Speaker 1: 0:00

Under my jacket. Yeah, I couldn't hear you because Craig John, well, I couldn't hear you.

Speaker 2: 0:06

Underneath my work clothes, I always have corporate strategy swag on Always.

Speaker 1: 0:13

Always.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Yeah, that way like, if you have x-ray vision and you're watching my work videos. You know that I'm a member of the corporate strategy crew.

Speaker 1: 0:20

Do you have a tattoo like I do?

Speaker 2: 0:22

Yeah, I do, I just can't show it. Yeah, you can't show mine. It's in a very delicate place. I agree, we actually got them Bottom of my feet.

Speaker 1: 0:35

There's been too much talk about feet on this podcast, too much it needs to stop.

Speaker 2: 0:40

You know what we haven't talked about in forever.

Speaker 1: 0:42

Oh, no, forever.

Speaker 2: 0:45

Like it makes me sad we haven't talked about in forever, oh no, forever. Like it makes me sad we haven't talked about it in so long, don't?

Speaker 1: 0:54

I want you to know that, at least for me, the audio cut out.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Oh good, it probably cut out for everybody. I sang the theme song to Pepsi man.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Pepsi man out for everybody. Uh, I sang the theme song. Do pepsi man, pepsi man. Every single person on discord has been begging for pepsi man to come back.

Speaker 2: 1:12

you know that, I know they have. I've seen it at bruce where pepsi, where man at clark, pepsi man win at craig pepsi man, man, pepsi man, how Pepsi man who P-E-P-S-I man?

Speaker 1: 1:30

P-E-P-S-I man, pepsi man, oh, I miss him. I miss him already I do too.

Speaker 2: 1:40

It's been too long. It's been way too long.

Speaker 1: 1:43

So we're back here again. How's your week going? How?

Speaker 2: 1:46

was your week. Oh, my week has been going. Welcome back to corporate strategy podcast, to come in email. I'm bruce, I'm, uh, it's been a long one. It's been a long one for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, this has been one of those weeks where, um, what to say without incriminating myself or potentially becoming an HR risk, uh, like I, I, I think about and I weigh the options of if I just quit, how long could I be poor?

Speaker 1: 2:23

for you know, like I think I'd feel better if I was poor, that's, that's I want to put an asterisk by what you just said, because you're not incriminating yourself to hr, you're just saying in general I think everybody thinks about this, no matter what company you work for it's like what if I just didn't work?

Speaker 2: 2:42

yeah, yeah. What if I said I resign, I'll give you two weeks because I'm a good guy From any company.

Speaker 1: 2:48

This is not just my company.

Speaker 2: 2:48

I'm the kind of person that'll give you two weeks. I just resign and I'm not going to work for a bit. I need to hate not working before I get back to it. Does that sound okay? I need to never come back.

Speaker 2: 3:05

I told you this beforehand but I didn't tell our dear listeners. I spent three hours today setting up my office to do some video recordings on this ransomware sort of paper I've built. So I'm going to basically take the paper. The paper's like 20 pages long. I've turned it into seven scripts. I've loaded the scripts up into my prompter. I have my prompter pages long. I've turned it into seven scripts. I've loaded the scripts up into my prompter.

Speaker 2: 3:25

I have my prompter set up. I have lights set up, my mic set up, had my jacket on everything and I record for literally two and a half hours and when I start watching the playback and it's not even like a rookie mistake, because when I did my test recordings they looked good, they sounded good. The problem was I didn't do a test recording where I was reading from the prompter, I just did test recordings where I was talking and the the recordings I was reading from the prompter. For whatever reason, my eyes are looking up and not directly at the camera, which is weird because they were looking like. The prompter line is adjacent with the lens of the camera and I don't know what light, physical, magic funkery is occurring here. But looking at the lens does not mean I'm looking at the lens, if you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 4:16

So I lost two and a half hours today of my only free time.

Speaker 2: 4:19

I had this week to get this thing done and now I'm like when am I gonna actually do this work, because I have no time to do it next week that's terrible look at it's terrible look at it for me, let me.

Speaker 1: 4:28

Let me take a look at you.

