Are outdated management practices and hierarchical structures holding your organization back?
In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando take the untraveled path of analyzing why the need for control is so pervasive in corporate environments.
Listen to learn:
- How the illusion of control manifests
- How risk aversion stifles creativity and growth
- Better organizational structures than the autocratic heirarchy
- How the illusion of control permeates management
- The pitfalls of short-term thinking and "quarterly capitalism"
- How to reach beyond vanity metrics and measure what matters
Whether you're a product manager, agile coach, or business leader, this discussion will challenge your thinking on organizational structure and decision-making.
#AgileLeadership #ProductManagement #OrganizationalCulture #BusinessAgility
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00:00:01 --> 00:00:10 welcome to the Arguing Agile Podcast, where Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando argue about product management, leadership, and business agility, so you don't have to.
00:00:11 --> 00:00:15 Today podcast, we're talking about the illusion of control.
00:00:15 --> 00:00:17 Ooh, ignore the man behind the curtain.
00:00:17 --> 00:00:20 Why do I say the illusion of control?
00:00:20 --> 00:00:21 Let's, let's start there.
00:00:21 --> 00:00:23 It should, it should be easy.
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 This is going to be a dark magic podcast.
00:00:27 --> 00:00:31 Is that because the feeling like you're in control is an illusion in and of itself because there is no real control.
00:00:31 --> 00:00:35 It's an illusion because you think you're in control, but you're really not.
00:00:35 --> 00:00:39 Everyone around you who's working for you inside the company knows.
00:00:39 --> 00:00:45 That you don't really you're just fighting to feel like you're in control and everyone else at the company knows that you really have no control.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:46 So they don't say anything.
00:00:46 --> 00:00:47 Who are you just fooling yourself?
00:00:47 --> 00:00:51 Is that, is that the Yeah, I mean, the bar is pretty low right there.
00:00:51 --> 00:00:56 You're fooling yourself, but those around you aren't going to say anything.
00:00:56 --> 00:00:58 We're going to explore that a little bit deeper.
00:00:58 --> 00:00:59 Alright, hit the music.
00:00:59 --> 00:00:59 Oh, it's too late.
00:00:59 --> 00:01:03 So like, let's get the trite point out of the way.
00:01:03 --> 00:01:03 Alright.
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 Which is, this is the way it's always been done in companies.
00:01:06 --> 00:01:15 When you read books about like Marty Cagan, where he's like, Oh, come up with your intuition and find your way towards a signal and to change things if they're not working and be evidence based and that kind of stuff.
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 Most people look at that and they say, yeah, but I'm in a feature factory.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 So like, that's, that's great advice, but that doesn't apply to me.
00:01:20 --> 00:01:22 You know, Marty Cagan won't work here.
00:01:22 --> 00:01:22 I haven't said that.
00:01:22 --> 00:01:23 That's right.
00:01:23 --> 00:01:24 Marty Cagan won't work here.
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 I mean, a lot of times people say exactly that.
00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 And you say, well, that doesn't work here because we're special.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:29 We're unique, right?
00:01:29 --> 00:01:30 It may work somewhere else.
00:01:30 --> 00:01:31 Yeah.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:32 Cause that industry is easy.
00:01:32 --> 00:01:32 We're unique.
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 Tim tells us what to do.
00:01:34 --> 00:01:35 Yeah, exactly.
00:01:35 --> 00:01:36 We follow Tim.
00:01:36 --> 00:01:36 Yeah.
00:01:36 --> 00:01:36 Thanks, Tim.
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 . He was Gary's understudy.
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 the historical inertia here of this is the way it's always been.
00:01:41 --> 00:01:48 this is a good category because when I go to networking events, And I hear people's issues, their issues about fighting against a system of control.
00:01:48 --> 00:01:58 And I'm just, in my brain, like the quiet part in my brain is like, good luck beating your head against that, like the dislodging or loosening in any way, shape or form that system that has cemented itself in place.
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 Often you hear that idiom, moving the needle.
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 This is embedded in concrete.
00:02:03 --> 00:02:04 I'm going to move this needle.
00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 So why do companies do this, right?
00:02:06 --> 00:02:10 Why do people do this in companies and say, we're going to do this because we've always done it that way.
00:02:11 --> 00:02:12 I mean, there's a certain amount of safety there.
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 not really doing anything that's risky.
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 So maybe It's a hand me down type of thing.
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 You come in and people say, that's how it's done around here.
00:02:20 --> 00:02:21 and so that's what you do.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:26 And then before you know it, you're turning around and saying the same thing to the newcomers.
00:02:26 --> 00:02:26 Into your company.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:27 And.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 Bingo! Now that's how your culture is instilled over time.
00:02:30 --> 00:02:47 Yeah, like this has got me thinking about regression to the mean, which I was saving for another podcast, regression to the mean, but this is like lowering the bar, like lowering the IQ bar of the organization by saying like Hey like it's people thinking critically for themselves and, and people trying small risks or small bets.
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 Like that's not, that's not our way.
00:02:49 --> 00:02:50 Like don't, don't do that, kid.
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 You know, this is not the business for that.
00:02:52 --> 00:02:53 Just do what you're told.
00:02:53 --> 00:02:57 Yeah, we know best this is how, this is how we do things around here yeah.
00:02:57 --> 00:02:57 The bar is low.
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 Nobody likes a low bar except maybe limbo dancers.
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 I mean, risk aversion cause that's kind of what we're talking about now.
00:03:03 --> 00:03:03 Yes.
00:03:03 --> 00:03:17 I think the only people that risk aversion helps are the executives that are left after they lay everybody off, so after they lay everybody off, it's the executives, but then those that around them just say, yes, sir, we'll do it that way.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:22 The yes, men and women that stay because the executives need people to do something.
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 So they keep people like them around.
00:03:24 --> 00:03:25 They think like themselves.
00:03:26 --> 00:03:27 They act like themselves.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 And before you know it, everybody else who's.
00:03:29 --> 00:03:35 You know, maybe a little different thinking outside the box thinking maybe in no boxes at all.
00:03:35 --> 00:03:40 They're gone Yeah Oh, man, you didn't even, mention look like themselves because that's most executives.
