Latest / Unfinished Business / Are You the Bottleneck? In the Middle Of Mastery Vol. 8
Transcript
- Kimberly Griggs: Well you guys, welcome back to Unfinished Business. And this is the show where we get to have candid conversations about what it really takes to build a business from the ground up. And as usual, I'm so excited for our monthly segment in the middle of Mastery, where we get to sit down with business coach Rory Shepherd from Action Coach to unpack the lessons in how to grow your business. And today we are talking about one of the most challenging pillars, I think, of business growth and running a business, which is operations. You know, I don't know about you guys, but if you feel like you're working harder than ever, your team has more questions than you have answers, your customers are waiting for a long time, and you find yourself constantly putting out fires day after day, I think this episode is gonna be for you. So Rory. I want to today to help listeners identify the most common operational bottlenecks and more importantly, you know, what you can do about them. So let's begin here. If someone is listening, aka me, my ears are wide open, Rory Sheppard: Well. Kimberly Griggs: takes to heart everything that you will share about these bottlenecks and you know what what they're doing. long term. What do they stand to gain by paying more attention to this business pillar in particular and really giving it the attention that it deserves? What do they stand to gain by doing that? Rory Sheppard: I think I mean, it's the removal of some of the things that you described, right? So that Firefighting, the anxiety, the customer frustration, the team frustration, right? if I'm walking away from those, then what do I gain? is there peace of mind? I get to relax when I go home? I don't take work home with me. so many of us we started a business with with a With a dream with a set of goals that, you know, this business was gonna give us a lifestyle or a a chance to live the way we wanted. And pick your number, three years, five years, nine years in, it's not that way, right? I bought myself a job or I started a business and I ended up with a job, right? I I quit working for the for the idiot and started working for the crazy person, right? I mean, so You know, whatever it is, right? Right. I mean, but it we all I mean, it's real, right? And so Kimberly Griggs: Very poignant. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Rory Sheppard: there is so many opportunities to to regain those those hopes and dreams that we had when we started. Kimberly Griggs: I love it. Well Rory Sheppard: And I think that's that's what we have to gain, is that when we slow down long enough to get operations correct the first time so that we're not fighting fires every day but we're actually doing those things that we need to do operationally. The business can give us those things that we expected it to give us when we started. Kimberly Griggs: Well that's that's enough motivation for me. Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: okay, so let's start by defining it because I if there's anyone listening that feels, you know, the same way as me, a business that that is growing but still, you know, really facing growing pains by bringing new people in and not having as dialed in processes as they would like to have. When people hear the word operations, you know, like I do, I usually think of systems, SOPs and software, right? But you've you've led operations for big companies, H E B, Whataburger. What how do you define operations, this great big pillar? Rory Sheppard: Yeah, so I think I mean absolutely the components you you laid out, right? Systems, process, programs, Those kind of things have to be there. But what you want operationally is consistent, predictable, reliable results. And so I know that operations are are working or that I have an operational foundation that does what it's supposed to do when not only me, but my customers can depend on a level of consistency and reliability that's predictable for them. the example I would use is there are restaurants that we go to that one day the service is off the charts phenomenal. And then the next day it's I can't find a waiter, I can't get serviced, food's cold, those kind of things. Do you recommend that restaurant to your friends? No, right? I Kimberly Griggs: Almost never. Rory Sheppard: mean, I can't because I can't guarantee from one day to the next or one encounter to the next what kind of consistent response I'm going to get from a service perspective. And so operationally, I want a consistent level of service so that my customers can depend on me, rely on me, and know that when they come to me for service or come to me for a product, It's gonna meet some level of expectation. and so wherever that baseline is, I just need to know that I can always hit the baseline and then operationally I improve over time. So many people want to deliver a wow level of service, right? To, you know, knock the customer socks off. But they can do it one time, but they can't do it every time. And so I would much rather get, you know, C plus or B minus service on a consistent level because then I know what I'm getting with the expectation that's going to improve from there. So what do I have to do as a as a business leader, a business owner? running a department to make sure what's the stake in the ground, I'm gonna say operationally, this is the baseline. And I'm gonna hit it every time. Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: that's where I would start with the definition. And then depending on what part of the operations I'm in, and I'll give you an example. So when I ran the shared service center at H E B, when I started over there, we probably had between 55 and 60,000 people that we generated a paycheck for every week. And then over the 10 years that I ran that service center, we went from that number to about 80,000 people that we're paying on a weekly basis. But we were a cost center. so I mean, yes, everybody loves to get a paycheck, but your customer is not willing to pay for that. And so are you a cost center or are you generating revenue, right? Payroll was always gonna be a cost center, right? So operationally, We need to be as efficient and as effective as we possibly could be. Kimberly Griggs: Because that has a direct impact on the bottom line. Yeah. Rory Sheppard: Right. Absolutely. I mean, every every penny we spent generating payroll was a penny that didn't go to the bottom line. it was not just consistent, reliable, predictable, but then it was once we got a baseline and said we know that we can operate at this level you know, consistently, then it's how do we start driving costs out, getting more efficient, more effective? How can we use the same number of people today at 60,000 people were serving. Can we go all the way to 80,000 without adding any headcount? Right, which is what Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: we did. we went up 33% of the checks that we were producing, basically the same headcount, at 80,000. because you're ringing out every last, penny of cost, efficiency, effectiveness that we could. So back to your