Speaker 2: 4:29

Oh yeah, you're looking a foot above my head you look like you look like you have some sort of floating eye problem where, like, you're looking at me but not looking at me like the camera is right there I'm pointing my finger at, like this great radio because everyone can't see anything that I'm saying. But like I want you to imagine you're watching, you know, like Stephen Colbert on TV, but his eyes are like 45 degree angle away from the camera, upward. That's what it looks like. It makes it makes me look dead, like I look like I'm a zombie, like dead eye I I don't fun, I fundamentally don't understand.

Speaker 2: 5:05

So I went to my video guy, my teammate, and I was like dude, what the heck? Like I just spent two hours doing this. And then I like he's like, okay, let's try some test recordings. And like we go, we just start doing. And he's like I, I've worked in video my whole life, I have no idea what's going on. Like no, this is weird. So then I started like googling even further. Just like what the heck? Looking at lens but not. But like eyes not focused on lens. And apparently this happens with the freaking iphone cameras.

Speaker 2: 5:33

So people, will like set up their cameras on the tripod and if you look down the lens it doesn't look like you're looking at it. You have to look like above the lens in the case of the iphone to sit like and I'm just, I'm at a loss. I wasted so much time, I'm out of energy, I'm out of Fs to give. This has been a cap on a week of just exhausting for Bruce. I want to quit. Today I was like I could resign, I could quit my job and that would be fine. I'll just live off of beans and cornbread and I think I can do it. I think I can do it.

Speaker 1: 6:06

Are you? How are you? Well, you know, I commiserate with you. Mine wasn't as bad, but that sucks. That you did two hours and then you like watch it and you're like what in the actual like? You just were like there's no way, it's all like this, right, and you probably like I'm imagining you scrubbing the video being like no, is it all this way?

Speaker 2: 6:26

No, no, no, please, please no no.

Speaker 1: 6:29

And then you get to the end and you're like, yep, the whole thing is me just looking like a zombie.

Speaker 2: 6:37

This is why you have to have a video producer Like truly it's, even if you someone who's watching you, because it you just you can't self-direct unless that's an ai product that needs to happen you need like an ai director. Nvidia actually has a feature. I don't know. I don't know what program like it works with, but nvidia has a feature that uses ai to make your eyes always looking at the camera so like if I'm reading my email over here, it looks like I'm still looking at you, like that's a cool feature.

Speaker 1: 7:07

That's kind of terrifying. I'm not going to lie, it is.

Speaker 2: 7:09

Yeah, yeah, but I could have used it today.

Speaker 1: 7:13

I could have used it. I mean, like, honestly, that's a very helpful. It's like I'm by myself. I need an AI producer.

Speaker 2: 7:29

I'm not this like having something that gives you that real-time on-screen feedback. That should be a product. Someone figure it out. Here's the problem, I mean I mean here's. Here's.

Speaker 2: 7:33

The ultimate problem with all of this is and this, I mean this we talked about in shitification, but I think this is this needs another, this. There's needs to be another word for this specific thing where it's you're capable, go do it yourself. We don't need a producer. We don't need a director. We don't need a film crew. We don't need do it yourself in your office at home. Go buy your expensive equipment.

Speaker 2: 7:54

Oh, I realize your job is just writing and creating marketing material, but now you have to become a video expert as part of your job and you need to understand sight lines and green screens and chroma keys and lighting and audio. That's not your job, but it is now. I hope you don't mind that we're just adding this workload to you because we're too cheap to hire someone to do it or we don't have time. I do think the larger problem and I feel this not just in video, I feel this across everything is that businesses I work in a startup so I kind of volunteered for this, but I think this is true more broadly. Businesses just expect everyone to carry more weight. I don't care how strong you are, I don't care how weak you are, you will carry more weight.