00:03:40 --> 00:03:41 That's also true.
00:03:41 --> 00:03:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 Yeah, check me internet on that one.
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 Go look up VC and people that fund companies.
00:03:47 --> 00:03:53 So the executives that are left over after these layoffs and whatnot, like the, the, the people that are prone, they're, they're averse to risk.
00:03:54 --> 00:03:55 They're averse to innovation.
00:03:55 --> 00:04:01 Basically, if you're averse to risk, you're not going to innovate so their whole business is at risk basically.
00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 So I'm wondering about this category, like risk aversion.
00:04:03 --> 00:04:11 Like how can I think of the biggest of big companies out there that are like so paralyzed, I can't make decisions or it takes months and months to make decisions, you know what I mean?
00:04:11 --> 00:04:18 lately these kinds of organizations have been leapfrogged by really small lithe, nimble if you like.
00:04:18 --> 00:04:22 and the potential in the market is the same for both companies.
00:04:22 --> 00:04:26 It's just that one is so mired in the old way of thinking avoiding risks.
00:04:27 --> 00:04:28 Basically having the blinkers on.
00:04:28 --> 00:04:29 This is all there is.
00:04:29 --> 00:04:30 This is how we work.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:31 That's work for us.
00:04:31 --> 00:04:33 Anything outside is just dismissed.
00:04:33 --> 00:04:39 I think about, I'm trying to make a comparison to people that are risk averse.
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 Like this is part of their identity.
00:04:41 --> 00:04:45 Oh, I'm not going to take wild risks or bets or whatever.
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 Not understanding the difference between a gamble and a bet.
00:04:48 --> 00:04:55 In business I think of the same categories, like there's organizations that their identity is that they're just overly cautious I can think of a legitimate case.
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 Utilities are overly cautious.
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 I mean, they're in their pace of innovations are very, very regular.
00:05:00 --> 00:05:01 The industry is falling.
00:05:02 --> 00:05:02 Exactly.
00:05:02 --> 00:05:02 Yeah.
00:05:02 --> 00:05:02 Yeah.
00:05:02 --> 00:05:04 because they're like turning a profit.
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 make the next big innovation breakthrough.
00:05:06 --> 00:05:07 Or whatever, that's not their top priority.
00:05:08 --> 00:05:10 Their top priority is to keep the lights on.
00:05:10 --> 00:05:10 Yeah.
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 Keep the lights on quite literally electric delivery.
00:05:13 --> 00:05:17 And you know, you do that by making sure everyone's safe and not having any accidents, and you do that by.
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 Playing it safe, basically, there's something you said for that.
00:05:20 --> 00:05:24 But I mean, if you really dig deeper, you'll find that they still need to innovate.
00:05:24 --> 00:05:26 They still need to experiment.
00:05:26 --> 00:05:28 And so there's a certain level of risk aversion.
00:05:28 --> 00:05:36 So that's understandable, but to be risk averse completely, they may not have, they have a monopoly now, but that's not a guarantee going forward.
00:05:36 --> 00:05:37 there's a, I'm reading a book.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:38 I wasn't going to bring it up now.
00:05:38 --> 00:05:42 I was going to do a whole podcast on it, But the book, it's actually, it's a quite excellent book.
00:05:42 --> 00:05:43 It's called.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:45 Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke.
00:05:45 --> 00:05:50 It's actually a really interesting book from the perspective of poker players.
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 And how they have to make quick decisions.
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 With the information they have available to them.
00:05:55 --> 00:06:03 hence the name of the book oh, because in the thinking of the thinking in bets book, she gives the idea, she gives the concept of Well, it might not be this book, actually.
00:06:03 --> 00:06:07 I heard recently the concept of like, you own a plumbing company and you have ten plumbers, for example.
00:06:08 --> 00:06:14 And you all ten of the plumbers are gonna take, let's say they work forty hours a week, They're gonna take four hours of their time in the week.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:25 To just innovate, try different things that completely out of the realm of what they normally would do just to see what happens You give them a certain amount of time to try different things and what they try is up to them.
00:06:25 --> 00:06:34 If nobody comes back with any good ideas Hey, I tried something different in my four hours and nobody comes back with any new ideas, any new practices, anything they tried.
00:06:34 --> 00:06:35 Okay.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 Well you lost there's a dollar value what you lost.
00:06:38 --> 00:06:39 There is, but nobody.
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 So people don't come back with nothing.
00:06:42 --> 00:06:42 Oh, right.
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 They come back with some learning.
00:06:44 --> 00:06:44 Right, right.
00:06:44 --> 00:06:45 there's some value there.
00:06:45 --> 00:06:51 So, so how small does the learning or the advantage that one plumber brings back to the group have to be?
00:06:51 --> 00:07:06 you take the thing that that one plumber learned, you bring it back, you apply it to the rest of what the plumbers are doing, How much was that financially worth to you now that you've scaled that good practice across all the plumbers, as opposed to I don't give any plumbers time to innovate.
00:07:06 --> 00:07:10 So if they are innovating, it's on their own time, or they're sneaking it in the line about their time.
00:07:10 --> 00:07:12 No one's ever done that in software development.
00:07:12 --> 00:07:16 When they fail to make a breakthrough They're punished for that.
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 and like basically derided and told not to do it again.
00:07:19 --> 00:07:19 Right.
00:07:19 --> 00:07:24 So the idea is, well, now you can't like, now the other plumbers are not going to spend their time.
00:07:24 --> 00:07:37 So you've punished one person for using a little, what across all your plumbers in the company is like a real micro amount, tiny amount of time to innovate, but that learning, like how much money is bringing how much money is that learning that was distributed across all the plumbers.
00:07:38 --> 00:07:44 The concept is spreading your failure across the whole team, as opposed to like holding one person accountable to the failure, you know what I mean?
00:07:44 --> 00:07:45 Like singling out a person from the team.
00:07:46 --> 00:08:08 That's this category like if the risk aversion category might be a little more complex about the like the simple things that we talked about earlier might be your culture punishes individuals rather than you know teams or whatever when they shouldn't be punishing in the first place they should be trying to say okay you did this thing is it in the best interest of the company in the business and if it is And it turned out where it, what we're, we don't learn anything from it.
