E033 Working and Understanding the System

Passionately Wrong Podcast Episode E033

Understanding Organization Systems

Key takeaway: To be most effective at work, you need to understand the systems that your organization follows. They may be written or unwritten, but your first task is understanding how things really work. Then, if not everything is working perfectly, you might be able to make improvements. Challenging the system head-on can be counterproductive, but James and Randy share ways that you can make progress. 

Topics covered in this video: 

• Understanding the rules of the game (the system you’re in)
• First, master the core job - what you’re there for
• The military experience: new bosses often, need to align expectations
• Bosses also have a key responsibility to help employees thrive
• Why asking questions is helpful
• How & how often does your boss want you to interact with them? About what topics?
• What a status report can do for you
• Why fighting the rules of the system itself is unproductive
• Why being open-minded is good, as boss and employee
• How to work with (and around) a boss or employees who resist change
• Read the SOPs, create them if they don’t exist
• Why policies are not perfect and how to criticize them effectively
• Add value to your organization

Transcript

James: 0:00

the thing that I see people. Attempt to do and get wrong all the time when they're trying to quote unquote work. The system is, they mistake wishful thinking for the rules. They say, oh, I feel like I've been unfairly treated. But it's just a feeling. It's just an emotion. Greetings, friends. I'm James.

Randy: 0:19

And I'm Randy. You're listening to The Passionately Wrong podcast where we challenge your assumptions, offer some different perspectives, and hopefully help you make better decisions.

James: 0:31

Hello everybody and welcome to today's show. Randy and I are gonna talk to you about what we're calling working the system. And if that sounds cynical, we don't mean it that way. What we mean is how do you learn what the rules are of the game that you're playing or the work that you're doing, or the job that you're pursuing, and how do you then maximize your chances of following those rules to achieve what you want? So the thought process behind this is that your success in life is a combination of many things. One of them is your abilities and your skills, and those you can learn and improve in a variety of ways. But another skill, if you will, is simply learning how to identify the rules of the game that you're playing and to follow those rules. In a way that improves your chances of success. And this has nothing to do with your inherent skills as such in the, in the game, but just whether you're able to identify what are the ways that you'll get ahead in that game. And let me stop there and see if that makes sense, Randy, if you understand what I'm talking about. Because if not, we have to do a better job explaining it. Maybe we need to give some examples.

Randy: 1:39

Yeah, I, I, I mean, I think what you're tell, what you're, what we're talking about is. In order, in order to succeed, you need to understand the rules of the game. I think you, is that, is that what you said? And, and, and it's not, it's not, you know, schmoozing up to people. It's not, you know, you know, Hey, what can I do next? You know, what, you know, I'm gonna do, I'll do, let me do that, let me do that. And just being the, the super kind of, uh, you know, Kind of the guy that no one likes in the room would, that he is always schmoozing up to the boss. He's always right underneath the boss's, uh, fingertips. It's, it's more, you know, what is, what is important in your arena, uh, your work arena. Like what, what do people value? And, and you have to learn that. And also you need to learn skills that are gonna, uh, gonna make, um, your work easier and also lead to you, uh, producing what needs to be produced in your arena. And you don't always learn that in college, and you don't always learn that in your former job because every company's a little bit different in the way they organize stuff.