Speaker 1: 8:41

A hundred percent agree with you. It's something that's been happening a lot for us as we plan for next year. We're already busting at the seams. Our team is just overloaded left and right. We're trying our best to manage it, trying our best to prioritize, and we're getting this top-down direction to go faster. And it's just blowing our minds because we're like it's not possible to go faster with the amount of resources we have, like there has to be a. No, we're not doing anything else. Focus on these couple of things and that's it. But to your point, it's like our roles and the expectations for our roles continue to grow and I don't know if it's like a. Oh, it's just this small thing, bruce. All you got to do is just mount your iphone up there. Look into the iphone. That's it. That's all you got. That's not hard. Mount your iPhone up there, look into the iPhone. That's it. That's all you got. That's not hard.

Speaker 2: 9:28

That's all I got to do.

Speaker 1: 9:29

You already wrote the white paper. Just read the 20-page white paper into the camera. That's not difficult. Why not Just put it in a file for us and make it look good so we can watch it and present it on our website? That doesn't seem hard. That'll take you what Like an hour 20 minutes 20 minutes at most. It's like has this happened incrementally? Is this a very incremental?

Speaker 2: 9:54

thing that's happened to us. Did you ever read what was it? It's not the Scarlet Letter, it was the Crucible, crucible.

Speaker 1: 10:00

Arthur Miller, with the witches, oh, I did.

Speaker 2: 10:04

Was it Goody Proctor? I forget his name. Do you remember the one guy who they think is a witch? And they put him in the pit and they just start putting stones on his body? And you know, he's just like. I am so tired of these buffoons and their witchery, but they think I'm a witch. So you know what I'm going to say to them. I'm just going to say more weight. And then they crush him by putting stones on his body and he dies that way, which is a real thing. That happened to people. But I mean, like it is pretty epic that he was like more weight. I feel like that's us, I feel like that is us right. And when I say us, I don't mean Clark and Bruce, I mean collective, the corporate fam and everyone in corporate. There is just this additive weight that keeps happening.

Speaker 2: 10:47

And what you said is actually what I think we need to diagnose on today's episode as our impromptu topic. When you are asked to do more faster, does that actually make it so? Because in my, in this man's humble opinion, when someone says, hey, I need you to do this too, or like, can you prioritize this, and then I drop everything else in priority, I feel like. What actually ends up happening is the context switching plus the. Just the general frazzledness of my very fragile nature makes me a lot slower.

Speaker 2: 11:22

And had they just waited and were patient and said we're going to add this to the bottom of the stack, get to it when you can, I feel like the quality would have been better and I probably would have got it done faster. But because we need this right now, go, go, go, go go. What's going to end up happening is it's not going to get done as fast as it actually could. I'm going to become clinically depressed and want to quit my job. Also, a good indicator of how I feel is, when I walk away from my desk, how deep the sighs are, and this week the sighs are deep. Let me tell you I'm just right, like it's momentous. Do you agree with that assessment?

Speaker 1: 12:00

I do. But I have a question for you. You would consider yourself a high-capacity worker, right? You can take on a lot. Would you consider yourself a high-capacity worker? Right, you can take on a lot. Would you consider yourself that when you? Look across your peers, your peers, your team. You're like I take on a lot.

Speaker 2: 12:13

It's not even close. It's not even close and I don't think any of my team would disagree. They're asking can I help you? And I'm like I wish that you could.

Speaker 1: 12:23

I really do, but you know, it's interesting Play this mind game out with me, all right, I love mind games Go your high capacity.

Speaker 1: 12:37

I'm high capacity. When I ask my team to take on more, what I often find is they don't know how to do it efficiently, and the way I do it is different than how they do it. And then, when I kind of get into it, I'm like why is it taking them so long to do this? And I'm like, hey, you know, maybe I have some tips of how you could actually do this really quick. Like do you want to sit together and do it?

Speaker 1: 12:59

I show them something that blows their minds and they're like holy cow, like that was actually great, like like now I understand how you do this so quick. I'm like, yeah, you know, you just gotta have the right system, you gotta use the right tool. You know, whatever, whatever the, the hack is in that scenario. Some things are not and all things are not equal, but that's what I've noticed a little bit. So do the people above us that ask us to do more and they're just, oh, yeah, just take on video recording and producing and screen reading, like you got that? Do they know something you don't?

Speaker 2: 13:26

No, okay, well, that was a fun mind game. I really appreciate playing that.