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 We don't have any good, better practices from it.
00:08:11 --> 00:08:11 That's okay.
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 Cause now we spread that across everybody in the company.
00:08:14 --> 00:08:20 Theoretically, if you think about it from a, a cost perspective and it's spreading it across like that, I mean, you're really talking about.
00:08:21 --> 00:08:22 peanuts here.
00:08:22 --> 00:08:23 I don't think it's significant, right?
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 But the benefit aspect of it, you don't know what they're gonna come up with.
00:08:27 --> 00:08:32 It could be a cost saving idea that that saves cost forever after that point, right?
00:08:32 --> 00:08:33 So the multiple is there.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:40 And this is where some companies realize this, and they do encourage their employees to Experiment, basically.
00:08:41 --> 00:08:45 There's no guarantee an experiment's gonna succeed so, but, that's the culture.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:50 Unfortunately, that has morphed into this sort of hackathons and things like that, that teams do.
00:08:50 --> 00:08:52 And it's given a bit of a, bit of a bad rep.
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 Like a one off type of event?
00:08:54 --> 00:08:54 Is that what you mean?
00:08:55 --> 00:08:58 That, and also just basically, just check in the box, right?
00:08:58 --> 00:08:59 So, yeah, we do have innovation.
00:08:59 --> 00:09:07 We have a hackathon once a quarter, and everyone's forced to go to that, I don't know if there's any value there really because people know that they're going there because they've been told to go there.
00:09:07 --> 00:09:18 It would be far better to have a mechanism where they can collaborate anytime, really, You have to put guardrails in, I understand, but that can be done on a weekly basis, why not?
00:09:18 --> 00:09:23 and that way you are getting something to the fore much quicker, You learn something or you fail.
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 That doesn't matter as long as you learn something from a failure.
00:09:26 --> 00:09:26 Move on.
00:09:27 --> 00:09:27 List yourself off.
00:09:27 --> 00:09:34 Get up and well, I'm trying to consolidate that with the general, like the, the control category Fear of failure is in the control category.
00:09:34 --> 00:09:41 That's the, that's the category and, and in this culture where there is fear of failure, you're not going to have experiments going on.
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 No you're not going to have innovative you know collaborative sessions going on.
00:09:44 --> 00:09:48 So risk aversion, fear of failure, like these two things go together.
00:09:48 --> 00:10:01 You know because in a, in a culture where they stigmatize failure, so in the plumbing example , the people I give time to experiment with, like they're not going to use that time to experiment anymore once they see one or two of their co workers get punished.
00:10:01 --> 00:10:02 Like that, they're going to not do that.
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 Like they don't want to get punished.
00:10:04 --> 00:10:19 You know, and also, they don't see a dime like the old, where it's, boy, if I can find an office space clip and clip into right now if they ship any extra unit of software, like they don't see a dime, same thing if they're better at their job this plumber can complete the job in half the time as that plumber, they get paid the same thing.
00:10:19 --> 00:10:39 I guess you could say one person's advantage is they could knock out their work in four hours as opposed to eight hours and go home But you know as well as I do like that That's not the way corporate america works It's like your reward for being able to do your job twice as fast being a 10x developer is more work 10x to work That should have been the book now, 10, 10 X to work in 10 X the time.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:39 Yeah.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 So Jeff, if you're listening, this is the title of your next book.
00:10:42 --> 00:11:00 The other part of fear of failure, where we started this category was kind of like poo pooing on executives, where we said like the whole not taking any risks, not sticking your neck out kind of being safe and floating around, but yeah, the sunk cost fallacy for people like that, like the financial incentive to do nothing or continue something that obviously is not working.
00:11:00 --> 00:11:08 To not pivot, to be the opposite of business agility, to, to do big plans that spec, Oh, I need you to sit down and write epics and stories for this program.
00:11:08 --> 00:11:09 Okay, no problem.
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 So like what timeframe are we talking about?
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 Oh, I'm thinking about three and a half years.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 I want the backlog to be three and a half years.
00:11:15 --> 00:11:16 So it's deep.
00:11:16 --> 00:11:17 Yes.
00:11:17 --> 00:11:17 Yeah.
00:11:17 --> 00:11:18 Deep backlog.
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 That, that, that way we, that'll, that'll mean we have a strategy.
00:11:21 --> 00:11:22 That'll mean success, right?
00:11:22 --> 00:11:23 Right.
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 So this, what you're describing is, is what I call business rigidity.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:26 Yeah.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 It's the opposite of business agility, right?
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 And there's so much of it out there.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:32 So much of it.
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 And part of it is, I know we're going to get into this too.
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 Part of it is just not knowing any better, right?
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 Which brings us back to, this is how it's always been.
00:11:39 --> 00:11:40 We do it this way.
00:11:40 --> 00:11:44 It's not that they don't, in some cases, it's not that they don't want to do it any other way.
00:11:45 --> 00:11:46 They just don't know.
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 Well, I mean, part of it is how they learned.
00:11:49 --> 00:11:53 the other part is their identity how they see themselves, how they view themselves.
00:11:53 --> 00:12:00 I was in a company once where the program management office controlled all of the developers, project managers, all that kind of stuff.
00:12:00 --> 00:12:07 So you went to the PMO when you wanted an IT hardware, software, everything dealing with technology basically.
00:12:07 --> 00:12:08 They were completely project based.
00:12:09 --> 00:12:18 they didn't do anything product wise, the way we think about products, everything was like spun up temporary and then spun down and then you had your team that did maintenance and kept the lights on and stuff like that.
00:12:18 --> 00:12:19 But that was their identity.
00:12:19 --> 00:12:41 The people that ran the PMO and the people that like the executives, That ran that side of the house, they basically their view was like agile is a, not really like a flash in the pan, And like, our job is to figure out how to connect the it services, like the very old school thinking about it services, like spinning up and creating a development team to do software and stuff like that.
00:12:41 --> 00:12:42 Like that's an it service to them.
00:12:43 --> 00:12:46 So their idea was the businesses, the core.
00:12:46 --> 00:12:50 The core of the business is not information technology.
00:12:50 --> 00:12:51 This is the way they would explain it.