James: 2:51

Yes. I, I, I think that is what we are talking about and, you know, some of the rules of the game might actually include being at least friendly with your boss and knowing how to work with them. But you're right, it's not just about. Uh, trying to take advantage of things. It's really, maybe I could also refer to it this way. Your skills and the things that you learn in college, uh, or wherever you have picked up your skills on the job are part of what will make you successful. But the other part is understanding that you're performing. Work in context. If you're working in a larger system, you're, you're correct. Every company is different. They all have a culture, they all have an approach to business. They all have a certain appetite for risk taking that differs from environment to environment. And your ability to succeed is your skills or your degree, or your qualifications or your certifications get you in the door. And you need to be able to substantively do the job. I. But that's not what makes you stand out. And we talked in earlier episodes about other things that make you stand out, like your willingness to volunteer, for example, or raising your hand and showing up. Today, I think we wanna get into in a little bit more detail that it's understanding that larger context in which you're. Providing services, um, providing value, I think you said. How do you add value in your role that gives you an opportunity to stand out and that, you know, let's talk about specifically how do you start to get into it and to, to see where it is your value comes from? Let's say you are a new corporate lawyer and you've been hired into the company, I've, you know, hired someone because I need to have a new contract attorney. Well, yeah, for sure. I wanna have someone who graduated from law school. They're qualified as an attorney, so they've got some basic qualifications they need to have. Then I, I want them to review commercial contracts, so they need to be able to read and mark up a contract. And so that sounds like the beginning and end of it, right? I'm a lawyer. I can read contracts. Well, there's a. Of additional questions that come up relatively quickly and you can start to see relatively quickly whether that person is gonna be a good fit or not. Of course, there's a training period you need to guide that person, but the start, the things that start to become relevant very quickly are. Is that person able to work independently or do they need someone holding their hand? Are they able to quickly spot issues and to focus in on the most important issues? Or do they get distracted by irrelevant things? Can they work efficiently in the sense that if the goal is to review five contracts a week, can they get up to five contracts a week and then start to do 6, 7, 8, 9, 10? Because of course more is better I would say to start with at least four people joining an organization in a corporate environment, mastering the core job is where I would recommend they start. You gotta be able to do the core job before you sort of reach out and say, oh, well I can do these 10 other things as well. I wanna hear if you can do 10 other things, but only after I've seen that you can master the core job. So I guess I would say, Learning the system starts with understanding what it is you're actually there for. Uh, it may not be exactly the same as the job description. I've seen plenty of organizations that have a job description, but then they hire people and the job is slightly different or even radically different. Your first task is to just figure out what has the company hired me here for? What does this organization want me here for? Would you say it's analogous for people joining the military, or is it so regimented and strict that you don't have a chance to do anything other than exactly what people are telling you?

Randy: 6:27

So we actually experience this pretty often because you end up changing bosses probably every two to three years and you always have on your evaluation reports, you have your. Raider and your senior Raider. So you have your boss and your boss's boss, and they both have to put bullets on what you're doing well or or poorly, and they both are supposed to talk to you and tell you your expectations within a month of taking a job. You know, cuz you're gonna get a evaluation report every three months. Um, so the good thing about the military is they really forced us down. You. And then if you do, if you end up doing poorly and they didn't tell you what their expectations were and they didn't put it on paper and sign it and you signed it and said, I understand, then it's real, almost impossible to hold that against. Unless he does something totally illegal, obviously, and, and, and, and violation of a bunch of things that are, are the norms. If you just do a bad job because your boss and your boss's boss did not tell you what the expectations were, then you can always go to, you can go to the the Jag and say, Hey, I don't deserve this really bad evaluation report because they didn't tell me what to do. And then you can, you'll, at the very least, you'll get a mediocre, unless you can. Substantiate with, I did all these things and in my last job, this gave me an excellent, I deserve an excellent, and Nick can almost force the system to work in your favor if they don't do what they're supposed to do. But I think going back to the topic of this podcast episode, it, we should really be talking to, you know, the, the people going into the. And inevitably those people will supervise people. So kind of inform and I think advising these, those people also. Hey, It would be nice, and I think everyone would agree when you're going to a new job for your boss to have some time set aside when you first get there and say, these are my expectations. What are your questions? And then periodically to go, all right, we talked about what my expectations are. Were, and you are. You know, this is, you're doing great and this is, you're doing good. And this is, you're not meeting my expectations and this is where you are. How can, what didn't you understand? How can I articulate better? What, what do you need? What do you not have the skills or knowledge? Because when we hired you, we didn't give them to you and we thought you had'em, or, or you know, Where's the gap and how do we, because cuz inevitably the boss wants you to succeed. He hired you to do a job successfully. Great. A great job at it. And so ideally he hired the right guy for that job. But inevitably, you may have some gaps. And how do we fix those gaps? I think as a boss, you should always be looking down and going, how can I make these guys successful? And as a person with a boss, you know, a, a worker bee, for lack of a better word, you should be asking questions. You shouldn't be afraid to ask questions. I think that's a, a very big problem in today's society is there's this, you know, zero. A tolerance kind of thing where I'm expected to know everything when I hit the ground and I'm afraid to ask questions cause then I'll look stupid and I'll look like, you know, I'm useless. I think especially when you start a new job, it's per you should be. The communication should go both ways. As a boss used to say, I want you to ask questions. I want you to understand what you're, what I want you to do, and do a great job at it. And as the, as the employee, you should not be afraid to ask your boss questions. I think that's a toxic environ.

