Ep. 4: A New Hope: The possible future for your organization
A better future awaits! Imagine any futuristic movie you've seen -- not the dystopian kind, the cool stuff kind. Are people struggling and frustrated with technology? Or does it just work the way it's supposed to work, making people's lives easier and more efficient and helping them do more, more meaningfully, with less extra time and effort?
That can be your organization's future, and dare say even your near future, with an investment in the right type of people power to steward and guide your technology.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Chris: Hi, welcome. I'm Chris.
Sam: And I'm Sam.
Chris: And this is The Build Tank Podcast.
Sam: Who is the Build Tank, you may be wondering. We are obsessed with helping organizations put just freaking great technology in place. By which we mean those day-to-day systems that make everyday work smarter and more efficient and more innovative.
Doesn't sound so bad, does it?
We were just debating what to call this podcast, and Chris, you suggested what?
Chris: Everybody likes to geek out on something.
Sam: Yes. Let that sink in. That's the phrase we often use in our work that I think you came up with a, a a few years ago.
Chris: Yes, I did.
Sam: Yes you did. So today we'll discuss that and, uh, a few other things and, and maybe we'll even have a little fun along the way.
[00:00:47] Chris: I think fun is important.
Sam: Yeah.
Chris: In the realm of everybody likes to geek out on something...
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Chris: The reason that a communications person is awesome at communications is because they have some fun with it. When you are watching an ad
Sam: mm-hmm.
Chris: and it's just a great ad, I believe that the people who made that thing were having fun.
Sam: Hmm.
Chris: If you're really into something, I do feel like it's both fun and meaningful and that's where you get the best stuff.
Sam: Hmm.
Chris: And so this is why I think this idea that everybody likes to geek out on something, uh, is central, I think, to what we believe. Is that when you get people who are able to geek out on what they like to geek out on
it is fun, but also purposeful. When you get people stuck in shitty systems, it just really, it just kills the fun. And what if our whole success in the world is helping work become more fun because people are doing the part of it that they like to geek out on, that they have fun with. Yeah.
[00:01:45] Sam: Well said. All right, you had a subject for today.
[00:01:49] Chris: I wanted to talk about the future. I wanna talk about the future because the way that people use technology, we're longing for the future and we're sort of giving up on the present. But I really believe that we have the tools at hand to take steps to a better future.
Why does it matter?
[00:02:08] Chris: Here's what I'm imagining.
I'm imagining a future world where people understand this, where people get it, what a well run technology team looks like and what it delivers and how to do it.
[00:02:22] Sam: Yeah,
[00:02:23] Chris: And I feel like we have a headstart on what that actually is, because we know what it takes. We do.
[00:02:31] Sam: You say, like, 'what a well run technology team looks like.'
You could get eye rolls, people checking out to be like, 'I don't carrrre.'
[00:02:40] Chris: Talk about a a, a-... 'I got a great idea!' 'What about yawwwnville?' No, I get-
[00:02:46] Sam: No, no, no. I think it is a great idea. I'm prompting you to say like, why does it matter? Why- It's not about the well run-ness of the technology team and we all adjust our bow ties.
It's, like, why is that significant, even?
[00:02:57] Chris: Well, it's significant because most people are, like, in Suckville. Their technology is terrible and they just accept it, and they're just like, 'Well, I have to be in this system because this is the system that we use and I have to do this and I, I have to do this and I have to do all this stuff.'
[00:03:10] Sam: And these aren't the tech people that you're talking about. These are the people trying to do the things, things,
[00:03:13] Chris: The people who are actually just working in the world. You, you have an organization, you have this goal, you have this really, 'so I got this great idea.' And you start off and you're working, you're doing all this great stuff.
You're saying, 'Oh, there's this piece of technology. I can use this, this other piece of technology. I can use this.' And then six years in, you've created this hodgepodge of spreadsheets and systems that are disconnected.
[00:03:34] Sam: Yeah.
[00:03:34] Chris: And all of a sudden you're like spending all your time, you know, sort of serving the systems.
[00:03:38] Sam: And it's dragging everyone down around the entire organization
[00:03:40] Chris: Dragging everyone down.
[00:03:41] Sam: They can't do the things they wanna do. They're creating all these other systems. They're copying and pasting and moving stuff, and they're not getting to use their brilliance in the world. They're, like, struggling with, you know, 30% of their time or more on just moving stuff from here to there. And struggling and not even having insight on the thing that they need to do.
The, the greatness.