00:12:52 --> 00:12:56 The core of the business is not software development and building products and maintaining products.
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 You know, the core of the business is something else.
00:12:58 --> 00:13:09 But when we need IT things done, We ship it over here and deal with this Disgusting work as quickly and efficiently as possible and then we get back to our lives and that's basically the way they treated it that was their identity.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:10 They really saw themselves like that.
00:13:10 --> 00:13:15 They were like we service the business We're not trying to tell them what products they need to build.
00:13:15 --> 00:13:18 They tell us what to build and then we just deliver it as efficiently as possible.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:19 Exactly.
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 And time to market and phrases like that are just not in their vocabulary.
00:13:22 --> 00:13:23 It's not how they're measured either.
00:13:23 --> 00:13:24 Yeah, that's right.
00:13:24 --> 00:13:24 Exactly.
00:13:24 --> 00:13:32 So so compare and contrast that to a culture where it is really partnered with the business, and I.
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 There's examples of this out there.
00:13:34 --> 00:13:45 What will happen is not only is their core business being serviced by IT and enabled by IT, but IT will come up with new products, which then eventually become part of their core products, right?
00:13:45 --> 00:13:49 That wouldn't never happen if IT was simply treated as a, a cost center.
00:13:49 --> 00:14:01 A lot of where you were going it scares me because one day you wake up and now you have no job because the You know, we offshored this here and we reduced costs there and we budgets got slashed over here or whatever.
00:14:01 --> 00:14:01 Right.
00:14:01 --> 00:14:02 Yeah.
00:14:02 --> 00:14:08 And like, through no fault of your own, like you have a great product or whatever that you produced or whatever, but it's just it's a business society.
00:14:08 --> 00:14:09 They wanted to try something different.
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 And then you got kind of swept away . Yeah, it's very true.
00:14:13 --> 00:14:14 Very, very true.
00:14:14 --> 00:14:15 And we've been seeing that a lot lately.
00:14:15 --> 00:14:49 The other thing is like, when you're that kind of organization that we're describing, which is a very specific organization, so maybe it doesn't apply to everybody, but when you're that specific type of organization, like the IT side of the house, They didn't think in long term, like culturally at all, like the, I mean, quarterly, I think they did yearly budgeting, but the yearly budgeting was basically just looking at all the money that was given to them in the previous year to do it projects and then taking that same number plus a percentage or whatever and forecasting the next year along with the things that they knew they were going to work on, Oh, we got to deal with this dependency this year or this thing going end of life or whatever.
00:14:49 --> 00:14:50 Cultures like that.
00:14:50 --> 00:14:53 They don't think about the value side of the equation, right?
00:14:53 --> 00:14:58 It's just simply here's a here's a bucket of money don't overspend and very high level.
00:14:58 --> 00:14:59 Here's what we're trying to do.
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 We're trying to shoot Out there in outer space.
00:15:02 --> 00:15:03 Is it for the moon?
00:15:03 --> 00:15:04 Or Mars?
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 This is going to be an interstellar planet.
00:15:06 --> 00:15:06 That's all.
00:15:06 --> 00:15:21 Well, I mean, short term thinking now that we're talking about this category, I mean, let's not dismiss legitimate functioning companies that just that just don't have strategy and can't, that they, the strategy apparatus that muscle for building, exercising, testing, and then operating strategies.
00:15:21 --> 00:15:22 It just doesn't, it's non functional.
00:15:22 --> 00:15:23 They just can't do it.
00:15:23 --> 00:15:26 So they come up with all these other things instead of strategies.
00:15:26 --> 00:15:34 they do a lot of short term things because there's, this is like quarterly capitalism about hey, just make it, make the numbers look good quarter to quarter.
00:15:34 --> 00:15:36 I got to hit my targets the next quarter.
00:15:36 --> 00:15:39 So the stock market doesn't come down on me and the stakeholders don't come down on me.
00:15:39 --> 00:15:50 So basically everything is optimized for quarterly output or I guess quarterly results, profits, quarterly results, they're not often profits, unfortunately, but I agree.
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 And it's pervasive throughout the organization.
00:15:52 --> 00:15:54 So that's how leadership is measured.
00:15:54 --> 00:15:59 That's how middle leadership management is measured all the way down to the teams.
00:15:59 --> 00:16:01 Everybody's measured that way.
00:16:01 --> 00:16:02 And that's a shame, really.
00:16:03 --> 00:16:10 The reason that short term thinking I'm stuck on this one as a product manager because it's kind of like antithesis of product management, short term thinking.
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 I mean, you could do product management in short term thinking.
00:16:13 --> 00:16:20 That that's what feature factories do they go from the this next deliverable to the next deliverable to the next one And they don't ever question like we're five years.
00:16:20 --> 00:16:21 Where are we gonna be?
00:16:21 --> 00:16:24 You know, we may have a podcast coming up on that Topic.
00:16:24 --> 00:16:24 Oh, okay.
00:16:24 --> 00:16:24 Yeah.
00:16:25 --> 00:16:25 Yeah.
00:16:25 --> 00:16:44 Well one of the things we don't talk about in the I don't hear it talked about in the product management Agile circles and whatnot a couple different circles that we interact with explore exploit Like the trade off, the wheel of explore exploit you, you, you're just like the, our plumbers who are trying to figure out how new and better ways of working.
00:16:44 --> 00:16:45 Like, that's the explore phase.
00:16:45 --> 00:16:49 Once they do it, they're going to bring those learnings back, share it with everybody on our cruise.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 And now all of our plumbers are exploiting that new trick.
00:16:52 --> 00:16:55 You know, this one new trick is how to do plumbing or whatever.
00:16:55 --> 00:17:03 I think again, it goes back to the very first thing we started with, which is You know, I think it might've been one of the very first ones today risk averseness, right?
00:17:03 --> 00:17:10 Even if you explore and you learn something to be able to institutionalize that across the board, unless that's backed by leadership, it's not going to happen.
00:17:10 --> 00:17:10 Right.
00:17:10 --> 00:17:18 As plumber a comes back and says, I've got this brilliant idea and plumber B is going to go, I don't want to try that because you know, my boss doesn't like that or won't like it.