James: 10:06

Yeah, the. Point that I'm glad you raised, which was uh, on my mind as you were talking, is it's really important to remember that the company or the organization really does want you to succeed. And they may or may not be efficient, uh, and great at communicating that to you or giving you the right information when you start. But ultimately, really, The relationship between you and your company should not be adversarial between you and your bosses should not be adversarial. It's not us versus the man. You're all in there together to achieve a common objective. I observe that more often than not, at least in the corporate setting, bosses are not good at communicating clearly the system and even their own individual expectations, even though it's so helpful when they. And the reason they don't is simply because people are busy. They hire the person, they figure, ah, this person should be able to figure it out. They give'em a, you know, a couple hours introduction and then they expect him to basically sink or swim. Not, not super helpful, which is why we're having this conversation to sort of maybe give people some tips about how to get better at it. Your two suggestions about don't be afraid to talk to your boss and don't be afraid to ask questions are exactly correct. You wanna do the. Correctly and well to the best of your ability as well. So the company wants you to succeed, but you personally wanna succeed because of course you wanna stay employed, you wanna get raises, et cetera. And just being willing to speak with your boss, it, you know, we're hesitant to do it cuz you don't wanna be an annoyance. I found it's not necessary to understand right away all the rules of the system because every system is incredibly complex. There's so many written rules and unwritten rules. You can start to make progress with a few very simple. Steps, and those would include, in my opinion, just understanding from your boss how they want you to interact with them. Should I write you memos? Should we have a weekly meeting or do you prefer telephone calls? What's the method of interaction? That's one really important thing. Do you wanna hear from me on a weekly basis? Do you wanna hear from me on a daily basis? Do you want me to just come to you when I have questions? What? What's the method of interaction that the boss expects from the employee? And then a second subset of. Would be, what are the sorts of issues or topics that you want me to bring to your attention? Do you wanna know? Everything I'm doing in a weekly report, do you wanna know only if I have a big issue that's gonna potentially cause an embarrassment for you? Do you wanna know about, you know, what are the things that you, the boss wants to make sure that I always keep you informed about? I found those two things go a long way, probably 80% of the way towards. Setting you up for potential success if you know how to communicate with your boss and you know, what sorts of things your boss wishes you to bring to their attention. Everything else, you know, we, we can talk about and there's tons of details beyond that, but I find those two things are very useful to establish early on.

Randy: 13:00

I think it's always a good idea to kind of send a summary to your boss. I mean, in the military. Because you have to do these evaluation reports, the your boss and your boss's boss are required to put bullet statements. Uh, usually 20 or 30 bullet statements down there with like, with, uh, you know, um, very specifics. Like, Hey, he trained so many people, things that you can measure that are measurable, right?

James: 13:28

So, so you're trying to help the boss provide bullet points and say, look, in case you're working on my next evaluation, here's some statistics for you.

Randy: 13:35

Depending on your, what you're doing for your boss, I think it's not a bad idea. You don't have to do it every week, maybe every month, but you're saying, Hey, these are the things I accomplished this month. These are the things that I'm gonna try to work on next. these are what I think my priorities are for next month, so that he can say, Hey, rearrange these. Oh, don't forget this. You know, he can look at what you're working on and not think you're working on something you're not. I think that. Being open like that and, and saying, I did, I completed all these, I'm halfway through with this, but I should have it finished by the end of the week and these are my priorities for next month. When your boss can quickly glance at that and not, not be five pages long, you know, be very brief about it. So he, he's not wasting a lot of time on it. and then he can see, oh shoot, I wanted him to work on this, but I guess I forgot to tell him, or he forgot about it whenever. So then you guys are both in the same shit of music. Otherwise, you'll two months down the line, you're like, Hey, did you do A, B? And C is like, oh no, I was working on d, e, and F. Uh, he was like, I, I didn't know you want me to work on. But if you're very transparent, that's gonna be a lot more helpful for everybody. Um,

James: 14:37

I also, that's really good advice, Randy, and maybe if I can speak to that. Have found that on the one hand, bosses like employees who don't take up a lot of their time, who they can just let go and work independently. but I fully endorse your suggestion to, in an efficient way. You know, you can do it with a, a, a written summary that doesn't take the boss long to read, to just say, Hey, look, both for purposes of, uh, you know, when you wanna write me an evaluation, you know, what I've been working on, but also for alignment purposes. And if I'm going off in a direction you don't want, or you want more emphasis somewhere else, he, here's what I'm working on. Even the bosses who say, I'm, I want you to work independently appreciate getting those sorts of updates. I, I, I think it's an excellent addition.