Imagining a Different Future
[00:03:59] Chris: Yeah. And I wanna fast forward to a future where people understand work isn't like this anymore. People come in and they're being creative, they're being expansive. They have a idea for how to do things, and they have systems that just help them do that. And their systems have intelligence that they can pull from. And it just works.
And they know that it's not because the robots do it for them. It's because you have these human beings who know how to translate the mission of the organization from the highest level to the most granular level into ecosystems that work together. That give you the intelligence and support you in the very specific things that each person is trying to do.
This is not a matter of the perfect system. This is a matter of people, human beings, who are stewarding and translating between this technical layer and the, the humans that are using it.
[00:04:56] Sam: I wonder- This, this may sort of undermine your point. But I was just imagining, like, when you're ta talking about the future, it, it's easy to imagine a, a movie
that's set in the future. We see this all the time. There's no futuristic thing, where the systems are all-knowing, where anyone's wasting any time. You know, they're like- The guy gets up and his, like, coffee is ready, and he says, 'Show me the blah, blah, blah.' You know what I mean? It's never like, show me this, and then there's like a moment of frustration and 'No!' and I have to, like, re-click it or whatever.
The stuff just works. And that's kind of the future that we're talking about. That can be even the present, now, if you have this kind of really highly engaged technology team with people running it. You know, it's not like that future where it's just like all-knowing.
But you can have that kind of thing where someone shows up and they're making the most of every moment. Like their coffee's there when they need it, you know, metaphorically.
They have the information that they need, they can do the thing with a minimum of effort. It's like, gimme the things I need to know now. Many people in many organizations wouldn't even dream that that kind of a thing is possible. But when we see this kind of a like really engaged team run by smart people who are constantly looking for these opportunities and make things more efficient, and incorporating new ideas, that's actually what it is to show up at work.
Why isn't that the present?
[00:06:07] Chris: A hundred percent. A a and so, okay, here's what I think is the, is the chief impediment to why, why we don't have that today, even though we could. And it's because I think it has to do with these sci-fi future fantasies where it, the robots do sort of know. You- you have your C3PO is its own completely autonomous, intelligent thing,
right? That- But more to the point-
[00:06:33] Sam: That's like a very clunky example, C3PO.
[00:06:36] Chris: Yeah. Maybe Hal, maybe Hal where like Hal is controlling everything. That's also a bad example because, Hal, it doesn't really...
But, but I think there's this fantasy that it's just like, when your systems are clunky, the problem is the systems.
And- When what we've discovered since we started, it was all about, no, it's the human stewardship of this unlimited possibility.
[00:06:59] Sam: Yeah and it's not like your human is clunky, it's that you probably don't have the right human in the right seat.
[00:07:03] Chris: You're not doing the work. You don't- that- There is no- There, there's a job, there's that translator. There's, there's that is that ownership.
Because the issue with technology isn't that it's not powerful enough. That's not it at all. The technology is so powerful that it can do anything. And somebody really needs to own, out of the sea of infinite possibilities, like we've said a million times, what is going to be the thing that you're going to do with it? That power needs to be steered.
And I think people are waiting to have everything figured out. But the point is, is that your organization has actually a very particular point of view. Your communications person, your fundraising person. All these strategies are coming from human beings, which are choosing from infinite possibilities strategically to single strategies.
So how do you tie a technology that has infinite possibilities to these very specifically chosen strategies, whether it's for communications or for fundraising, or for programs or or any of these things. That's when you need that human, is it interlocutor or whatever the word is. It's the person saying, these are our strategies. How do we build systems that actually can steward us in the right direction?
That human piece, I don't think it's ever gonna go away. Even if you ultimately have a C3PO robot, that's going to be that, you're gonna be able to tell it, okay, this is our fundraising strategy. Okay, this is our mission.
[00:08:22] Sam: Yeah.
[00:08:22] Chris: This is our program strategy. Ultimately, you need somebody to own that stewardship of that huge power.
What about AI (instead of people)?
[00:08:29] Sam: Yeah. And of course at this moment it can feel sort of like, yeah, but everything is shifting towards the machines. Like towards AI that can know a bunch of stuff and can do a bunch of stuff. And maybe there's a little bit of a, um, hesitation if people were like, 'Oh, these guys have been talking about people forever, but, like, people are getting replaced!'
[00:08:46] Chris: 'Who needs people anymore?'
