Stop Defending the Plan, Start Improving It - The Long Game - Ep. #95

The plan you start with is rarely the plan that works. That's not failure, that's how it's supposed to go.

In this episode of The Long Game Podcast, Ryan shares what he's learned in the 60 to 90 days since bringing on his two most recent hires, and why roughly half of the systems, SOPs, and plans he built before they arrived have already been shelved, adjusted, or rebuilt from scratch.

He draws on a principle from The Algorithm by John McNeill, which examines Elon Musk's operating philosophy, to make the point that questioning the status quo isn't a sign of dysfunction. It's the engine of a well-run operation. The people actually doing the work are the ones who see the inefficiencies most clearly, and if you've built a culture where they feel free to say so, you've given yourself a significant advantage.

Ryan also addresses the flip side: iteration without a foundation is chaos. Before you can optimize, you need a rhythm. Something as simple as a shared Google Sheet and a daily end-of-day recap creates the cadence your team needs to spot what's working and what isn't. Get the system down first, then find the right software to replace it.

What You'll Learn:

• Why 50 to 60% of Ryan's original onboarding plan has already been changed or cut, and why that's a sign the process is working
• How to set the right expectation with new hires from day one when you're building roles that have never existed before
• Why questioning everything, including your own systems, is a leadership principle worth instilling across your whole team
• What it looks like to do a 60 to 90-day reset: pruning what isn't working and doubling down on what is
• Why your employees often have better visibility into operational inefficiencies than you do, and how to unlock that perspective
• Why you should establish a simple foundational rhythm before you ever evaluate software or automation
• How to sequence the process correctly: get the work done first, identify the gaps, then find the tools that solve for them

If you're building a team and feeling the tension between having a plan and staying flexible enough to actually execute, this episode gives you a practical and honest look at how to hold both at the same time.

Interested in connecting?

HOST
Ryan Richards | Branch Manager, Northpoint Mortgage | NMLS 1987735
rrichards@trynorthpoint.com | www.financewithteamrichards.com 
204 Turnpike Rd, Westborough, MA 01581
Licensed in CT, FL, MA, ME, NH, RI, NC, SC, PA, TN, VT

Follow us on Instagram @financewithteamrichards @the.longgamepodcast

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Chapters:
00:00 Plans Will Change
00:51 Hiring And Onboarding Lessons
01:46 Build The Plane Midair
02:28 Question Everything Culture
03:36 Empower Employee Initiative
04:24 Reset And Prune The Plan
05:17 Keep A Stable Backbone
06:08 Start Simple Before Software
07:18 Wrap Up And Next Updates