Randy: 15:18

I don't know how it works in the civilian world, but it's also a kind of a CYA kind of thing too, because in my case, I had a boss. Didn't seem to care what I did. He gave me no input whatsoever. So I did what I thought I was supposed to be doing, but I would send these emails to him every week like, Hey, these are my priorities. This is what I did. And he would say, he wouldn't, he, if anything, he would say, okay, like an email that do said was okay, but it, or he would just ignore it. But at the end of the year, I got a horrible, horrible evaluation. I don't know if he didn't like me or I don't know what his problem was, but uh, I went above his head. cuz his boss's boss had to sign it too. And oh, by the way, he didn't counsel either, so there you go. But I went to him, I was like, I, hey, uh, well first of all, I went to him. I was like, what's going on? He's like, well, I don't think you did a very good job. I was like, what could I have done better? I was like, well, you should know. I was like, but obviously I don't, and I was telling you what I was doing and I don't understand the dec, the, I mean, I did this exact. For the guy that you took took over for, and he gave me a gradient, he gave me a gradi evaluation report, so I don't know what your expectations are if you can't tell me, he is like, well, you should know better. And so I went to his boss and I was like, Hey, I don't, he's like, well, he said that you weren't, you know, concentrating on the right things. I was like, well, how, how about I just send you all these emails I sent for the last, all 50 emails I sent every week to him about what I was doing and what I had accomplished, and without any input from him. And I never got any, any input for them. Verbal. And there's no writing input cuz he never actually counseled me. And let's talk about putting the right thing on this page because this is crap. And ultimately I got it changed because I was right. And I also ha I, I also got to cover my as for that. Good.

James: 17:12

Well, no, I, I just wanted to say this is a perfect example and a segue into what I think is the real substance of, and the value of this podcast, which is there's the formal rules and then there's the other rules of the system. And what you're talking about now, and what you example described is working the system in a different way, right? So there's the formal, here's what I did and here's the evaluation, and then you could have taken your crappy evaluation and then had it affect your career in that way. Or you said, Hey, wait a minute. This isn't correct, and I have figured out sufficiently how the rules work that I can, I know there's another avenue available to me that's the kind of. Working the system and understanding the rules that I'm talking about, and it is not trivial at all. You make it sound trivial and easy, Randy, but you must have had some, you must have learned how to do it right. You learned that there is actually this process of the boss's boss reviewing it and it's possible to talk to them, and you understood the relative roles of you, your boss and your boss's boss. when I say it's not trivial, the thing that I see people. Attempt to do and get wrong all the time when they're trying to quote unquote work. The system is, they mistake wishful thinking for the rules. They say, oh, I feel like I've been unfairly treated. But it's just a feeling. It's just an emotion. They say, I don't like my review, but they can't then back it up with, well, and I've by the way, been doing all this stuff. I've been sending you a weekly summary for 50 weeks. I guess what I wanna say is just because you feel aggrieved or you're unhappy with how something is going does not give you the right to challenge the system. And so I, I think it's important to draw a distinction between learning productive ways to work within the system, even if you're unhappy with something that the system has done for you. So, What I wanna say is, if you know how the rules work, you can make the rules work for you. Fighting the rules is almost never an appropriate approach. Even if the rule is stupid, even if it leads to unjust outcomes, fighting city hall or fighting the system is very rarely your best approach. Usually it's better to say, okay, I know how this works and I can use it to my advantage. I don't wanna overstate what I think you did there, but I, I, I, for me, it, it seems like a good. Example of working the system to your advantage when the system at first glance doesn't seem to have created the result you want.

