Did You Try Unplugging It?

Did You Try Unplugging It?

I recently moved from being Chief of Staff at an 80-person Tech startup to the same role at a company of currently 700+ employees. The new company has been around for over 50 years but recently experienced explosive growth as it grew from a mostly regional to a national organization. In the space of a couple of years they've grown about 10x the size and, as you can imagine, are experiencing many of the same struggles that Silicon Valley startups do when they scale at such a clip.

I just completed my first 4 weeks at the company. That entire time was spent drinking from the firehose of information, history, and existing relationships as I contemplate a plan of action that will increase efficiency, execution, and effectiveness for my CEO, leadership team, and my own EA and his direct reports. Coming from Big Tech into a legacy not-for-profit definitely presents its own set of unique challenges.

Truthfully, I've avoided non-profits like the plague for the majority of my career. I had a quick stint at one in San Francisco decades ago. I couldn't believe the unnecessary complexity, hierarchy, and ineffectiveness of simple processes in such a small organization tasked with saving trees but blithely burning through reams of paper and, quite conspicuously, refusing to automate many of the processes that used paper files. The hypocrisy was lost on me so I beat a hasty trail right out of there and tendered my resignation via an email as a parting middle finger.

What fascinates me about my current organization is that it has similar layers of complexity but a far better mission and intention and tons of opportunity to make some sweeping changes that will set them up for success as they continue to scale to meet internal and external demand.

Our Exec Team was chatting during a recent Zoom call and one of them had been experiencing some technical issues. Having worked in Big Tech for decades and experiencing technical issues and/or having to sleuth solutions for the numerous, non-tech savvy CEOs I'd supported, my typical default question was, "Did you try unplugging it?"

Over the years I've found that simply unplugging or restarting a piece of misbehaving tech or program magically allows it to reset and, more times than not, fix the issue. As such, I've also adopted that simple question as a mantra as I begin to help craft new systems and processes and forge a new, collective mindset among our team.

First, unplug it.

Legacy organizations have a habit of adding complexity to very simple processes. I saw this during my previous time at a globally revered apparel brand. Almost every process within the company had about 5 or more unnecessary touchpoints that created insane amounts of inefficiency and frustration. For someone who works in lightspeed, it felt like pure torture. I remember that even requesting the simplest piece of additional tech or submitting a repair request required numerous approvals and scheduling. Ironically, I literally sat across from the IT department and often witnessed junior members of the team twiddling their fingers waiting for the next request to roll downhill and into their inboxes once it made it through the numerous bottlenecks in a woefully busted process.

My solution: Make friends with the Head of IT and every one of his direct reports. While I spent a lot of money on Starbucks gift cards, birthday, and holiday presents, it paid off handsomely. Anytime I had a tech issue I had free reign to tap one of them on the shoulder and it would be resolved immediately, often within minutes. Cheating? Sure. Admitted. But the point here is that process had created such incredible inefficiency for a solution that literally took 4 minutes to resolve. That one fix, had I gone through the normal process, would have taken almost a full workweek "to get to me." In business, that's unacceptable. Full stop.

I approach large, complex problems using the unplug-it method. Like a computer program displaying a spinning wheel and, clearly, trying to self-remedy, it's sometimes easier to simply unplug it and let it reboot from scratch. This allows it to run through the very basics of the code, go through the normal checklists, validate them, and get back to square one of the login screen. Businesses should adopt a similar perspective as they scale and create new versions of processes. Instead of adding keystrokes to a flagging program and getting frustrated that it's not working as efficiently, simply "unplug it."

How to Unplug It.

Let's use the above program reboot as an example. The beauty of code is that it is simple and factual. No room for conjecture or (mis)interpretation. It is what it is. When you boot or reboot a program its sole objective is to start from scratch, run each line of code, validate each line for certainty as written, and once validated, produce the desired result. From there it is up to the user to make the next and subsequent moves.

Reimagining business processes should operate with a similar objective and efficiency. They should start from the simplest place, outline the minimal amount of predetermined steps one by one, validate each requirement for truth, and achieve the objective in the shortest time possible. When we get mired in a process that isn't intuitive to the user, feels unnecessarily "fussy," and not only doesn't achieve the objective in the shortest time possible but actually increases the time it takes to complete a rather simple process, it has a negative, reverberating effect. It's slow, not delightful, and in business, deleterious to morale, growth, and the user experience.

The Fear of Starting from Scratch

In large organizations, I believe there's a fear of unplugging convoluted processes and simply starting from scratch. Often, companies have continued to paint over previous paint, cycle through painters who add even more paint, and never make the time to simply strip the wall, sand it smooth, and apply a fresh coat. The fear is that by doing so the thousands of dollars spent on tech solutions and consultants would be perceived as wasted instead of simply spending the time to run a couple of small group beta tests and making the bold decision to flip the switch and, low-key, force the herd into the pen. Sure, there may be complaints and whining at first, but when people start experiencing new efficiencies in their day and intuitive processes that don't require a ton of unnecessary steps and waiting for resolution, they become ardent fans and, ultimately, embrace the changes.

Some may ask: "But what if it doesn't work?" I say, can you truly afford not to try? Especially if you scale at a rate where the more people you add to a busted process the more pain they'll endure when the process ultimately fails them. Given how difficult it is to attract top talent in a precarious market can you afford to lose people because you've held onto broken processes too long?

We see this in large organizations in the news all the time that have to implement revolutionary change due to flagging consumer sentiment. We experience it as consumers when we make service calls that get shipped around the world for resolution by customer service contractor reading from a manual instead of using common sense. Ever try getting a refund from a legacy vendor? Let alone a customer service representative with enough empathy to route you around the quagmire and directly to the person issuing the checks.

Why Your People Are Leaving

I can say, unequivocally, that the primary reason I left the apparel brand was because of the number of broken processes I was forced to endure as an employee. As much as I'd bring efficiencies to the table, they would get shot down because of how hard it would be to roll out organization-wide. Hear that enough times, feel handcuffed by rampant inefficiency, and then be subjected to performance reviews suggesting you be more efficient? Byeeeee.

For companies having long-ass meetings trying to sleuth why you can't keep butts in seats I'd vehemently suggest you review your processes. Specifically, the number of touchpoints it takes to get the simplest yet most critical tasks accomplished. No one wants to feel handcuffed when they're trying to put their best foot forward. If a process is downright stupid yet is forced to be followed without any review or suggestion for efficiency, then why would you want to be subjected to that on a daily basis as an employee? That's like paying for your own waterboarding.

Throwing money at candidates is lazy and completely missing the point. Instead, carve out focused, intentional time to review every process in your company and make sure it's intuitive, efficient, and effective. It's kinda simple, really. Though the implementation will be difficult, it will be well worth the effort and the small sacrifice in comfort.

In Conclusion

If you're contemplating making changes to critical processes, I'd suggest unplugging them first. Make sure the objective is crystal clear and work your way backward from there with a focused intention of creating a process that gets you from A to B in the shortest time possible, is easy enough for a 6-year-old to follow, and requires the fewest decision-makers as part of the process. That level of intention will not only delight the user but will likely keep your exit doors from revolving at such a high rate of speed.