Speaker 1: 13:34

Thanks, Clark, I do this with myself because I'm like, okay, well, if I ask my team to do something and they don't know how to do it fast or good enough, and then I sit with them, I kind of show them and I'm like, okay, now they get it, like now I'm seeing the faster output, it makes me think people above me that think that things can be done fast Do they know something I don't know?

Speaker 2: 13:56

So, in my org specifically, I can't do what my boss does, my boss can't do what I can do, and my team can't do what I do and I can't do what they can do, if that makes sense. So no one is capable of doing the things that either their upper or subsequent person does, which leaves you very much in a. The only way to really fix this problem is to add more repeat skills to the mix. Like we're, we're very well diversitized in a skill portfolio, but we have no redundancy on the team at all. I have one teammate that I would say is redundant and she's phenomenal, and the one thing I don't want to do is have her in the same situation where I am Basically like oh, you get to go do this now. I hope you don't jump off a cliff today, today, uh, you know like I want to be protective of the workload and the bandwidth and the weight that I would send down to her. So I I don't uh that.

Speaker 1: 15:13

That means I do carry more, you know, it's just uh yeah, it is interesting the two perspectives of you're in a startup well, you said, makes sense. It's like your team isn't big enough and your company isn't at the size to have specialized skill sets Right, like you kind of own a general domain of things or a vertical of things in your portfolio and you guys are responsible for that function in its entirety. For me it's like I am very, very specialized into product management so the redundancy is high because it's we're built because of the scale that we have to operate. If someone's out, someone just steps in Right.

Speaker 2: 15:55

You have a team of product managers.

Speaker 1: 15:57

Yeah, I have a team of product managers who has a team of product owners on their team and so, like if someone's out like I could theoretically step in and do their job because I have the same skillset and capability. I don't think it always goes the other way, like I think the upwards trajectory is like they probably can't do some of the things that I do because they don't have the context, they don't have the experience or they haven't been in all these situations. So again experience. So like been in all these situations, again experience. So like it doesn't really work both ways, but it certainly works that I can. I could step in and help my team if they needed me to. Yours is totally different.

Speaker 2: 16:35

I think that's good, though. I think that's normal and that should be expected, right Like, in order to get to the next level, I feel like you have to be able to do the previous level. That's how it should be. I know that's not how it is, but that's how it should be. And you know, at a startup you don't hire that way, right Like, I'm hiring, I have a need and I need a hire to fill that need. The reason that need exists is because no one at the startup can do that job. So I'm very cognizant, like I am in a different position and a lot of my frustrations and complaints are just because it is startup and it is exhausting. And I am, unfortunately, very talented and very diverse in my skill set, which, like seems great on paper, but then you realize, like, what it means as far as expectations, capacity and outcome, and it's just a maddening, frustrating experience. It's just exhausting at the end of the day. But to come back to my main thought, I still feel like the expectation is more than it used to be, and that's not just startup. I do feel like the expectation is more, do faster, do more, better quality Cause you cause.

Speaker 2: 17:49

I think businesses in general, are just competing a lot harder than they used to. We're in a, we're in a bad market right now, right, like we talked about the jobs report last week Not a lot of them. When there's less jobs, there's less spending. When there's less spending, there's less income and profit for companies. So companies become a lot more brutal, a lot more cutthroat.

Speaker 2: 18:07

I got to, I got to beat my competitor because every sale is either life or death for the company. Like it's. It's very like violent language, I mean, like you know, you think about it, but it is like businesses become almost like violent in the way that I have to outperform them because they or us won't be here in two years, right, and I think that that mentality that sort of it is almost war-esque is being pushed down to us and we're essentially soldiers in this fight now, and every battle you lose is a potential. Now, uh, and every battle you lose is a potential, you know, achilles heel for the company, I don't know it just like it feels oppressive. It feels very, very oppressive right now and I don't think it's going to get better yeah, you know this, this topic is really timely, I you know.

Speaker 1: 19:00

Let me tell you a story. Let's sit down together, let's tell a. Tell a story.

Speaker 2: 19:05

Sorry, I've been seated this whole time.

Speaker 1: 19:07

Oh, have you been? Oh, I've been standing.