Randy: 19:24

I, I also think that, I mean, I, I agree, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. And, and I, the reason I do it, I did that is because I told my, my employees, for lack of a better word, the people underneath me, I told them to do the same. If nothing else to help, cuz I, I can't see everything you're doing every day. I got my own things I'm worried about and you, some of you guys are doing great things, so articulate those to me at the end of every week or at least every month and so that I'll ha when I do my valuation report at the end of the year, I don't forget anything. it's not that I'm not paying attention, it's just I. 20 guys under me. I can't see. Some of you guys are in different countries, so I definitely can't see what you're doing. And if you're not telling me what you're doing, then I, I, I, I'm gonna miss something and I don't wanna miss something cuz you guys are doing great, great work. one another thing we should mention is, being open-minded and realizing that people have different, uh, leadership. Abilities and styles and um, and I, in the army you'll often find the peop the person you replaced, made, uh, we called it, uh, a SmartBook or an s o p book, standard Operation Procedures. And it's kind of like, Hey, your daily duties and your weekly and monthly and the annual duties at, on this job, this is how I did it. This is the how I filled out the forms, things like that. And you'll get. Big binder, and now it's probably more digital than anything. But I remember back in the, the nineties it was, you got this huge binder with some document protectors and you got examples of all the forms they filled out and, uh, everything they did and things like that. And so you would, and you would add to it, you would look at it and you'd say, okay, and then this new improvements came on, you would add to it and the next person would have it. And I think that's always a good starting place. And if you don't have one for your position, maybe you make one for the next guy and, and you show it to your. You're, you, you show it to your boss and say, Hey, I made this for the next guy. When, when you, uh, when you replace me or when he comes in, when, when Brian comes in next week I got, he's like, you're gonna train him up. He's like, Hey, I got this thing. He's squared away. And then that also makes you look good as well, but it also squares the business away. Cause I assume you're gonna get promoted and go somewhere else and do better things. But the, but I was talking about being open-minded was I've come into to, to jobs where people are just using. Archaic technology, or they just, they're using a system that, you know, I learned either in my former job or some army schooling or in college that I think I can improve on. And as soon as I mentioned it, they shut me down. I was like, Hey, this is the way we do stuff here. And I'm like, oh, okay. All right. Uh, and I, and I give them one, I gave'em one try. I was like, Hey, I had this idea and it was like this, this, and this. And they made, they're like, nah, we're not gonna do that. And so I will do it their way. However, because I'm an overachiever, I will have a, black Ops mission to do it parallel my way so that when this fails, like I, I'm pretty sure it will. Then I, I have this other thing that I can stick into place, so I'll give you an example. When I was in Columbia, I was in charge of the security of like five to 800. Any, any one time, five to 800 Americans that were spread out across Columbia, which is a high risk area. I mean, we had hostages down there, you know, people were taking hostage people, you know, there were guns, f guns being fired. The FARC was pretty live lively down there, and so I had to, I, my responsibility was to know where everybody was. So if there a bomb went off, if there was a, an attack somewhere. I could immediately say if there was a, uh, one time we had a, a bomb scare. the, the agency had information that there was gonna be a, a bomb going off on a specific plane leaving from a specific airport. Right. And my job was to make sure I knew where everyone was. So what I got there, my boss said, I wanna know where everyone is. And I'm like, okay. the system was, a guy would turn a form in. Oh man, we would, I had four guys. We would make sure the forum had all the information and then we'd put it in this pile and I was like, wow. Yeah, we'll never figure out if anyone's on that plane before it takes off if we do that. So I spent like many hours afterwards and I made a database using Access, I taught myself access and I made a database and then I brought those four guys together and I said, this is how you fill the database in. And it was like, ah, I can't type. It was like, It's freaking 19. Uh, it's it's 2000 freaking eight. Dude, I'm sorry. You're 50 years old and you know, and you didn't get to use any computer skills, but learn. I don't care if you do this, but you're typing the information in. That's the only way we're gonna save lives. And they're like, oh, geez. I, I quit. And I was like, fine. Go. You know, at, at this point, these were. People that could say, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna stay in this position. I was like, fine, I'll get someone. And then another 50 year old