question it's all those things, right? It's systems, it's process, it's checklists, it's what do we have to do to know, that it worked, I'm doing one percent audit instead of ten percent audits, right? Whatever that is, so that I guarantee that I know. The numbers are being produced, checks are going out the right way, taking Kimberly Griggs: Hmm. Rory Sheppard: care of customers. Kimberly Griggs: You know, as you're saying that, what comes to mind is kind like thinking like an engineer. And so that feels intimidating because even just like, in your example, how did you pay twenty thousand extra people without increasing cost? Like how did you go about attacking that problem? Rory Sheppard: So the easy question, I say easy, the an easy point of view, maybe is a better way to put it, is how can this process fail? and if I generate a hundred and fifty different ways the process could fail. I can't tackle all 150 on day one, but I can definitely tackle one at a time, right? And start knocking each one of those off so that I have fewer and fewer points of failure or fewer and fewer ways that it can fail. I mean, it is an engineering problem, but boiling it back down to how did it fail this time, right? Or how could it fail in the future and saying, What preventative measures can we put in place to prevent that from happening? Right. How do we not go ahead. Kimberly Griggs: So is that a practical is that a practical takeaway? I mean, is that a magic wand question, like to start there by asking, you know, Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: how many different ways could this process fail? Okay. Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Or so from a Kind of a lean and six sigma kind of process engineering perspective, it would be what's the output that I have to produce? Right? What does the customer expect? What does what does good look like for them? And then what do I have to do to produce that? And what inputs do I have to have into the process so that I can produce that good output? And I just keep working my way back through the process on. What does what does good look like from this process step? And then what inputs do I have to have? What what reports, what data fields, what things from my customer, what do I have to have to generate that high quality output? And then how do I guarantee those inputs come into me? Because if I if I have a process in control is what they would say. So it's predictable, it's it within a range. I know that. There's not outliers above a point and there's not outliers below that point unless something changes. because I know what my inputs are. So if in your space, my customer intake form, What questions do I need to be asking them to make sure that I have all the inputs so that when I generate an output, it meets their expectation. What's the minimum I have to ask? What are a couple of bonus things would be beneficial, but I absolutely have to know what the minimum is so that I can guarantee an output for you. So I mean Back to our restaurant, when I'm taking a, you know, an order from customers, What are the three, five, seven questions that I have to make sure that I ask every time to make sure, right? You ordered steak, then what's the next question I have to ask? How would you like that cooked? Right? I mean, and then I need Kimberly Griggs: How do you like it cooked? Yeah. Yeah. Rory Sheppard: to make sure that I'm capturing that, right? and it's written llegibly on the order that I'm giving to the you know, the cook in the back, right? Whatever that is. What are those steps that I gotta Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: do? Kimberly Griggs: You know, that that's such a great example that I think we can all see points of failure on that because we've all been to restaurants and that's probably why a lot of people choose franchises is because maybe it's not perfect, but I do tend to see more consistency in some of those things. Like Rory Sheppard: Mm-hmm. Kimberly Griggs: as an example, we'll brag on Texas Roadhouse. Texas Roadhouse I think does an excellent job of Asking if you've been there before, seating you at the table, making sure that you know you know who your server's going to be. Like they there are some things kind of built into that onboarding as you're walking to your table. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, Rory Sheppard: Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: so that's kind of an example of what you know it feels like to work inside of a well-run organization operationally, right? But let's let's get into some of the individual bottlenecks as people are kind of dive diving in, because it's still real big to me. Like this still seems seems like a real Rory Sheppard: Yep, absolutely. Kimberly Griggs: big process. let's let's talk about the first one, which definitely fall into this category, but where the owner becomes the bottleneck. So as the businesses grow and there's many decisions that still flow through one person, You know, and I I think this is a a point where a lot of businesses, even if they are growing and adding lots of team members, they're still, you know, the person with all the knowledge. why does that tend to happen? Rory Sheppard: So the first easy one is it's a control issue, right? I I have trouble as the owner yielding control or I want to make sure that it's done my way or exactly the right way every time. another would be that I I I believe, right, that I'm the one that has the the secret decoder ring or I know all the answers, right? And so you need to come to me. When you face an issue or when you've got a question, I've got the yes on my chest, I can answer that question. And I can tell you that, superhero syndrome, is the part that is probably the number one killer. you know, the control and then I've got the answers, right? is the thing that's that hamstrings us. And when you ask somebody, and I can I can probably ask you, why don't you delegate that work? You got a team, why don't you give it to them? And you're I mean, an answer that always comes out is it would take me more time to explain how to do it to somebody else than to just do it myself. Kimberly Griggs: Yeah, tha that's exactly what I would have said. Rory Sheppard: Right, right, right. And and you're right. It will. The first time, the third time, the fifth time, right? I mean, but somewhere along the line, if they can do it at you pick your percentage with where you want it to be, but 70 or 80 percent as good or as efficient as you could, how much time did that just give you back? And then I know this would be terrible, but and heaven forbid that they can do it as well or better than you at the 10th or the 15th time. Right. I mean, wouldn't that be terrible? Right. That you could you could find somebody that could do it better than you, right? But the only way you'll know whether you can get to that spot is to explain it that first time. Right? Suffer through it's gonna be longer and slower and not done exactly right. the first three, four, five times that it's done. and we think there's only one way to do things. But I mean Pretty sure that it was Bill Gates that said, you know, if you