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 So yeah, the first half of this podcast.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:24 Had to do with the less controversial stuff.
00:17:24 --> 00:17:33 And then the second half now that you mentioned the hierarchical structure, the middle management and whatnot, and the way the top managers got to get on board with these transformation initiatives or else they go nowhere.
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 Let's dig into that for a second as a Hey we need control.
00:17:36 --> 00:17:37 We need control.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 We need to feel like we're in control because let's be honest.
00:17:39 --> 00:17:40 That's what it is.
00:17:40 --> 00:17:41 It's a feeling you're not really in control.
00:17:41 --> 00:17:41 Okay.
00:17:42 --> 00:17:47 So we don't want to delegate to the teams and then influence and coach and help them do the job.
00:17:47 --> 00:17:47 No, no, we don't want to do that.
00:17:47 --> 00:17:52 We want to feel like we're in control but also we haven't mentioned micromanagement at one time on the podcast.
00:17:52 --> 00:17:53 I'm kind of impressed by the way.
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 So what is the best way to feel like we're in control?
00:17:57 --> 00:18:02 Well, we roll out this hierarchical org design structure where everybody has a boss.
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 And I have five bosses here at Inateck.
00:18:05 --> 00:18:09 You know when I hear, like when I screw up, I gotta hear about it from my five bosses.
00:18:09 --> 00:18:19 Like the, the middle management, like if you had like large companies, like thousands of employee, large companies, when I say middle management, you think of like, oh, just like middle manager Bob or whatever.
00:18:19 --> 00:18:20 Like, okay.
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 It's not just, but it's not middle management.
00:18:22 --> 00:18:29 Bob at a large company, middle management Bob is actually Director Bob, who has 150 employees under his division.
00:18:29 --> 00:18:41 his only like his metric of him doing a good job is adding more employees under his division and growing his division and getting more projects and money into his division, he's not measured by successes.
00:18:41 --> 00:18:42 Or happy customers or whatever.
00:18:42 --> 00:18:43 It's just, I got more dollars.
00:18:43 --> 00:18:44 I got more people.
00:18:44 --> 00:18:45 I am successful.
00:18:45 --> 00:18:46 I agree with that.
00:18:46 --> 00:18:48 That's again, the fallacy of measuring the wrong thing, right?
00:18:48 --> 00:18:49 That's how he's rewarded.
00:18:49 --> 00:18:53 So when, when something doesn't go right he's not going to get the blame.
00:18:54 --> 00:19:05 He's going to blame those people downstream get rid of a few people, get some replacements, Bob continues to thrive that, that's the sad part, but coming back to the, to this topic that you started with the hierarchy, right?
00:19:05 --> 00:19:09 One of the things that happens when you add hierarchy is latency of decision making.
00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 So, by definition, you gotta get sign offs.
00:19:12 --> 00:19:13 You gotta go up.
00:19:13 --> 00:19:14 And then they have to go up.
00:19:14 --> 00:19:19 And sometimes on arbitrary things well, it's up to 10, 000 of a spend.
00:19:19 --> 00:19:20 My boss can sign off on it.
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 And between 10 and 25, he's gotta go to his boss.
00:19:24 --> 00:19:24 Yeah.
00:19:24 --> 00:19:28 And above a certain number, they got to go to the Pope at the Vatican or whatever.
00:19:28 --> 00:19:29 That makes sense.
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31 Listen, they got to get the blessings.
00:19:31 --> 00:19:32 I was just thinking about the Pope for some reason.
00:19:32 --> 00:19:34 But anyway, Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration.
00:19:35 --> 00:19:35 Got to get her sign off.
00:19:36 --> 00:19:36 Yeah, exactly.
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 So it takes days just to get the decision made.
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 And typically it's not that simple, right?
00:19:43 --> 00:19:44 They're going to ask questions.
00:19:44 --> 00:19:45 They come rippling down.
00:19:45 --> 00:20:02 So now more days get added before you can even get a decision weeks go by and that's, I think, a direct result of having a hierarchy like that where everybody needs to understand stall delay, block, tackle, whatever, because they have this Need to be in control, at least the illusion of it.
00:20:02 --> 00:20:10 Well, sadly, some people don't even realize an illusion that they think that's the only way to work well, if your command structure here is a hierarchy, that's right, I said, command, that's what it's optimized for.
00:20:10 --> 00:20:15 It's optimized to let people at the top make the decisions and then roll it on back down.
00:20:16 --> 00:20:20 that's a terrible, that's a highly inefficient way of organizing.
00:20:20 --> 00:20:26 I wonder why the authoritarian, governmental structure is the default corporate governance structure.
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 I wonder how that got like that.
00:20:28 --> 00:20:29 It wasn't always that way.
00:20:29 --> 00:20:33 the business owner and a gang of people there were team leads who were foremen.
00:20:33 --> 00:20:37 Who knew how to do the work better than general workers and then just a body of workers.
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 that was the structure when Taylor entered the picture.
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 Well, I'll tell you how I think it got like that.
00:20:42 --> 00:20:45 So when Taylor entered the picture, it was fairly straightforward.
00:20:45 --> 00:20:49 A small company, like you said, there's one layer, maybe two at the most.
00:20:49 --> 00:20:50 And then the workers.
00:20:50 --> 00:20:51 And then they grew.
00:20:51 --> 00:21:00 So when you scale up, that person who's in charge of the workers, they can't now be in charge of, A thousand workers when they were in charge of a hundred, right?
00:21:01 --> 00:21:03 So when you scale up and you grow You just can't keep up.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:04 So what do you do?
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 You add a layer, right?
00:21:06 --> 00:21:14 And then you grow more and you add a layer and so that's how I think it evolved that way over the years More and more layers got added scaling problems.
00:21:14 --> 00:21:18 I think this is one of the downsides of scaling in the wrong way.
00:21:19 --> 00:21:23 I think part of it is obviously Taylor is, taking some blame here.
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 Taylor, you're not getting out of this one some of this.
00:21:25 --> 00:21:26 Is directed at Taylor.
00:21:26 --> 00:21:36 The other one is I wonder once Taylor's theories and everything like proliferated and entire schools were built around and stuff like that, I wonder if people just kind of stopped searching for other ways of organization.