[00:08:47] Sam: Yeah. Yeah. 'Come on, get with it guys.' But even like if you think about the way that you see, you know, Zach on our team doing the work, he's using AI. He's like, 'Where can we deploy this thing? This is an incredible tool.' But the only reason he's able to do that, is because he knows all the context for the organization that he's working with. And he's like talking to all the people and he's able to strategically look at that and say, 'Okay, here's where we can deploy this. Here's where we need to get a person on it.'
You still need that, sort of, overall director of traffic and understander- strategic understander in chief. To say, 'Here's what we do it on, and actually, here's what it doesn't make sense to deploy that tool on. Because, uh, that's getting out over our skis, or that's not, you know, long-term maintainable' or whatever that sort of thing is.
So it actually, I think, yeah, goes perfectly well with this moment in time.
[00:09:30] Chris: Yeah, and maybe even more so, and even maybe it'll increase. Because as the technological possibilities increase with AI and the power, the power is there, but it also really, really, really needs human judgment- especially as we're more and more on the cutting edge of what's possible- needs that person who not only has that eye on the particularities of the organization, but also what is trustworthy in the realm of AI.
What's useful, but needs extra
[00:10:01] Sam: yeah
[00:10:02] Chris: deliberation.
The Star Wars Equivalent
[00:10:04] Sam: You know, your Star Wars metaphor, C3PO might be a clunky looking thing. But if you think about, I don't know, more recent Star Warses where you have, like, the ultimate, you know, bot machines and droids and whatever, and they could be as featured as possible as modern as possible. But you've still got a one, you still got the human. You know, you still got either Han Solo driving the ship or like Luke Skywalker or whoever's the more recent ones, or like
[00:10:26] Chris: Kylo, Kylo Ren,
[00:10:27] Sam: Kylo Ren, you know.
You, you don't have just like- It'd be a boring ass movie if it was just like the bots on one side fighting the bots on the other. You have the bots, they're part of your arsenal. But you gotta have the captain of the ship or the person who's like, 'I know this doesn't seem like it, but that's where we're headed!'
You know, 'Set course for wherever.' You got- You, you need that guy. Or, or that woman. And that's what is, that's I think what we're saying with technology. There's all kinds of things to be deployed. There's all kinds of technology and bots, and droids, and, and AI. And human developers and human input. And, you know, you need all the people at the table, but you still need that overall driver, that conductor, that sort of, uh, general, field general to, to figure out how to deploy it.
And when you get that person and then you put them in the right seat and you give 'em the right role, things start to happen for everybody around the organization. And suddenly then they become more like that futuristic vision that we're talking about of just having the right thing at the right time, being able to act on it.
Set up to fail?
[00:11:22] Chris: Yeah, we've always said that like everybody's in the digital business. Everybody's using technology. So you do still wanna engage with it, but how can you reduce the friction? And just knowing that some people just love doing that. Love making the things work and thinking about it all holistically. But they really need to be resourced.
Because if they're not resourced, if they don't have enough players on their team, if they don't have the time to really dig into all the different aspects, you're selling them short. Just like you would in in, in any other department. But it's really this missing piece of the puzzle that people- They sort of think the system should just be smart enough to know my business, even though they actually have really particular ideas of why their business is different from every other business.
And that's so important that your organization does things differently than the other organization. That's why you have this place in the world. But that difference, it means you're gonna have to, you have to build your system to, to work in the way that you particularly wanna work.
[00:12:20] Sam: Yeah, and I think that it's also, it's fair. Because they're getting sold licenses with slick marketing videos, from people who are like, 'Just buy this! And look at this other organization who bought our software and it's changed everything!' And it's just not true.
You know, you get the thing. You need something that's crazy powerful and crazy flexible. And, the more crazy powerful, the more crazy flexible, the harder it is to manage, the more- You know, it's like an aircraft carrier and it's not like a rowboat.
So good luck. Someone tosses you an aircraft carrier and the keys, you know. 'Good luck sailing to The Bahamas.' It's like, you know, you're gonna need a lot to make that thing work.
Uh, so people are set up to fail. I think, by the way, that the industry is sort of targeted. You know, by the way that license sales happen.
That's why we've been a lonely voice in the woods being like, 'ya need a lot of people.' And no one totally wants to hear that message. But once you connect what those people do and how that changes everything that everybody around your organization does, then people who do hear that message can start to get the benefit outta technology that they hoped for in the first place.
[00:13:22] Chris: Yeah. Well, and is it a lot of people really? I mean, like, it, it, it's a lot if you have zero.
[00:13:27] Sam: Oh, right.
[00:13:27] Chris: And you think that one is a lot. But, but really usually what we're saying is start with one, then get two, then get three. You probably work yourself up to four, maybe five. And a five person team is really powerful and sort of covers all the bases.