want to find out how to do something the easiest or most efficient way, give it to a lazy person, right? I mean, because they're Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: they're gonna cut out all the things, right? That Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: that you built in, right? Because you thought it had to be perfect at step one instead of perfect at the end, let somebody else experiment with it, And when you end up with the right product at the end, on a consistent basis, then you've just trained somebody to do something that you thought you were the only person that could do that. Andy, Andy Stanley, his line is as the business owner, as the leader, right, you should only do those things that only you can do. You should only do those things that only you can do. Right. And so how many of those are there? Right. I mean Kimberly Griggs: Follow-up question. Yeah, well that's the I was gonna ask. how many times do you see this happen or what is your experience if the owner really doesn't know the answer to that question? Rory Sheppard: Well, I mean, because they haven't ever tried, right? Or they haven't ever spent any time thinking about it. I mean, it it's another one of those questions that I probably ought to spend a little bit of time going. What are those things that I am the only one that should be able to do that? there are gonna be decisions, right? I mean I've got a an image that I think is pretty powerful called the decision tree. And it's not the decision tree that you think of. It's like a physical looking at your front yard and saying, There's a there's a tree, And so there are root decisions, So if if I make this decision and make it wrong, it will kill the whole business. it's at the root level. There's another level of decisions that's at the trunk level. Right. So it could be pretty devastating to make the wrong decision. That's a trunk level decision. But then there's branch level decisions and leaf level decisions that we as the owner try to make all the time. a leaf level decision. So if you lost a leaf on your tree, is the tree gonna die? are you even gonna know that that decision was made and made wrong? No. so Just going through and classifying decisions and those things that I need to be in control of. As the owner, absolutely I need to be in control of root level decisions. I need to at least be in the conversation in every trunk level decision that's made. but branches and leaves. I mean, how much time do I really need to spend there? I need to build trust in my team, And that goes back to other conversations that we've had over the last few months, but I need to delegate those kind of decisions down to people on my team so that they can make them. And then let's have a conversation, at that branch level decision, yeah, that is not the way I would have made the decision. But next time, let's do it this way. I mean, hate losing that branch. Kimberly Griggs: Okay, let's let's have a little fun with this and use the restaurant as the analogy or the business, but let's Rory Sheppard: Right. Kimberly Griggs: let's let's identify what those are just for my own clarity. So root root level decisions on a restaurant. moving locations. Rory Sheppard: Yep. Store location. Am I gonna be open or closed on Sunday? Right. Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Trunk level Rory Sheppard: am I operating from ten to ten, ten to eleven? I'm not open for lunch, right? I'm gonna open at four o'clock and work four to eleven, those could be trunk level decisions that I ought to be all in, but it probably isn't gonna kill the business if I don't make it. But I still absolutely need to be in that conversation. Kimberly Griggs: Okay. Then branching. Yeah. Rory Sheppard: Branch level decisions, right? Could be, you know, is chicken parmesan gonna be a menu item or is it not? Right? Is it I mean, if that's my signature dish, right? I mean that could go back down to I mean that could be a trunk level decision. Kimberly Griggs: Okay, so I I was g I was just gonna say because I guess in my mind I was thinking those would be decisions that you'd wanna be a part of because it affects food costs, like or you know, cost. So it but is it Rory Sheppard: Yeah, but do I I mean Kimberly Griggs: but that's subjective because if I have a manager that's doing that, then I that should be a task that I'm delegating, right? Okay, okay, that's making more sense. Rory Sheppard: That's right. Yeah. And then have a conversation, right? I need to be informed, probably the week you're making that decision or you're saying we're gonna go over the whole menu, right? I mean, I might just say, Yeah, go make all the decisions, but give me your outcome before you print new menus, I might have a question or two before you make that branch level decision. Leaf level decisions, right? Kimberly Griggs: And then Yeah. Rory Sheppard: That's gonna be Who am I hiring to be the you know wait staff or in the kitchen or busing tables, right? I mean Those are leaf level decisions, right? I should not get hung up on those. Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Okay, that that was good. I like that analogy and you know, really spending some time kind of identifying in your own world what that looks like. Okay, so now we've got definitely an exercise that we could walk through for you being the bottleneck. let's talk about Yes. Yes, please, please. Rory Sheppard: Yeah. So so can I give you one other kind of analogy in that space? So I want you to think of you as the bottleneck, as the bottom of the funnel, where it constricts or restricts things that can flow through the business. If you think about a funnel, right? If you are the bottleneck, right, you're the the neck of that funnel that's restricting flow. And where you need to move is from the bottleneck to air traffic control. air traffic controllers, Their job is to make sure that airplanes take off and land and and navigate between takeoff and landing efficiently and effectively without crashing, right? But I am not concerned about getting the plane loaded or backed away from the gate. I take over, at time of takeoff. And as soon as I have you successfully landed, I'm handing you back off to somebody else what gate do you taxi to? where is your baggage pickup, right? As the air traffic control, I don't I mean, that's all cool and interesting and all that kind of stuff, but that's not what my role is. My role is to make sure, that I keep the plane in the air safely, land safely, and then go on to the next one. So as the business owner, again, back to those things that are your responsibility, it's to make sure that operationally the plane can stay in the air, right? The plane doesn't crash, the plane gets on the ground, and then taxis to where it needs to go, So what is that for you in your business to say air traffic control versus the you know that pinch point at the bottom of the funnel? you as the business owner need to be clear and understand, you know, those areas where you become the bottleneck, right? Where you're you're asking to review social posts or communication to clients or color and copy on things that are going out, right? Any or all those kind of things. Kimberly Griggs: Leaf and branch. Rory Sheppard: I mean, you can spend all your time doing busy work, right? I mean, those Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: things that seem very, very important, but they're not important, right? I mean, those are decisions that you could delegate to somebody else and then have a conversation later if I wouldn't have said that, I would have said this. Or I wouldn't have put that, I mean, I wouldn't put those two colors together. Whatever it is, right? I mean, you can have that conversation later. But we get so caught up in thinking we have to be in control. And there is so much that we do not have to be in control of. Kimberly Griggs: And and I want I guess I wanna kind of end this point on, you know, when you are the bottleneck, what impact does that have on your team and your customers? Rory Sheppard: Productivity goes down, engagement goes down. spend enough time in that space, the the good employees are gonna leave. 