00:21:36 --> 00:21:36 You know what I mean?
00:21:36 --> 00:21:41 Like the cost of developing new organizational methods and trying them, people just didn't want to bother.
00:21:41 --> 00:21:44 Well, for the longest time, that wasn't a thing, right?
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 But we think about the history.
00:21:46 --> 00:21:47 Right of Taylor.
00:21:47 --> 00:21:51 It goes back a long way and then the wars came about right?
00:21:51 --> 00:22:03 So now we had to mobilize people to get mass production done the Industrial Revolution hit And none of that really allowed for lateral thinking it was just basically get this done They say get things done throw more people at it.
00:22:03 --> 00:22:11 Well, I think the real answer here is a very complex and not something that we're going to be able to really dig into in terms of the podcast.
00:22:11 --> 00:22:17 But I think the educational systems that took Taylor's teachings and dropped it in and then spread it.
00:22:18 --> 00:22:21 And then try to use it to obviously make money off of teaching that system.
00:22:21 --> 00:22:23 I don't think that helped either.
00:22:23 --> 00:22:27 Cause now you've got Taylor's systems are in the early before 1920 basically.
00:22:28 --> 00:22:40 And then you've got years of really nothing and then this the fifties and sixties, you've got this hierarchical control structure thing that we're talking about now is the default, the de facto in the world.
00:22:40 --> 00:22:49 I think the education system really not only didn't help it hurt because it basically prevented people from thinking outside of that.
00:22:49 --> 00:22:54 You know, you had to go to business school, you had to get to, to become a leader in those days, right?
00:22:54 --> 00:22:57 To become the boss, you had to have an MBA or some such.
00:22:58 --> 00:22:59 You had to go to business school.
00:22:59 --> 00:23:04 A good respectable business school and you know what you're going to get out of a person from those schools.
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 You know, they're going to teach a certain set of values.
00:23:06 --> 00:23:10 And I think like, this, what I think of as a typical MBA type of value here.
00:23:10 --> 00:23:17 the ones that are misunderstanding agility in the first place, I think, Oh, well, you guys are just putting out garbage and put out half done work.
00:23:17 --> 00:23:18 And you guys have no plan.
00:23:18 --> 00:23:19 Basically you have no plan.
00:23:19 --> 00:23:19 You have a strategy.
00:23:19 --> 00:23:27 You're just working on the latest fire going from point to point like the educational system probably could have been geared like when you go to a school.
00:23:27 --> 00:23:31 For higher education, they could be in a position because you went to the school.
00:23:31 --> 00:23:32 I mean, they have all your details, right?
00:23:32 --> 00:23:42 Then you could be in a position where they're constantly seeking to update and refresh your knowledge of the evolving science in your particular area, right?
00:23:42 --> 00:23:48 If it's you and I working in software development, they could constantly be saying like, Hey, have you seen this study about organizational psychology in a workplace?
00:23:48 --> 00:23:49 Maybe it applies to you.
00:23:49 --> 00:23:50 Hey, have you seen these things?
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 They could be trying to draw you back in.
00:23:52 --> 00:23:56 To refresh your degree or whatever learning that you have to keep you current.
00:23:56 --> 00:23:58 Cause again, if you get an MBA.
00:23:58 --> 00:24:04 And you, you learn that everything has to have a Gantt chart and every like resource utilization and capacity planning, all that kind of stuff.
00:24:04 --> 00:24:09 And then 20 years goes by and you find like, Oh, all that's like, nobody wants that anymore, you know?
00:24:09 --> 00:24:09 Yeah.
00:24:09 --> 00:24:18 So, I mean, certainly going back maybe 20 years or so that was the case where you just came out with your prestigious piece of paper and he got you places.
00:24:18 --> 00:24:18 Right.
00:24:18 --> 00:24:25 But I think things have changed a little since then, because what's happened, I can talk about my own perspective after I graduated with an MBA.
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29 I constantly kept hearing from business school saying, here's a webinar.
00:24:29 --> 00:24:31 Here's this before webinars.
00:24:31 --> 00:24:32 It was retreats.
00:24:32 --> 00:24:33 They call them go there for the weekend.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:34 Right.
00:24:34 --> 00:24:37 And it was deep immersion in a new concept.
00:24:37 --> 00:24:41 Yeah, I mean, that's great, but that costs money and people don't bother.
00:24:41 --> 00:24:46 That's in contrast to one of my favorite alternatives here, which is that journeyman model, right?
00:24:47 --> 00:24:48 So yeah, you go to business school.
00:24:48 --> 00:24:48 That's fine.
00:24:48 --> 00:24:54 When you come out, you work under the guidance of somebody who's done it for a long, long time.
00:24:54 --> 00:24:55 And you learn from that.
00:24:56 --> 00:24:58 And then they put you out, the training wheels off.
00:24:58 --> 00:25:03 And they're not gonna let you fail, but you learn through the school of hard knocks, And then you keep going back.
00:25:04 --> 00:25:07 Now I keep saying that it doesn't have to be one person also, right?
00:25:07 --> 00:25:08 It could be a finance person.
00:25:08 --> 00:25:09 It could be an HR person or whatever.
00:25:09 --> 00:25:16 So you have guides, basically the higher level guides that you can go back to over time, making that optional versus mandatory.
00:25:16 --> 00:25:24 We can talk about that but I think that model has a higher chance of not just coming out with a piece of paper that you can brandish, right?
00:25:24 --> 00:25:27 These are skills that you learn by practicing.
00:25:27 --> 00:25:30 There's something here that I want to dig deeper into.
00:25:30 --> 00:25:35 I think of all the, like the professional development and networking organizations and stuff like that, even just here in town.
00:25:36 --> 00:25:42 And I always wonder why the university systems are not, are not connected to those, like you would think they want to be, if, if the universities want to be.
00:25:42 --> 00:25:50 They wouldn't have deep ties with industry, like they should have deep ties with the professionals in their localities that are on the edge of this stuff.
00:25:51 --> 00:25:53 And I don't know if it's just like a an effort type of thing.
00:25:53 --> 00:25:57 Like it's very hard to maintain those communities and stuff like that.
