is that we usually go slowly when we have hoarded decision rights So when we look at why things are slow, it's because we're waiting for approvals. We have to go and run it up the flagpole. We have to, oh, well, they're not meeting till three weeks from Friday, like all of this. So empowerment, empowering other people to remove yourself from the bottleneck of decision rights is really important.

Starting point is 00:34:45 Having said that, I can't give you decision rights if I don't develop you in order to be able to honor the decision rights. So empowerment really has an implicit developmental undertone. Make sure you have fewer decision rights tomorrow than you do today as a result of the development you're doing on your team. And if you haven't been able to delegate means that you have been ineffective at development. And so that's what one of my problems that I would then go and work on. So I think that's a remove the decisions as a bottleneck. that will be, it's part of every speeding up process is someone somewhere is slowing things down. And so that's what I would say is the first one.

Starting point is 00:35:30 The second one is that we need radical prioritization on Friday. My goodness, we are working on too many things. And one of the reasons we're working on too many things is that it's much easier in most contexts to add a project than it is to stop a project. Well, the net result of that is that when I'm working on something, I'm in line behind all of the projects. And so if you don't take some of those projects away, it will necessarily take me a long time to finish this one. So sometimes the greatest way I can accelerate my project is for you to take the work and process, which is an operations term, but take the whip, the work and process out of the system using radical prioritization. we become lazy and not rigorous in our thinking by saying, oh, all ideas are a good idea.

Starting point is 00:36:23 Oh, yeah, let's do that. Let's add that. And I want people to feel when you add something, unless there was people were super underutilized, we just had all of this excess capacity. Tell me what you are taking away that's at least as much as that. When you bring that level of rigor in, that's going to help things go really fast.

Starting point is 00:36:45 because we're unintentionally gunking up the works with really well-intentioned things. But when we go into an organization, we're like, well, let's just look at the projects and look, what capacity do these projects mandate? And then what capacity do you have? It's sometimes off by 5x. Wow. This isn't a small problem. This is a big problem. So those are two of my favorite speed accelerants. And I could go on and on. I'll do a third, just super quick. Okay. I mean, since you insist, Adam. Let's say you have something that's a high-priority project. You want to take a lesson from what Stripe has done,

Starting point is 00:37:23 and Stripe is a really well-managed company, really, really beautifully organized. They have what they call ambulance projects, which is you get to stick the red light on top of it, and it goes through. I think it's really important to have fast-track projects that get to go into the high-occupancy vehicle lane, that get to put the ambulance sign on it.

Starting point is 00:37:42 you want to plan for those you that is we already want to have a vernacular in place so that we can then just say this is one that gets sped that that gets to be sped up so you have to have a vehicle for ambulance project yeah i think Etsy actually gets credit for the ambulances yeah but at stripe they have a name for these projects too that you get to speed ahead to get the resources and attention you need i can't imagine how many times Etsy doesn't get the full credit it deserves right i think i love i apologize etzy i apologize everybody check out etzy i think i'm sure that's direction i buy from etzy etzy's awesome awesome my favorite hat has come from etzy there you go good good little gifts from etzy this has been amazing everybody make sure you check out anne

Starting point is 00:38:30 and francis at anne and francis dot com that's a n n-e-a-n-n-n-d-fr-n-c-es dot com they do some amazing work for some incredible companies, everything from advisory work, coaching, speaking. Check out their fixable podcast. It's a TED podcast, as well as the books that they've written, particularly move fast and fix things. You can find it where all the best business books are. Please make sure you check them out, as well as the leadership consortium, an amazing, amazing organization to help build better leaders.

Starting point is 00:39:06 So Anne and Francis, I have a question I ask all of our incredible leaders on start with a win. Francis, we'll start with you today. How do you start your day with a win? Oh, very simple. Put all the dogs in the car, go to the beach. Love that. It does not matter what I, what yesterday was like or what today is going to be like. If I start on the beach with the sheer joy and unconditional love of the dogs and the wide open expanse,

Starting point is 00:39:36 of the water, it is a win. I love that. That's amazing. And it's your turn. Yeah, Adam, for me, it definitely starts the night before. One thing I've learned in my old age, I was better about this in my 20s, but as I've gotten older, I have discovered that I really have to, I really need a practice of coming out of, you know, fight or flight mode, like really ratcheting down my nervous system the night before. And so for me, that has been an evening yoga practice that I'm quite committed to. It doesn't have, it doesn't take that long, 20 or 30 minutes, but then it sets me up to actually sleep, which sets me up for the next day. That's fantastic. You guys have bookended the perfect day here. So I love it. And yeah. And then I jump in

Starting point is 00:40:29 the car and get with Francis and go to the beach with the dogs. on a good day. That's awesome. Thank you so much for both of you being on the podcast today. Thanks for all you're doing to help improve these businesses for all the stakeholders, for that matter. Everybody from, you know, the shareholders down to the customers and everybody in between. All of this matters so much in building great companies for great people. And thanks for starting your day with a win. I appreciate seeing you both today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you, Adam. We're big fans.

Starting point is 00:41:02 We're big fans and we'll probably be here.

Start With A Win - Anne & Frances: This 5-Day Leadership Framework Will Change Your Business

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