And if you get big enough, you probably need more than that, but. But if you think about the value that it produces for the whole entirety of the rest of your organization, it's actually not a lot of people.
[00:13:50] Sam: Yeah. I mean, I think the people who say it best, they talk about building the engine, right? Like you're building the engine for your entire organization to just thrive. To like execute and then to thrive.
And without it, you don't have it. And with it you have it. Yeah, you're right, it's not actually a huge cost. It's like a minimum. And it's just a better use of personnel and FTEs. If you don't do that, you're already hiring anyway. 'cause you're hiring a bunch of people to do a bunch of inefficient work. Most people are wasting huge amounts of their time, like huge amounts, like huge slices of the pie.
And so you actually are hiring those people. You're just hiring people to do kind of dumber more, uh, more undifferentiated, more frustrating work. Instead of what they're capable of, which is brilliant work. If you put people at the core of these systems and kept iterating on systems and fixing 'em and fine tuning 'em so that everybody had that like machine, that would just allow them to kick ass.
A Little Inspirational Pep-Talk
[00:14:44] Chris: Yeah. Okay, so I have one last thought on the subject. And it'll be the last, and I would allow you to say anything more. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, but, um,
[00:14:52] Sam: Wouldn't be the first time.
[00:14:54] Chris: Yes. No, but the last thought is, you know, we're talking about organizations are set up to fail. But, but here's the trick. Here, here's the beauty of the
[00:15:01] Sam: Here's the rub
[00:15:02] Chris: the thing,
[00:15:02] Sam: the catch
[00:15:03] Chris: or, or the positive.
[00:15:04] Sam: The positive
[00:15:05] Chris: catch. What's the catch when it's positive?
[00:15:07] Sam: Positive rub. The back rub.
[00:15:08] Chris: The back rub. Here's the back rub.
[00:15:10] Sam: Here's the back rub. Hmm, nope.
[00:15:13] Chris: Maybe I don't think that's
[00:15:14] Sam: HR, please. HR.
[00:15:15] Chris: But the, the positive twist is, is that while organizations are set up to fail, the way that they're sort of lulled into thinking that technology should just work better, and then they're just disappointed when it doesn't.
The truth is, is that these systems are powerful. If they did do what we're suggesting. I mean, it's, it really, I mean, the reason that we're in business is because we've been able to go into organization after organization and say, 'you know, this is, this is possible.'
[00:15:42] Sam: Yeah.
[00:15:42] Chris: And, and if you do it like this, then you can be singing with this stuff
[00:15:47] Sam: Yeah it's reliable.
[00:15:47] Chris: It's right there.
[00:15:48] Sam: It will happen. Yeah.
[00:15:49] Chris: And so while they're set up to fail in terms of, I don't know if it's the zeitgeist of expectations with technology,
[00:15:57] Sam: Yeah.
[00:15:57] Chris: The opportunity is there, I mean, and this is the truth. We talk to people all over the place and the, the, the vast majority of organizations, they've just basically given up.
They're sort of like, ah, technology sucks and that's the way it is. So we spend a lot of time saying, you know, it doesn't have to suck.
And my point is, is that, is that, uh, while it feels like you're set up to, to fail, you're only set up to fail if you buy into this outdated paradigm.
You are not set up to fail if you actually wake up from the, the fantasy that the race car is gonna drive itself and be like, 'Oh, you mean we could win races if we just put a driver in, in the seat?' It's just like, yeah. But the fact is, is that so many are stuck in the mud of poorly stewarded systems, that there's this real opportunity for the people who recognize it to just blast into a different...
[00:16:49] Sam: Yeah.
[00:16:49] Chris: Uh, level. Stratosphere.
[00:16:51] Sam: Yeah.
[00:16:51] Chris: Blast into a different... What is it? Level of the atmosphere? I don't know.
[00:16:56] Sam: Yeah.
[00:16:56] Chris: Stratosphere is just one level. What if you want go to the next one, whatever the next one is.
[00:17:00] Sam: Yeah, I think that's a really important point to clarify.
[00:17:09] Chris: Thanks for hanging out with us. This has been The Build Tank Podcast. I've been Chris,
[00:17:14] Sam: Yes, and I have been Sam.
[00:17:16] Chris: Who we'll be later is anyone's guess.
A special thanks to Luz Fleming, our audio engineer and producer. Please feel free to email us if you feel so inclined us@thebuildtank.com. And until next time.