guy applied for his job and I was like, can you use a computer? And he is like, well, I find he is like, Dan, okay, um, you're not good for this position. He was like, well, why not? I was like, because I need someone who can use a computer and you haven't. The first question should have been, I'm not really good at it, but I can learn. It shouldn't have been, well, I don't believe in, yeah, I don't, I don't need you to interview over next. And I got other people lined up to take this job and I ended up hiring some really young guys. they were in their late twenties, but they were computer ninjas because they were brought up on using computers in, in high school. but the big thing I did was, and so one day we had the, Hey, there's this guy on a plate. And, and I told my boss, I was like, Hey, I, I'm gonna, he's like, I want you, but the only thing I want you to focus on is making sure we can find someone in a moment's notice. I was like, got it. So I spent my first three weeks on the job making this database, teaching my guys how to fill it, it double checking them cuz they kept trying to take shortcuts and then, and then firing the people that weren't helpful. And then we get this, Hey, there's a bomb on this plane, it's leaving at a Bogota and in half an hour they've probably already boarded. Do we have anyone on that plane? I was like, give me a gimme two minutes. I was like, yes. We have two people. My guys are calling'em on me right now and telling'em to get off the plane. And they got off the plane, the plane didn't blow up and everyone was mad because they missed their plane and had to catch a different plane. But we did it. And, and that was something that, that I had to develop. Now, on the other side, I had to fight my boss on a PowerPoint. I don't know if you ever had this problem. Because you're the same age as me. But when we grew up with these PowerPoint slideshow that were on share drives, and initially if you made a PowerPoint slideshow in a share drive, if someone opened it and was still messing with it or just, or, or left it open, right? And everyone, and everyone's supposed to change their slides, then someone, no one could change their slides cuz this guy forgot to close it or, or whatever. And I was like, so I get there and I'm like, and I was like, Hey, I got an idea. I was like, not another one of your ideas. And I was like, no, I, I I've seen it done this way. I, I've worked this way before. Um, but you put a, an individual slide for each department so that when that slide, when that slideshow opens, they, they're the only ones in charge of it. So they, they can always change their slide. And then you have A link, a slide with a bunch of links on it, on the very first slide. So you're like, Hey, this is the meet, this is the the intelligence deconfliction meeting, and then you have D E A C I A F B I, and you have links to their slide. And so when you, when you show the slideshow, you hit it and it opens their slide. And if they didn't update it, they can't say, oh, the guy had it open. Which is what people are just doing. They're just not updating their slides. And so my boss is like, sounds complicated. Don't, I don't want to do it cuz he was, you know, 15 years older than me and he, technology wasn't his big thing. I was like, I, I guarantee you this is gonna work and it's gonna be so much better. Every slide will be updated or we'll know who's stupid. And he is like, ah, I don't know if we wanna know who's stupid. I was like, oh, well if that's what you don't wanna do, then let's not do it. But one, one day he wasn't there. and I switched it. And I did it and over he, he was gone on vacation for two weeks. And so I went in there to the new guy who took over. He was like, okay. Uh, that guy said you knew how to do it. I was like, yeah, I know how to do it. This is what we do. And I briefed everyone on the new system and I was like, oh yeah, this sounds so much better. And we implemented it and two weeks later my boss came back and he is like, I don't know. This seems to be going a lot smoother for some reason. It takes half as long to do with this stuff. And I was like, yeah, well, I implemented this plan. It's like, I thought I told you not to do that. It's like you did so I didn't implement it while you were here, so you wouldn't, you know, you couldn't complain, but seems to be working smoother. We could go back to the old way if you'd like. It's like, nah, it's just a lot better. But I say that because you need to keep an open mind. You don't need to, they're the guys that were under me. We're the naysayers, like, I don't want to type this in. Why can't we just use the papers? We can just go through the 200 pieces of paper and see if they're on the airplane. It, it should, it shouldn't take more than, you know, 40 minutes or whatever. Right? And so I had to, so I had to fight those guys and say, this is the new way we're doing it. I hear what you're saying, you're wrong. We're gonna do it this way. Either get on board or you're not. You're outta here. And then I, to my boss, I had to do a parallel planning thing because he was just resistant to change. Even though I knew in my heart that it was gonna be so much better, I, I had to prove it to him. Without interfering with normal operations, but it's