00:25:57 --> 00:25:57 But I don't know.
00:25:57 --> 00:26:00 I just haven't seen May, maybe it happens in other areas and I'm just not aware of it.
00:26:00 --> 00:26:04 It could just be my little bubble I'm not seeing it anywhere else.
00:26:04 --> 00:26:05 I haven't encountered it They're missing.
00:26:05 --> 00:26:11 That might be something for us that's something that I think we could facilitate like, I don't know.
00:26:11 --> 00:26:11 We'll see.
00:26:11 --> 00:26:12 We'll see about that one.
00:26:12 --> 00:26:15 Let me, let me, let me revisit that one in six months and see how I feel about it.
00:26:15 --> 00:26:16 Siri, set a time for six months.
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 It's so the last one, measurability bias.
00:26:20 --> 00:26:21 Oh, yes.
00:26:21 --> 00:26:31 If you're in the business of control, aka command control, and you're in that business, you probably have a measurability bias, and you probably don't want to hear me talk about your measurability bias.
00:26:31 --> 00:26:33 Why do you care about velocity?
00:26:33 --> 00:26:35 Why do you care about number of widgets stamped out?
00:26:35 --> 00:26:36 Why do you care about these vanity metrics?
00:26:37 --> 00:26:37 You know what I mean?
00:26:37 --> 00:26:43 Everybody listening to this has worked for someone who is all tied up in knots about vanity metrics.
00:26:43 --> 00:26:44 Stuff that doesn't matter.
00:26:44 --> 00:26:53 And now I love being a product manager now because This is my field on which to play a game that I enjoy, which is, I only care about things that really matter to the business.
00:26:53 --> 00:26:54 I'm looking at business metrics.
00:26:54 --> 00:27:00 I, I'm not even going to get, you can't even catch me and you throw me a football during a baseball game.
00:27:00 --> 00:27:02 Listen, you throw a football at me.
00:27:02 --> 00:27:04 Yeah, I'll, I'll use a bigger bat.
00:27:04 --> 00:27:07 What's happened here is again, we go back to the earlier point about.
00:27:08 --> 00:27:09 That's how it's always been done here.
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12 So you, that's what gives rise to these.
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14 silos in organizations, right?
00:27:14 --> 00:27:16 Like PMOs and things like that.
00:27:16 --> 00:27:16 Yeah.
00:27:16 --> 00:27:20 And then the illusion of control kicks in well, also they might not even know what to measure.
00:27:21 --> 00:27:27 Like a PMO might not even know what impacted the business metrics, like what metrics have real impact on the business.
00:27:27 --> 00:27:28 They just don't know.
00:27:28 --> 00:27:33 Cause they've never, to not throw too many stones on the podcast they may never have been effective in business.
00:27:33 --> 00:27:34 Their whole career.
00:27:34 --> 00:27:35 Absolutely.
00:27:35 --> 00:27:36 They just don't know it.
00:27:36 --> 00:27:37 Yeah, I agree.
00:27:37 --> 00:27:42 This is why that gave rise to measuring things like utilization, making sure people are busy, right?
00:27:42 --> 00:27:43 Right.
00:27:43 --> 00:27:44 We gotta keep people busy.
00:27:44 --> 00:27:46 You can't have people sitting around 30 percent of their time.
00:27:47 --> 00:27:49 That's the wildest metric ever.
00:27:49 --> 00:27:50 I couldn't agree more.
00:27:50 --> 00:27:51 I always give that example though.
00:27:51 --> 00:27:57 Look, if we want to keep people busy, then we should set the town on fire because our firefighters.
00:27:57 --> 00:28:04 Are not doing much every day, but when there's a fire, that's about the only time they work So let's go set the town on fire so they can be busy all day Right?
00:28:04 --> 00:28:05 You heard it here first.
00:28:05 --> 00:28:13 Yeah, so, so utilization aside one of the things they like to do is to ensure that there's standardization everywhere.
00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 And this gets put down in different number of kind of topics.
00:28:17 --> 00:28:20 They'll say things like, We have to have governance right.
00:28:20 --> 00:28:22 Which is a fantastic term.
00:28:22 --> 00:28:23 Governance means we don't trust you.
00:28:23 --> 00:28:30 So we're going to measure everything you do and we're going to have you accountable to reach a certain bar.
00:28:30 --> 00:28:31 We don't even know what that bar is.
00:28:31 --> 00:28:33 We've never done it, but we want you to do it.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:34 So we're going to hold that.
00:28:34 --> 00:28:35 That's governance for you.
00:28:35 --> 00:28:47 Well, now you're playing, now you're playing games because now you made up a metric and now someone else is fighting over that metric and then they'll make up, they'll make up the numbers too, which gives rise to these watermelon reports they're green on the outside, red on the inside.
00:28:47 --> 00:28:48 That's right.
00:28:48 --> 00:28:48 That's right.
00:28:48 --> 00:28:53 So, I mean the, the harder, the harder part is this function, this category uh, is the uh, That's terrible.
00:28:53 --> 00:28:54 And I hate it.
00:28:54 --> 00:29:04 But the other thing about this category that if I we got to mention it before we leave is while the business is playing all these games, like they're not measuring real business, like outcomes, like real impact of the business.
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06 They're not measuring any of those real metrics.
00:29:06 --> 00:29:11 So again, you can find yourself out of a job and have no indicators that you were headed off a cliff.
00:29:12 --> 00:29:16 But the other thing that worries me about this category is when I see like, Oh, that's a companies are.
00:29:16 --> 00:29:23 Laying off scrum masters and agile coaches can't get jobs or whatever and you know, everyone's pivoting to product coaches because that's the next trend or whatever.
00:29:23 --> 00:29:35 Like, how about rather than surfing trends how about we find a way To influence the culture where they're measuring like what the value of a business leader basically Dedicated to the teams.
00:29:35 --> 00:29:37 What value does that bring us?
00:29:37 --> 00:29:51 Like it said last night I was talking about the doorman at the big hotel like We don't need a doorman because people can open like we'll have a door opener Like the little star trek doors or whatever like then we don't need a doorman Well, that'd be is that what the doorman did he just opened the door for people when they walked in?