Speaker 2: 19:09

Sorry.

Speaker 1: 19:09

You should probably think about if you should stand or not. You don't have to, but think about it. All right. Okay, we're together. I don't like that swivel. Nobody can see what you're doing right now, but I don't like it. Okay, I'm going to set a story for you.

Speaker 2: 19:24

Okay, so last year, 24, a good year yeah 2024.

Speaker 1: 19:32

It was a good year. I had a employee that's one of my manager's employees, but I know them well. I had them come to us and say, hey, I want more opportunity, I want to take on more, I want to show that I'm ready, kind of, for that next level. So he said, okay, great, you know there's. We're always looking for opportunities to kind of like stretch a new skill set or learn or be able to step into something that's higher capacity or more strategic or whatever it is. So we gave this person additional responsibility this year to say, okay, well, let's see how to handle it.

Speaker 1: 20:04

We'll give them a little more responsibility. And in the beginning of the year they had some personal stuff go on and so like that was totally understandable, like hey, no worries, we're going to figure this out together. And lately it's actually gotten to the point where this person is just struggling. They can't keep up with the workload and we're at the point where it's like it's almost time to take the responsibility away from them. Or, if they want to keep it, it's almost like performance discussion time, because it's starting to impact many teams. And they said they could do it. They haven't expressed concerns around doing it, but we constantly see the indicators that they're not performing over and over and over again. And so I sat down with them this week as a skip level management meeting and I was just like hey, I'm concerned just about your performance. You know we wanted to stretch you this year, but we're just not seeing you being able to have the capacity to do it.

Speaker 1: 20:55

And they looked at me and they said I have 10 spinning plates right now and they're like every day I feel like a new plate is coming into the mix and I'm like I'm about to drop one of the plates and they're like I can't keep up. I'm working a ton. You know I'm taking on more and more and more, and as I kind of sat with them and kind of heard what was going on, it made me think about the power of no. And what I told this person is like you can't be afraid to say no. You've got I mean, especially in product management like prioritization is everything. Not everything can be a top priority. You've got to be able to prioritize what are the most important spinning plates and say no to other things. And when people come to you telling you to do something else, don't just take it in, say like, okay, you know I don't think that fits in my priorities, but if you think it does, here's my top 10. You know, do you think I should drop one of those so I can take this on too? Like the power of offering trade-offs, to say I can take that on, but something else needs to give, and so I basically you can take that on, but something else needs to give. And so I basically you know, pretty directly asked the person I was like next week, I want to know what four things are you dropping from those 10 right now? Like you need to drop it next week immediately. Like, give us a recommendation of your top four things you're getting rid of on your plate, because in reality, not all of those, even though I wish they could be can be the top priority.

Speaker 1: 22:12

And I think that goes back to your sentiment of like, how do you kind of combat this? How do you handle this situation? And when you're early in your career, like saying yes to things is good, you should be accepting more opportunities, should be looking for more opportunity, but you need to make sure you under commit and over deliver on that opportunity and be realistic. When your plate becomes heavy or you get too many plates balancing or spinning in motion, you've got to say bruce, so happy you brought this, uh, this new project to my attention. You know I'd love to take this on.

Speaker 1: 22:43

Frankly, I just don't think I have the bandwidth. You know, here's my project list and I don't think this is more important than anything here. But if you'd like me to drop one of these, I can do that and and I can pick this up. Just let me know which one you want me to drop, and so I feel like that's maybe the conversation that we need to remember can happen. It's not just yes, yes, yes, more, more, more. I'm just going to do it. It's like no, actually, just list out the things that you're doing that's taking up the majority of your time and tell them which thing do you want me to get rid of? So I can do this and just leave it up to the person asking you.

Speaker 2: 23:14

You know what's so funny. I love this. I did 50% of this this week. Yeah, you got asked to do something. Yeah well, it's not good, I'll tell you, because the 50% is the problem. We got asked to do something that literally no one on my team had bandwidth for or could do. So I said we have no bandwidth, In fact, we're all over capacity, and they're like, oh well, it needs to get done. I'm like I agree. So I guess I'll just do it then, and that was the problem.