'cause they can I mean, you don't they don't feel trusted or respected. I'll give you a a story from early in my career. I was in IT, had development teams, developer teams, and we added a new team and we took one of our best programmers and put them as the manager over the team. Crazy good, talented developer, Gave them a team of three and said, This is g I mean, this is gonna be a rock star team. The manager prided himself in very high quality code that not only ran right the first time, but also looked good, was aesthetically pleasing to read. And so early on he said, I wanna do code reviews of my team's code before they put stuff into production. We said sounds like a great idea. Cause then we'll know that you're gonna review it, it'll be good, we won't have problems. What we ended up doing was six months in, we had lost just tons of productivity from the three developers. As we started talking about it, what we found out was it wasn't just code review, it was almost like code rewrite. they'd go in for code review and the manager would Basically rewrite their code. And so over time they got to a spot where I mean their comment was it doesn't matter what we take in, it's gonna get rewritten anyway. and so we went from four what could have been very productive people to three guys just taking code into the fourth one and saying, rewrite this, right? I mean. Kimberly Griggs: So I mean really you lost three employees and and had Rory Sheppard: Yes. Kimberly Griggs: a very stressed and overwhelmed one. Yeah. And and Rory Sheppard: Yeah. And Kimberly Griggs: all his I mean talk that is a great example of getting in your own way. Rory Sheppard: Absolutely, I mean, the intent was good, right? The execution was terrible, right? I mean, Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Quality. Yeah. Rory Sheppard: on so many levels. Right. But we Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: I mean, had we allowed that to go on, we would have been in a spot where those three guys would have left, they'd already kind of checked out, going, it doesn't matter what we write, it's gonna get rewritten anyway. And so Had that gone on for very long, they would have said, there's got to be somewhere else where I can be trusted, respected, valued for the work that I'm doing. very few of us want to go to work and go, it doesn't matter what I do. whether I do quality work, I don't do quality work, whether I put my heart into it, I don't put my heart into it, doesn't matter. I mean, there's very few of us that want to live in that space for very long. that's the that's the risk that you run being an over controlling, I gotta check everything, it's all gotta be right, right? Marshall Goldsmith asks a question that I think is very powerful is Does your suggestion or your correction? What what percent does it improve the output. And is it worth it? So if you're making a 5% improvement or a 10% improvement, you go, yeah, that's 10%. But all of a sudden it's not their idea, it's your idea. It's not their output, it's your output. Because you took over, right? And you you said, all I was doing was making one little tweak to it, but yeah, it's not theirs anymore. And so is it worth it? I think that's a great question. and that like so many things in management, right? Isn't that a great way to think about that comment you're about to make to your 15-year-old kid? Or the comment you're about to make to your spouse, right? mean, is it worth it? I should ask that question of myself all the time. Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Well anyone who's been married and loads of dishwasher differently than their spouse realizes there Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: are two different ways to do that job, but at the end of the day it's the same output. So most of the time, right? So to your point, is it worth it? Is it worth at all? Rory Sheppard: Yes. Yeah. I is it worth it. That's a question I ought to be asking all the time. Kimberly Griggs: Yeah, absolutely. That's great. Okay, well, we've got a lot of other bottlenecks to to go through. So let's talk about manual processes. you know, I think every business has at least one task that they all dread. because it's repetitive or time consuming or it's just it's just just one of those mundane types of things. How do businesses know when, you know, the manual processes that they have in place have just outlived being useful? Rory Sheppard: I'm gonna go the other side of that first. there are so many times that we try to automate something that's not ready, right? we're gonna buy a system or a a piece of technology to do that for us before we even know what it is. we automate something that we shouldn't even be doing, that's a huge flag for me is I don't need to automate something that I don't know how to do or I can't do in a consistent way. Because I'm gonna get really good at doing something that I shouldn't have been doing at all. so as an example. So Kimberly Griggs: Yeah, I was gonna say, can you think of an example of what that looks like? Rory Sheppard: Yeah, I'll give you a when We went to doing imaging, so digitally imaging all sorts of paperwork, whether that was employee records, warehouse receipts, all those kind of things at H E B. we spent a lot of time laying out how the process should work, right? What are the steps from the time we get the piece of paper till the time we say it's electronically stored and we know what we can do with it? Karen Alex and I spent hours in my office mapping out how we were gonna do it before we ever imaged our first piece of paper. we laid out 36 steps in this process from STEM to stir And this is these are the 36 steps that we have to do. And I mean, we agonized over every one of them going, what, you know, what are the process steps that we need to do? And so we got them all up on the board and said, This is what we're gonna, we're gonna build this system to do this. And I said, Karen, before we do that, let's let's just ask the question are all those value added steps or are some of those unnecessary things are they even if they're not value added, are they still necessary? And we eliminated 12 of the 36 steps. So we I mean, the first time when we drew it up, went through it all, right? We had 36 steps in the process. We went back through and re-justified every step and we eliminated 12. a third of the process steps that we thought we needed before we ever started, we were able to delete after we got it all built and said, now let's go back and make sure, right? Is there a different way? Is there another way? Can we adjust one side of this or the other side of that and eliminate that step? What can we do? we could have built not just technology, but process steps, audits, things that we were gonna ask people on our team to do every day. We were gonna build in a whole bunch of stuff that they're gonna I hate this step. Right I mean, this makes no sense to me. Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Well, and can you imagine even explaining a thirty-six step process that had to be? Rory Sheppard: Yeah, these guys are idiots, right? I mean, what what were they thinking? Right. I mean, we buy systems or we get, you know, technology to do a step for us, and we go, yeah, I really don't like that, but the the customer's doing it, so I mean, it's okay, I mean, that's a point of friction, right? that's not the question you asked, but I I would just say I need to be as efficient and as effective as I possibly can before I start putting it into a system or a process or going teaching Kimberly Griggs: Manually. You know Rory Sheppard: somebody how to do it. Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. You know, I I think that's a really fair point, especially in the age we're living in now where people think that an you know, an AI system is going to solve, you know, a lot of these problems when in fact it could create more more chaos, more broken spokes, more things that have to be, you know, more connections Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: the more connections that are made, the more likelihood of things other things failing. So I think that's really worth thinking. Yeah. Rory Sheppard: Or I'm solving a problem that's not really a problem, right? I mean, because I didn't ask the question right, or I didn't think through it in a different way, that would be the first thing. And then the second thing would be so I used a couple of words there, and I'm just gonna go back and real quick. So value added versus non-value added. So value added is something the customer would be willing to pay for. Non-value added would be Something that the customer would not pay for. And then in non value added, I've got non-value added but necessary, or non-value added and not necessary. So if it's non-value added and not necessary, I need to get rid of it immediately. If it's non value added but necessary, so payroll, right? I mean, customer's not willing to pay for that. They go, No, I expect you to pay your employees so that you can do business. But I'm not gonna write you 10 extra dollars on my check every time so that you can do payroll next month, so it's non-value added but still necessary. Kimberly Griggs: Right. Rory Sheppard: If it's non-value added but necessary, I need to make it as lean and clean and efficient as I possibly can. Right? And then if it's value added, then customers willing to pay for that. So then it's questions on how do I eliminate friction there? How do I add value there? value is what you get, price is what you pay. So how do I make that more valuable to them? Because it's already a value-added piece of the work that I do for you. And so Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. And that could be an AI tool or system that improves the output, which would be worth investing in because the customer is willing to pay for it. Yeah. Okay. All right. I love that. Rory Sheppard: Yeah. How do I make this better? Yeah. Right. And so then when I'm looking at manual processes that we all hate, I want to ask that question of value add, non value added. If it's not value added, is it necessary? And then how do I streamline that? Right. So then it goes back to if I took this step out, would it fail? If I took this step out, what I mean, what could the possible points of failure be? And then what's an early warning sign that I can identify that so that I I don't go off the rails? again, back to Bill Gates' quote, ask the lazy people, right? I mean, which parts of this do you just hate and you wish you could get rid of? And let's go figure that out, let's spend two hours, four hours brainstorming ways to not have to do that stuff. What could that look like? So back to my imaging example. So early on, and we all understand this, I think intuitively, but if I put a piece of paper in a paper file, even if it's the wrong one, I could go back and look at every paper file I got and I could eventually find that sheet of paper. If I digitally file something incorrectly. I'll never be able to find it. it just it's out there somewhere, but I can never find it. Right. And so Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: we had to audit, you do the imaging and then I go audit your work to make sure that I can find all those pieces of paper before we sign off on it, before we get rid of the physical paper, But we were doing a very high per like 10% of all batches we were auditing to make sure that. We could find every sheet of paper. Over time, we got to where that wasn't 10%, it was five percent. Wasn't five percent, it was one percent, because we knew the system, the process, the predictability Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: was high enough, right? So again, now back to your process steps. Are there manual things that you were doing because the quality wasn't there? And so you had to do additional checks. But now that the quality is at a level. That's acceptable. Can you reduce that percentage? But I should be going back and challenging my process steps on some frequency that feels good and makes sense for you and the team. It shouldn't be that I create a process and go, We're never touching it again. It's perfect. Right? Kimberly Griggs: Yeah, done. Right. Rory Sheppard: I mean, that's so unrealistic. And so go back and challenge the thought process and go. How about now? Right? Do we do I really have to do that? whatever it is, do I have to take that whole batch of paper and turn it ninety degrees? Right? I mean, do I have to do that now? Why was I doing that? but go challenge the Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. And and maybe Rory Sheppard: process. Kimberly Griggs: almost a timing thing kinda comes to mind to me is like when you when you when there's a sense that your team is really comfortable with that process, that's probably the time that you need to go throw a little disruption in it, right? Or go back Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: to the drawing board because that means oftentimes, or at least in my own work experience, what I would see is that steps would tend to get skipped because people would make and decide for themselves that that was Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: an irrelevant step. That makes so much sense. Rory Sheppard: Yeah, so auditing against Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: your process flow, or you doing all the steps that you you thought you were supposed to do, right? Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Yeah. Rory Sheppard: or I mean, and I did this all the time, we had open enrollment for benefits, So we had about 120,000 people that we provided benefits to inside the employees and then family members that worked for H E B. So every year in October we did open enrollment and so we produced paper copies of their enrollment forms and mailed them out. And so when I got out to the service center, that process of printing, stuffing in envelopes, mailing out, doing all that stuff was a full two day 14 to 16 hour days each process to Print stuff, mail, validate, do all the stuff that we had to do. And I'm like, there is no way this should take us two days. So we started, how do we challenge the process? You know, we were sitting in comfortable chairs around tables, you know, and just going through this manual process, pacing ourselves, right? Because we knew it was going to take two days. And I'm like, what if, we challenge this and say, can we do it in a day? And so one of the things that we did is we would do one store at a time, And we'd start challenging ourselves on how fast can we get it done, we increased the number of people we did benefits for, but reduced the time down to a a six hour kind of activity instead of 32 hours, because we eliminated steps, we did races at the tables, we did, I mean. We did all sorts of stuff that was still fun, right? But Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: the drudgery of going, I hate open enrollment because it's gonna be two crazy long days to go and no, we can get this done and you know, three hours, go to lunch, come back, do another three hours, and then we're done. How much better would that be? Kimberly Griggs: Yeah, I like that. So creating kind of a challenge instead of it just being it is what it is and none of us can do anything about it except ex accepting that status quo. Rory Sheppard: Yeah, I mean, Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: I'd rather, you know, poke my eye with a sharp stick. I'm just gonna do this, right? Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: And it's a drum beat or a rhythm that just drives me crazy as opposed to, no, let's challenge the process. How can we get better? Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: Love that. That gets me some ideas for for a meeting. Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: okay, so moving on to this is this is probably one of the bigger ones, I think, but it it sneaks up on you in different ways and it's twofold. So communication breakdowns. So when businesses grow, communication naturally becomes more complicated because there's more people into the mix. more customers in the mix. And I I guess what I'm wanting Rory Sheppard: Right. Kimberly Griggs: to know more about is, you know, why do communication problems become more common? why is that? why does it seem to just go off the rails when those two things collide, when it should be a season that's exciting and, you know, fun and you've got that momentum, but why, is that often a bottleneck? Rory Sheppard: So I think Adding new team members. it's not an incremental add on the the different connections for communication. So going from two people to three people does not create just one additional lane of communication, but it's exponential. And the more people you add to the loop, there's that many more people that could be in communication with each other. Right. And so first off is just We are not naturally good communicators to begin with. And then when you increase the number of potential connections, it gets harder, And so then when we make a communication error, especially in fast-growing organizations, we start creating communication rules or sign-offs or You can't do this without Kimberly signing off on it because we blew it that one time. the bureaucracy gets higher and higher and higher the more people we add, because we made a mistake and we're not ever going to do that again. Kimberly Griggs: It's like it becomes very rigid at that point. Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: I can see in different organizations that I've been a part of that exact thing. Yeah. Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Can't can't do that without this sign off or two sign offs, So we build in what we think are great stage gates to prevent errors, but it creates Communication breakdowns where it accentuates the breakdown that was there. I think for me it goes back to in your organization, have you mapped out what form of communication we use for this type of communication? And then what are the expectations on response or feedback on those? So Teams or Slack, email, voicemail, direct message or text, right? I mean, you probably have five to seven different ways that you can communicate with your team. Kimberly Griggs: And you know, it's funny because I think this really applies to like virtual work settings. kind of my last formal role was working for a digital agency and we were all remote in different parts of the country. And not only did we have Slack, but email and multiple different emails depending on, you know, the clients we were managing. And then text and phone you know, it was like there was it was so much friction because there was no consistency. agency or directive, it was really just which that individual person preferred. Rory Sheppard: Yeah, so for me, right, it's which form of communication is the the form of communication that we're going to use for this type of communication. That's always a Slack message, that's never a Slack message. That's always an email, that's never an email. That's always a text message, that's never a text message, right? Whatever that is, I say these these types of communications, this is how we do it. But then I need to set if you send me an email, it's the expectation is 24 hours response, 12 hours response, four hours response. I mean, what is the what's the standard? that I should expect so that when I choose a a communication method, I also know what the response time is. Because I sent you an email yesterday, right? And I still haven't heard back. And you could say, I check my email at one o'clock every afternoon. That's the only time I check my email. So you send it at 105, right? It's at least 24 hours before I respond. but if I don't know what the Expectations are by communication method, I create unnecessary friction. It's a 30-minute conversation, it's a 20-minute conversation with your team to say, emails, it's 24 hours response time. if you send me a text, it's two hours. If you send me a voicemail or you you call me. And I don't answer because I'm in a meeting. the agreement is as soon as I'm out of the meeting, I'm calling you back. but I just set up what the expectation or the standard should be by communication mode. And then what's escalation? Right? So We've gone back and forth three times. Each of us have sent three Slack messages, right? And we haven't resolved the issue. Maybe it it's time to pick up the phone. Right. Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: I mean, maybe it's time to if y'all are in the same physical location, maybe it's to return your Slack message with a face to face visit, right? I mean, what's the what's the protocol? Kimberly Griggs: You know, that was it is so funny. Uh-huh. Yeah. And Rory Sheppard: I mean, I cannot tell you how many times, I mean hundreds, thousands of times over my career, I've said, I'm returning your email with a face-to-face visit. I'm returning your text with a face-to-face visit. Cause I already know I can't respond in a way that will make sense or that won't require 10 other questions. So I'm just here so that we can talk about it. This is a three minute conversation if we're here in the room. It's fifteen text messages, right? Kimberly Griggs: Yes. Rory Sheppard: Do you do you have time to go to lunch today? Kimberly Griggs: But but how many people still try is what's mind blowing. Like I'm thinking of so many instances of just, wow, this is just not getting resolved. So what ha so what happens if you Rory Sheppard: Yeah, I mean yeah, pick up the phone. Kimberly Griggs: have what happens if you have one person who is Trying to get out of that space, but the other just doesn't comply. Like, and and I guess this is more to your point of the more more channels, I mean, I guess, pathways of communication, connection points by bringing in more people, the more of those Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: issues tend to happen, this poor communication experience. As the leader, you know, when Rory Sheppard: Yep. Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: you start to see or hear some of those types of problems. What you know, what what do you do about it? How do you start to turn that ship around? Rory Sheppard: Do I have standards? Right. I mean, I I've I've gotta set what the standard is, right? That should never have been in a Slack message or a team's message, Whatever, But if I don't have those rules, or I have expectations around turnaround times, because that's really where most of the the friction happens, is that I've sent you five text messages and had anything back. Or I sent you five Slack messages and then gotten anything back. Right. And so now I'm frustrated with you. Kimberly doesn't like me or whatever. I start creating, right? Kimberly Griggs: All these assumptions. Uh-huh. Rory Sheppard: Right. it's so easy just to say, this is how we do this, right? This is the the process or the protocol. if I do see, that it's is it an individual, is it a team, where is it that the problem exists, And then is there a intervention, that I need to do? Is there a conversation I need to have with the the biggest offenders? It may be that You're not a Slack fan, or you're not a text fan, or you're not a, I tell the story all the time. I mean, you probably each one of your kids, there's a different way that is their preferred method of communication. You can you can text them and you get something back immediately. You call them and they never answer, right? Or you call and they answer every time. You send them a text and it's crickets, but if If I don't have a norm or a standard or I can't reset my communication method to be different for every person, then what do I have to have? I mean, this is the situation, this is the behavior I'm seeing. The impact is this, right? And so let's have that conversation. because we've got to get on the same page so that we can take care of the customer, I mean, You guys are yelling back and forth at each other on Slack while the customer's waiting, so they're frustrated. They escalated to me that it's been two days and they haven't heard anything back. the impact is we've got an upset customer that now we're having to do, crisis management on when y'all could have spent ten minutes on a phone call and resolved this. Let's get to a better spot. so much of this is it's relationships, it's managing each other, right? managing that relationship. it's a lot of emotional intelligence with just kind of a common sense mix, right? That's Slow down and go, what what part of the problem am I? Right? What what part of this am I causing and how can I get that out of the way? Which is Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: again back to the I'm returning your text with a face-to-face visit, right? Because I've tried twice. I'm not hitting the mark, I'm just gonna come hang hang out in your office for 10 minutes so that we can fix this. how much easier is that? Kimberly Griggs: I like, you know, the point that you make about setting standards. I mean, that is a simple conversation. That is a simple step. And then the rest Rory Sheppard: Let's all agree. Kimberly Griggs: is, yeah, and the rest is managing, you know, what the output of that is, you know, before there's a problem. Because there may there may be none. I mean, that may be all it takes. Rory Sheppard: Yeah, but it any or all those can bubble up and explode for no reason Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. Rory Sheppard: because we didn't have a standard. Kimberly Griggs: Yeah. In a big way, what skills do you think owners or or leaders need to start developing or you know have a very good, you know, sense around when it when it comes to this bottleneck, when it comes to communication. Rory Sheppard: I think we might have even talked about this on the last last time or the time before, but emotional intelligence, right? So self awareness, I need to be self-aware so that I can manage myself, I'm about to go into a meeting with somebody that absolutely knows every one of my hot buttons and knows the shortest way to get to them, so I need to manage myself in a different way. Then it's social awareness, Understanding how to read the room or read what's going on with other people. And then relationship management is that final. I mean, the ultimate goal is to get better at managing relationships. it has to start with self awareness, And then it moves to one of those other two of self management or social awareness. And then both of those feed into relationship management. And so I need to be better at reading the room. I need to be better at understanding how I'm being perceived and managing that so that I can manage relationships. And so I think we often think as the leader, everybody else needs to adapt or take on my style when the best leaders are the ones that know and understand their role is actually in service to everybody else. that's Patrick Linchoni's line of I think we need to get rid of the term servant leadership because that implies that there's another way to lead. And there's not. And so if you're signing up to be the leader, then you're signing up to be a servant. And the higher you go in the organization, the more service you gotta do. it all goes back to emotional intelligence, but it's seeing myself in the role that I'm in and understanding what my actions or reactions do to others. But then putting them in the best possible way so that they can win. So back to operations, I want a team of players that are all doing what they're born to do, built to do, trained to do, with the least amount of hurdles and obstacles and