James: 29:00

all right. So you are giving a good example of exactly what I said not to do, which is to fight the system

Randy: 29:08

And you Well, I didn't, I, I didn't fight it like this though.

James: 29:12

No, you worked with it and modified it. You're right. So we, we have to unpack this, Randy, because it's important. That's where the value really lies. And I wanna go back to something you started with, which was the standard operating procedure. The binder you have that you hand over to your successor, which says, all right, here's all the rules and here's everything I do, and here's all the forms I fill out. those are great when you have them, and my advice would be if someone hands you a honk and big binder full of the standard operating procedures for your job, start by reading it and understand what the heck at the organization thinks it's doing. That for sure, you know, try to understand the rules. If someone gives you a binder, that's a godsend. Take it, read it, and ask questions if you don't understand something. I was in jobs where I took over responsibility, where there were such binders and where there were not. And let me tell you, even if the binder's not perfect, you really, really, really are happy to have one. So use it. And if you are in a position of running a function and needing to hand over responsibility, you said if there isn't a binder, create one. I agree. It's really. Helps you yourself in the job when you have to write down, here's what I think I'm doing. And then for sure helps you when you hand over the job and makes you look good and makes the transition better. So that's, you know, there the advice is if there are written rules about how the system works, read'em. If there aren't, you know, create them to describe the system and you'll benefit and the people around you will benefit. So that's all true. I spent a lot of my time. Actually writing standard operating procedures that were supposed to govern the organization. So I was in a policy setting function and I observed two things. One, it's really hard to write policies that people understand because you're dealing with people of all different backgrounds and you're trying to generalize and say, okay, this is how it works, and here's what you're supposed to do. Really, really, really not easy to write good policies that everyone is going to understand. Uh, typically less detail is better. Short, simple. Uh, descriptions work better than complicated. Do this, then do this, then do this. That's a, maybe a detail. The point I wanted to make with this one about writing standard operating procedures is the most common requests for new policies, new procedures that I would get from the organization were some boss coming and saying, write a policy that will then force people to do things the way I want'em to do it. They're not doing it the right way. I want you to write a new policy to make'em do it this way. And what that means is oftentimes a written procedure does not reflect the reality of how the organization works because of people like you. People who subvert the system and say, well, this is stupid. By the way, can I just acknowledge? Most policies are stupid. They're inflexible, they are slow, they're inefficient. They don't always reflect, uh, an efficient way of working. The organization had a reason for putting that policy in place. It probably still has a good reason for keeping the policy in place. Can it be improved? Almost certainly. Should it be ignored because it's stupid? Probably not. What you did was better. Find a way to to advance the system, tweak it, modify it, improve it. You gotta start by knowing what is the system? Why is it in place? Asking that question is one that I find people almost always skip, especially if you're new to an organization. You come in and you see a stupid rule. You say, this is a stupid rule and it shouldn't be. If you just start with that, you're gonna fail. But if you say, oh, what were the reasons the company or the organization put this rule in place? Uh, do I understand what was their motive? Then you maybe have a chance of coming up with an improvement. Because organizations resist change. Even if what we're doing is stupid, they're gonna resist changing what we're doing because eh, I got a standard operating policy number 1 0 2, it says we're supposed to do it this way. So who the hell are you to tell me to do it differently? so your story reminded me of many elements of what is the purpose of a, an operating system within a company. How much flexibility is there for people to change it, and what is a, a good way to change it versus a, just fighting the system. Fighting the system, and fighting your boss all by itself. Not a good idea, but trying to make it better and finding a way to demonstrate that your new method might be superior. Can be successful. I remember a team meeting where we were set in legal strategy and picking our initiatives, and my council in China suggested an initiative that I thought was interesting, but it wasn't the right time. So I said, no, we're not gonna do that. And so he went off and did it anyway, and came back a year later and said, look, I did this thing that you said we shouldn't do, but see how great the results are. I've created this legal champions network and the businesses bought in and everyone's liking it, and it was a little bit. What could I do? Then he had already not only done it, but demonstrating that it worked. So it was a little bit like the situation you put your boss in where he is like, oh, all right, let's just keep doing it. And it takes a little bit of courage,

Randy: 33:55

right? But it was more efficient.

James: 33:57

it was. And, uh, you know, you said keep an open mind and it is good to keep an open mind. I say it applies both ways. As the employee or the, the, the person working in a bigger organization, you're almost always gonna see inefficiencies and things that could be done better. You can't fix all of them. So part of keeping an open mind is, I think, starting with yourself and just saying, all right, I, I should not be tilting at every windmill. I should not worry. Everything I'm doing is perfectly efficient. Pick a few big ones where you might actually, it's in your area of responsibility. You can do something that really would make a difference and then let the rest of them go, because otherwise you'll just frustrate yourself. And then yes, your organization may or may not have an open mind, or actually, I'm gonna take that back. Your organization does not have that open mind we know that. So getting them to see, you know, that sometimes you do have a better way. I don't wanna say, I hate to agree with you. I do agree with you that sometimes it requires just doing it and saying, I'm gonna ask for forgiveness rather than permission. Uh, sometimes that really is the only way to demonstrate that your system works better. I admit to having done that several times myself, even though I was the one often in a policy making function. So it, it sounds to me like we've worked our ourselves to the point of saying, you gotta know the rules of the system. You gotta work within the rules of the system. And every now and then, You gotta be willing to challenge the rules. If you can think of a better way, I would say if you do that, you better be sure you have a better way. Because if you challenge the system and you're wrong, you're gonna get squished like a bug.