Speaker 1: 23:48

That's a critical mistake you made there. You got to rewind that conversation and be like what's coming off?

Speaker 2: 23:54

Nothing because everything else is already in play and due in the next two weeks. So that's the problem, right Is there is there is no coming off the priority list and we're not going to not do this thing because it costs us $20,000. So we have to do it and we have to get it done in time. Like it's just there. I would love to be able to negotiate priorities and maybe that's my next step is, like really starting to keep a list of like. Here's our priorities, here's our list, what's coming off, what's going in. But unfortunately, because we're so lean and because we are so focused on all value all the time I don, we're so lean and because we are so focused on all value all the time, I don't know. I don't know if there's any negotiation to be had. It's the only negotiation is how many extra hours are you working this week for no actual reward or satisfaction.

Speaker 1: 24:44

Uh, yeah, I always tell my team and you're to your point. I mean, you're in a startup, so like, in that case, yeah, that's tough, like everything's a priority fires can happen every day and in my case that's tough, like everything's a priority Fires can happen every day, and in my case it's like it's totally and I think most people who work at traditional corporate sense totally in your realm to control your priorities and offer those trade-offs.

Speaker 1: 25:04

So you're not just saying no, no, no, all the time.

Speaker 1: 25:05

You're saying you know, maybe there's an opportunity to take this on, but here's all everything on my list, Like what can I deprioritize and the three levers that I think are important. Maybe the best tip I can share maybe not in your scenario, but maybe in your scenario time, scope, resources. So can I extend the time? Can I have a little more time for this project? Like, instead of next Monday, can it be the following, so I can get it done by beginning of October? Like that's an option.

Speaker 1: 25:31

If that's not an option, it's like okay, can we reduce the scope of this? Can I cut the scope of this by 10%, 20%. Remove this page, remove that part of the project, remove this feature, whatever it is, and that way I think we can still get it done on time. And on budget or resources, Can I have more money? Can I hire somebody? Can I, you know, whatever it is that you need, can I buy a new tool that's going to help me accelerate it?

Speaker 1: 25:53

Like the resources are another lever you can pull and so like, as you're having these tough conversations, I think you have to. You have to think about all those as you're proposing recommendations. So not just saying no, but saying maybe. But here's what I would suggest, like give me more time, Give me let me cut a little bit of scope here or give me more resources.

Speaker 1: 26:15

And if all those things are are no like to your point, a resource is also, or time is also. Yeah, working extra hours, like sometimes it's we're working a weekend and that that sucks, but in reality that might be the only option where it's just like I think we gotta, I gotta have my team work this weekend. You know, morale is morale is going to take a hit, but if that's the only option, then if I'm talking to my boss, I'm like, hey, we're working the weekend, my team's not going to be thrilled about it, but that's the only way I can see us getting this done. Are you okay with that? And like those are all the conversations I think you as a manager, especially if it's impacting your team have to have.

Speaker 2: 26:49

Yeah, I just. You know, I know we're at time. You got to go Time. I'm just over it. I'm over it. I'm over all it. I do appreciate your advice, clark. As always, I think you do have the right approach and response. I just have to figure out how to work it into my life. Yeah Well, thanks. Thank you for being my therapist, clark, and I hope that our listeners.

Speaker 2: 27:13

If you're in a situation similar to mine, you've got something out of this. We do have to run. It's a quickie this week, but it doesn't make it any less valuable. If you want to join in the conversation, do so by hitting the show notes, getting on our Discord, having a good time. Support the show by buying us a coffee. Listen to an ad, share the pod with your friends. Throw the podcast in your neighbor's doorstep, ring the doorbell, run away, do it. Do it now. If you're not doing it, then you don't love us. And if you don't love us, why are you listening to us? Uh, thanks, as always, for for being a listener and being a friend. We appreciate you.

Speaker 1: 27:47

I'm bruce and I'm clark we'll do the ai challenge next week, I promise we promise we'll do it.

Speaker 2: 27:53

you're on'll do the AI challenge next week. I promise, we promise, we'll do it. You're on mute. We'll see you next week.