headaches in their way. And my role as the leader is to be asking that question all the time how can this be better? What can I do to eliminate issues or bottlenecks for you? Right. What is it you need from me so that your job is easier? As opposed to I hate all the headaches, I can't do anything without getting 50 questions. Well, I probably need to change my mindset a little bit to say, if I got 50 questions today, what can I do Kimberly Griggs: Somebody doesn't understand. Rory Sheppard: to eliminate those questions? Kimberly Griggs: Exactly. Rory Sheppard: I mean Kimberly Griggs: Exactly. You know, I want to be very mindful of your time, and I know we're going a little long. So an effort to kind of condense this down to some Rory Sheppard: Yep. Kimberly Griggs: three actionable steps. What what I've taken away from this conversation so far is that this is not a one and done. There is no you know, operational A that stays put. Like it's you have to constantly be earning that A. So if you were to leave, you know, any any business owner right now who knows that they need some support, but they aren't sure where to start, if you could only leave them with, you know, three principles that would make the biggest difference in how they move forward in starting to course correct, what would the the three major principles to you be? Rory Sheppard: Well, you may have to help me, but we'll go backwards through, right? So communication is I can't just expect it to happen, right? So I need to define what communication tools do we have, what expectations do we have around them? When do we use what channel? And then what are the time frames expected for each one of those channels? Twenty-four hours for email, four hours for text, two hours for you know, phone call or voicemail, whatever that is, right? Pick your times, if I'm in a a space that the time frames are shorter, I'll make the adjustments. So that would be that. If I think about the bottleneck is, you know, the From a how do I improve manual processes, the key takeaway from me is to look at that process and say which steps are value added and not value added. And non-value added steps, if it's not necessary, eliminate it. If it's necessary, streamline it, clean it up, get it as efficient and effective as possible. And then back to that first one of. I need to be in control or I'm the bottleneck, right? Then only do those things that only I can do, continue to challenge myself to say, how can I teach this, train this, how can I watch? I mean, it's the when you taught your kids how to tie their shoes, there were times where it just drove you crazy that. I can do this, I can do this, just let me do this. And you're like, we're late for school, right? let me just tie your shoe, right? I mean, but I need to let my team experience a few bumps and bruises so that they can get better, I need to delegate that work to them with the appropriate follow-up, feedback, structure as we go through. So Delegate, train, teach, challenge all my processes to say, especially those manual ones that we all hate, right? I need to be looking at those and saying, how do I get rid of those steps that I don't need to do in this process? And then with all the different ways that we can communicate, we think it's better, but it's worse. And so how do I define the rule sets around communication so that the team knows and understands? Kimberly Griggs: I love that. it's just burned in my brain now. Roots, trunk, branches, leaves. Like I love it took so much of that. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rory Sheppard: Yep. yeah. Yes. Now that decision tree, right? I mean, what is it? Do that practice. I mean, absolutely. Kimberly Griggs: This this i episode, I think in and of itself is a great team meeting. So we'll definitely be sharing Rory Sheppard: Ha ha ha ha. Kimberly Griggs: that. And as always, Rory, I want to give you some space to talk about that last piece where you said, you know, leaders, if if there's one skill that we can begin to develop in ourselves, it would be the self-awareness. So you have a phenomenal tool to help us improve that. So would you share with us a little bit more about anchor points? Rory Sheppard: I do have a new version of that that's coming. I thought I would already have it. So coming in the next few days, I'm gonna have a new version of the Anchor Points Journal. But good. So the Kimberly Griggs: Awesome 'cause I need some more. Rory Sheppard: Anchor Points Journal is a half kind of personal development tool around disciplines, spiritual disciplines as well as physical You know, workout disciplines, all those kind of things, so that I'm a better leader, a better person. and then the the planner side of it is really more of that that daily planner, weekly planner, monthly planner on what are those things that are most important for me to do as a leader, as a husband, as a you know, father, what are those things that I need to be doing on a structured basis, rhythm driven basis? So that I make sure that I'm doing all the things that I need to do. and then there's absolutely pieces around how to take better notes during team meetings or customer meetings. There's a space for journaling. so we were talking before we started, you know, there's times that I just need to sit down with a topic and do some no-kidden writing on this. it's got that as well. And so It's basically, 35 years of me making mistakes on time management, self-management. We really can't manage my time, right? I can manage myself through time. but also, you know, pick a number. I mean, I've probably read it, it may not be 150 books, but it's way more than 50 books on time management, process, goal setting, all that kind of stuff. Hopefully I took the best of all those, right? So, you know, six thousand pages worth of reading, you don't have to do, it's all condensed into kind of 20 pages of kind of intro into the into the journal, but then how do I do that on a daily basis? And so back to where we started, you know, operationally, I want consistent, reliable, repeatable results. My team wants that from me as a leader. And so how do I do that without having consistent process? Right. It's pretty hard for me to do. And so having a document, a structure, a book that can help me do that on a daily basis. I mean, you're a better leader. And so that's what Anchor Points is, is connected to key anchors for you. as triggers so that you're more consistent, more predictable, more reliable. Kimberly Griggs: Well, as always, we will have the link to where you can purchase an Anchor Points journal inside our show notes. So you can definitely find that. we will also connect Rory's LinkedIn information if you want to reach out to him. and then Rory Sheppard: Yep. Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: again, please share this episode as a great team meeting for anyone on on your your team that wants to kind of talk through and work through some of these these challenges because we all need to earn and keep our A's. So thanks Rory Sheppard: Yeah. Kimberly Griggs: for tuning in to this episode. And we appreciate you being here as always, Rory. Thanks. Rory Sheppard: Love it. Thank you.