Randy: 35:27

if you're confident that you do have a better way and you're a very, and you're articulate about the benefits and the advantages, you'll earn trust once you have a couple wins. I mean, I was there for four years with my first my first evaluation report. That guy who shot me down didn't want me to do it. And then, uh, I helped rescue some hostages. I mean, that there was, that first year was a big, a big win for me in multiple, uh, multiple occasions. And he wrote something I'd never seen in a, uh, in an evaluation report. he said, Randy is a monster of productivity and is the most trusted person, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, holy crap. Could you write that out? An evaluation report? He's like, yeah. Have you ever seen that before? I was like, no. I was like, neither is anyone else. So when they, when they try to, when they get, get, when they want to promote you, they're gonna see this. And I was like, that's great. Yeah, no, it was really good. So I think you, you, you know, I'm not saying that you should buck against everything in the system. Like you said, you pick and choose your battles You know, because his thing was, I don't wanna waste my time, right? So I waited till he was gone, so he wasn't wasting his time. And then I implemented it to save everyone else time, which ultimately saved him time. And so that's the way I was looking at, I wasn't looking at it to like, I mean, his basically is like, Hey, this is the system. If I, if it doesn't work, then I'm gonna be here for another hour and I don't have time for. And, and that, that was his personal thing. But anyone that replaced him was gonna be so overwhelmed with what that guy did that, you know, this wasn't gonna really affect them at all because they were just gonna be like, ah, so, and

James: 37:07

I think you did a good job of identifying what were the criteria that we're important. Why do we have this existing system? Alright, this person's worried about time, this person's worried about, you know, that, and you found a way to do it better. I think we can probably wrap it up in the sense that I, we haven't been able to give hard and fast rules other than when you come in, make sure you understand the rules to the extent that they're available to you. Communicate well with your boss, ask questions, and then if you wanna stand out, it does help to be able to add value in ways that are relevant to your organization. And because organizations. Are slow to change, there are gonna be opportunities for you to challenge the system. So the, the conclusion here today is the exact opposite of the one I thought we were gonna come to, at least I thought I was gonna come to, which was, you gotta work within your system. And in fact, I think we say that real value comes in learning where you can effectively challenge the system. I like that, Randy. And if you're okay, we can, we can leave people with that example. Defy your bosses.

Randy: 38:07

The fire bosses, no So you know what the, you know what the, I don't know if this is saying in, in the civilian world, but the military is work at your next level, right? So try to work your boss out of a job. And, and then once you've mastered, once you've mastered your job and his job, work your own way up. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You'll, you'll be, you'll be ready for the next level to get promoted. And so I always do that. I always try to learn, learn my boss's job as well as my job, because sometimes my boss wasn't there. It's decisions need to be made.

James: 38:36

No, no, you're right. I don't want to, I don't wanna create the wrong impression when I say challenge the system, find your bosses. I really meant it only in the sense of add value to your organization by learning how to do things better. And so that means thinking actually like a boss. I like that, that way. Um, yeah, phrasing it. Think about what are, what are managers trying to achieve and how can I do that same thing myself? So that's a, that's a more correct and productive way to summarize what we're advising.

Randy: 39:01

Yeah. And I guess this isn't part of the, the theme for this podcast episode, but you know, when your boss has to go on vacation or has to go on a trip, you know, t d y trip or something, the person he puts in charge. Is usually very reflective of how well that person's doing as how much he trusts that guy to do the right thing, and how much he trusts that guy to keep the, you know, the motor running while he is gone. And if it's you, then I think you can usually assess that you're doing a pretty good job.

James: 39:36

Yeah, definitely. And even though it seems like work, right, you're taking on extra responsibilities, that's the kind of work that you do happily take upon yourself.

Randy: 39:44

Yeah. All right. See you next time. Thanks everybody. We'd love to hear what you think, so please comment on the show with your thoughts. We read all of your comments.

James: 39:55

Thanks for joining us, and thanks for subscribing. See you next time.