00:29:51 --> 00:29:56 That doesn't seem like that A lot of work and then when you actually go talk to this is a problem.
00:29:56 --> 00:30:03 This is the empathy here We didn't even mention empathy once in the past So, of course you wouldn't go talk to the doorman and be like, what do you actually do here at Initech?
00:30:03 --> 00:30:14 Like you wouldn't actually you know, but he's the face of the company He's the first person you see when you walk in and he says good morning, sir You know, it sets you up for a positive experience He knows everyone and he there's a neighborhood.
00:30:14 --> 00:30:27 He knows the trends He knows when people are going to be there and when they're not he can spot things, you know out of the ordinary And you know he connected People, other people so yeah, I mean, he can answer questions about you know, Oh, the water in the buildings off today.
00:30:27 --> 00:30:27 what's going on.
00:30:27 --> 00:30:30 And he can already tell you before you even get into the building, what's going on.
00:30:30 --> 00:30:32 It's like, what is the value of someone like that?
00:30:32 --> 00:30:37 Like, well, if you ask corporate America, they're gonna say, well, he just opens the doors right, that's, no, there's no value in that.
00:30:37 --> 00:30:44 I often wonder like if you had a really good manager versus a really bad manager in a company does a company have a way.
00:30:44 --> 00:30:47 Financial analysis.
00:30:47 --> 00:30:48 CPAs are smart.
00:30:48 --> 00:30:49 They go to big schools.
00:30:49 --> 00:30:50 They get those degrees.
00:30:50 --> 00:31:08 Do they have a way to measure between a really great manager that everyone loves does coaching can motivate people without this carrot or a stick or whatever, versus a bad manager who's obviously contributing to a toxic work quote, toxic workplace and they don't, I know they don't, they don't, and neither do HR.
00:31:08 --> 00:31:10 That's the best part of the other problem, right?
00:31:10 --> 00:31:11 we don't need to bring HR into this.
00:31:12 --> 00:31:13 They're already in the building.
00:31:13 --> 00:31:18 They are because look they're the ones that set these policies on reward and all of that stuff.
00:31:18 --> 00:31:22 I thought we automated their job with AI avatars and you know, AI chatbots.
00:31:22 --> 00:31:26 We only automated the input of resumes and surfing through those.
00:31:26 --> 00:31:28 I think we need to put a bow on this topic.
00:31:28 --> 00:31:32 So it's like there's much better, a lot of signs of control here.
00:31:32 --> 00:31:33 A lot of games being played.
00:31:33 --> 00:31:34 Not a lot of business value.
00:31:35 --> 00:31:42 In terms of business outcomes and like actual business metrics going on in here, lots of games, lots of games, and that's how the game's always been played.
00:31:42 --> 00:31:50 I know this, this kind of breaks the format of, of the arguing a bit of the podcast, but I want to talk about maybe some of the reasons why this is important.
00:31:50 --> 00:31:52 proliferated through through the culture.
00:31:52 --> 00:31:54 Yeah, because it's I mean, it's everywhere.
00:31:54 --> 00:31:54 I hear people.
00:31:55 --> 00:31:56 I was gonna say cry about it.
00:31:56 --> 00:32:04 I hear people remark on this with a very despondent tones that they don't know what to do because it just seems like it's ubiquitous.
00:32:05 --> 00:32:06 It's everywhere all the time.
00:32:06 --> 00:32:07 I would always say you biscuits.
00:32:07 --> 00:32:10 You biscuits anyway.
00:32:11 --> 00:32:13 So the reasons why this is happening.
00:32:13 --> 00:32:20 but we can we did, we hit quite a few actually I think the new generation really should not be thinking about following.
00:32:21 --> 00:32:27 What the existing generation is doing because otherwise we're gonna end up exactly where we are 10 years 50 years from now, right?
00:32:27 --> 00:32:28 So why are we here though?
00:32:28 --> 00:32:29 that was your question.
00:32:29 --> 00:32:32 Why are we here for whatever better expression?
00:32:32 --> 00:32:40 there really wasn't a choice people didn't see it Differently until now, think about how corporate America was and some still think it is, but they're mistaken.
00:32:41 --> 00:32:46 Think about how it was in the fifties, sixties, maybe even the seventies, we ruled the world, right?
00:32:46 --> 00:32:48 We did, we had the biggest car manufacturers.
00:32:48 --> 00:32:49 We don't anymore.
00:32:49 --> 00:32:52 Yeah but we invented too at the time.
00:32:52 --> 00:32:56 And you could say we still invent, but we're not leading.
00:32:56 --> 00:32:57 In terms of market.
00:32:57 --> 00:33:00 I mean, people talk about electric vehicles and things like that.
00:33:00 --> 00:33:05 Well, the leader in the market right now in electric vehicles is not an American company.
00:33:05 --> 00:33:07 We haven't had the fire.
00:33:07 --> 00:33:15 We haven't built that because everybody was in it for themselves, and everybody had a large piece of land, right, that they could just set themselves up on.
00:33:15 --> 00:33:16 So all thrived.
00:33:16 --> 00:33:21 So anyway, it's just a function of history, I think, why we are where we are.
00:33:21 --> 00:33:22 We haven't felt the pain.
00:33:22 --> 00:33:26 We haven't sat on a tack to get up and say, Ow.
00:33:26 --> 00:33:28 Let's change this, right?
00:33:28 --> 00:33:30 It's been too comfy for too long and that may change.
00:33:30 --> 00:33:33 Well, I've been too comfy for too long, It's time to end the podcast.
00:33:33 --> 00:33:37 Alright, so if you're still with us , congratulations first of all.
00:33:37 --> 00:33:38 It's your birthday?
00:33:38 --> 00:33:38 Is it?
00:33:39 --> 00:33:39 I don't know.
00:33:39 --> 00:33:41 They got a treat today so I figured it was their birthday.
00:33:41 --> 00:33:42 Oh, okay.
00:33:42 --> 00:33:45 Anyway, let us know what you want us to talk about in the comments below.
00:33:46 --> 00:33:48 Please don't forget to like and subscribe.
00:33:48 --> 00:33:49 Ring that bell.