Transcript

0:00

If you're setting out to build something significant, one of the first things you probably do is put a plan together. But as you start pursuing that goal, you probably quickly realize that that plan might not be the best course of action. Most things don't go according to plan. But the question is what and when do you make that pivot, or how do you make that pivot? In the last 12 months, I've hired six different people for my business, and it's fundamentally changed my trajectory. So I'm gonna talk about some of my experiences, some of the things I've learned along the way that might just help you. I had two people come on in the last 90 days full-time within my business, helping out with multiple different facets of our operations, of the real estate side of things, investing, property management, videography. We have completely transformed how we operate. Now, initially, and in previous podcast episodes I've talked about this, I put a lot of time into the onboarding process, making operating manuals, dashboards, SOPs, training videos, training resources, to make sure that this transition was as seamless as possible. And part of those first few days together, we laid out our 30, 60, and 90-day plans. We even went over what does an ideal day look like in the office. But reflecting back, maybe 50, 60% of that we've either done away with Set on the back burner to address at a different time, not being a high priority right now, or we've changed, and that's okay. I think what I think I did a good job of in the beginning was letting the, my employees know these are both two brand-new roles that I'm establishing. I don't have any past experience or past position to reflect on. We're gonna build these as we go. I'm a big fan, if you've heard me in the past, of building the plane in the air, and that's exactly what we're gonna do. And part of it is setting that expectation that together we're going to optimize, improve, and implement better strategies, better systems to make our workflow as efficient as possible. So don't be set in your ways with a particular plan, and encourage your employees to provide suggestions. And I think it's really important to question everything. So there's a book I've been really honing in on recently. I'm actually going through my second, uh, time reading it. It's called The Algorithm by John McNeill, and it talks about his observations of Elon Musk's philosophy for how he operates, grows, and scales his company. And it comes down to one fundamental principle, which is question everything. Don't assume that just because something is status quo or it's always been done a certain way or you wanted it to go a certain way, doesn't mean that there's a better way to do something. And I think instilling that culture in your employees is even more important because if you're the operator, as you start to get more people, what I've realized is you don't have the direct pulse on all of your business operations. You can't, because you have multiple people doing different things at the same time. They're the ones who have the experience actually doing the task, so they know the inefficiencies, the opportunities, and they have potential suggestions for how to improve upon them. So encourage your employees to come to you with ideas for how to make things better, not only to make their working life better, makes them more efficient, and it allows you to focus more on growing the business. How cool is it if someone comes to you and says, "Hey, I have this idea to fix this problem. I did a lot of research. Here's my suggestion. I think we can implement it over the next 60 days. Do you want me to run with it?" That is the best conversation to have because it shows the initiative. It, the plan's already laid out. All you have to do is approve it. But it- if you don't establish that culture, you'll never get that suggestion. If you're telling your employees, "This is how we're gonna do things. This is the set Standard, this is our, these are our guidelines," they might not veer from that, and they might not think that there's another way to do things. But there's always a better way. Of course, there will be those foundational principles that you do not sway from, whatever that is in your business, but everything else operationally, I'm very much aware that everything I do, there might be a better way to do it. So I'm, I want to encourage that dialogue. And what I've done over the past few weeks is actually reset on the plan, going back to what did we start with? What are we still doing? What are we not doing? What have we never done from the original plan? And we're readjusting. We're going through that, that thinning out process of actually pruning the tree, seeing what we don't need, cutting the bad leaves, and optimizing for the future. And we're doing this 60 and 90 days in to them being on the team. And I think the earlier you can do it, the better, because why have a tired, broken system drag you down when you have other ways of doing things, and when you don't have to be the one to do all the legwork, right? Who doesn't want to find ways to be more efficient in their work? Everyone does. So just give them that opportunity, and don't get stuck within the guardrails you set up from day one, because they're very well likely is a better way to do things. So hopefully this gets your wheels turning about taking another look at your business. But I think one thing that's really important to establish this type of discovery and process implementation is you still have to have a backbone. So there still has to be some semblance of stability and a landing zone that people can go back to. So whether that's one process you implement that is your foundational process, it can still be open to change, but you need to build that rhythm, whether that's Monday-Friday meetings, whether that's training days on Wednesday, whether that's an end-of-day email that goes out recapping the tasks that were done during the day. There needs to be some semblance of a cadence for people to have that central platform to be able to branch off and see opportunities. If you don't have any central form of communication or any sense of rhythm, it's very difficult to try to find opportunities to optimize because you don't have anything established. So start with something. Keep it super simple. Don't try to always jump right to software. Start with a rudimentary process. For me, that was starting with a Google Sheet. Let's all put our tasks on a Google Sheet, understanding that, yes, it is a little bit tedious, there are some redundancies, but it's going to establish that cadence and that rhythm of every time a task gets assigned, it goes in the sheet. We update the date, and we track them. Now, of course, as we build that, again, process, rhythm, and cadence, that becomes the baseline. That's our foundation Over time, you and your employees will take notes on what things the current system lacks. Obviously, if it's Google Sheets, it's automation. It doesn't have any AI integrations for the most part compared to some, you know, robust task tracking platforms. But then let's culminate that giant list of all the inefficiencies we don't have in this software, and then we'll find the right software. You can hire someone to advise you on the software and actually implement it. But why waste the time trying out five different softwares to never really get anything done and waste time doing it? Get the system down, complete the work, and then find the opportunities to optimize. Hopefully, you took something from today's episode, and I look forward to sharing updates to come.