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Today, we're going to talk about how do we create next level leaders as a team of leaders.

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And to do that, we're going to look at one company specifically.

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You know, when one company outperforms their whole industry by 10 or 20X, it's worth looking

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at them and saying, what is it that they're doing and can we use that in our small business?

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And that's exactly the point of today's training.

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When we look at SpaceX, we have a remarkable track record.

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In 2024, SpaceX launched over 400 rockets, as opposed to China did 68, Russia did 17,

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Europe did just 3 and India 5.

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So how is that possible that there is a company that can do so many more launches than anyone

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else, at least 5X more?

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Not only that, but they've done them for a fraction of the price.

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You know, back in NASA days, things would cost literally billions of dollars to create

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launches.

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And the reason was, they were one-off.

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It would be like flying an airplane and at the end of the single flight, you have to

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destroy the airplane, rebuild a new airplane so you can do a return flight.

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But what if you made that reusable?

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This thinking has dramatically reduced the cost at SpaceX.

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So their costs are between 30 and 50 million dollars per launch, as opposed to 500 million

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or more, in some cases even billions.

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So SpaceX has redefined their category.

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And that means you can redefine your category if we apply the same kind of thinking that

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they use.

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So what they refer to at SpaceX is a thing called the algorithm, or making things less

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dumb.

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This is a 5-step algorithm that helps you take your business to the next level.

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What if you could 10X what you're doing?

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What if you could become the industry leader and do it at an incredibly cost-effective

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manner?

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So let's talk about those 5 steps.

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And before we get into these 5 steps, I want to say some really important things.

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You know, most improvements, most productivity trainings and so on, focus on steps 3, 4,

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and 5.

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But actually, the biggest gains come from step 1 and 2.

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So here are the 5 steps.

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Step number 1, making requirements less dumb, questioning every requirement, especially

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if it comes from smart people.

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Number 2, delete parts or delete elements of the process.

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And the way they gauge whether they've deleted enough is they've deleted so much they have

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to put 10% back.

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Oop, that was a bit too far.

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If you're not putting the 10% back, you're not deleting enough.

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Then we get to step 3, to simplify or optimize.

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Most people start here, but actually, we only want to optimize and simplify once we've

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done step 1 and 2.

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Question the requirements, delete the parts or processes that we can, and then start simplifying.

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Once we start simplifying, then it's time to accelerate.

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How can we speed this up and make this go faster?

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And finally, automation.

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Then we want to automate.

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So we want to reduce requirements, delete unnecessary steps, simplify, accelerate, automate.

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In that order.

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There's always the natural tendency, and this was the same at SpaceX as it was in every

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other company.

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It's always the thing that we optimize something that shouldn't even exist.

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Now think for a second.

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How many times in your organization have you spent time building up a program only later

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to delete the whole thing?

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So here's the idea.

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What if before we put this mount, think of a pyramid of investment, time, effort, team

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focus, marketing, positioning, all that goes into launching something.

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What if we clip it at the top and we just drop most of those costs out?

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This is actually a little more difficult to do than it first seems.

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And this is why it takes next level leaders.

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To help you understand it in our context, I want to tell you a quick story about how

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it worked.

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You know, we had a program and I thought it would be really great to sort of have a premium

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version of our monthly subscription program.

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So I spent several hours as the CEO writing out what that program should be because I

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knew I had a team time coming up and we had one hour to think through this process.

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But I knew well enough for my team we had...

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We've just gone through this training. We've just gone through this 5-step training as

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a team and so I wanted to leave space for this training to be effective. So, in my mind

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I was thinking, well let me not solve the whole thing and present it as, well, that's

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what the leader wants. Instead, I put it in such a way that they could really question

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the requirements. You know, questioning the requirements is actually quite difficult because

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there is definitely something dumb in every requirement. The job is to make it less dumb.

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It literally does not matter whether it comes from the leader or the smartest person on

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the planet. There is something dumb in the list of requirements. Oh, we need to build

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this. Here are the requirements. And it's particularly dangerous when they come from

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very smart people who also have a title. Well, they're, you know, the head of research and

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development or it's the CEO or whatever it is. Whenever it's like that or we feel like

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we don't have the permission to question requirements. So, this first step as a leader

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is to give your team permission to call things dumb.

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This sounds like quite an interesting process and it was for me because in our story I left

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space for this. Well, I present this whole idea and the person, our manager who manages

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our customer experience and customer success department, she listens to this thing and

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she says, this whole idea is dumb. The big idea can work but your requirements you put

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in, that won't work, that won't work, that's dumb. And everyone started to laugh. She's

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calling the CEO dumb. She's not calling me dumb. She was calling my idea, my requirements

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dumb. This is really important. The team has permission to think in this way. Look, everybody

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is wrong. It doesn't matter their title, how smart they are, how many years they've

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been doing this. I've been doing this for 30 years or whatever. That just might mean

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you're entrenched in something. So, no matter who you are, no matter how much experience

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you have, there's something wrong all of the time in what you do. All designs are wrong.

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It's just a matter of how wrong. So, I love that, you know, when you look at what SpaceX

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is doing and how SpaceX functions, they've created the space to call things dumb. To

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start with the assumption that there's something dumb in you, if not a lot of it. Well, in

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our story, after she called, you know, most of my requirements dumb, she proceeded to

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lay out a new set of requirements, several adjustments and tweaks and actually that became

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our new product. The team, at the end, made a few tweaks, made a few, you know, elements

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and then we went to step 2. What part of this can we delete? Well, we can delete that, that's

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too complex, that's confusing. Let's delete, delete, delete. And here's the thing, if parts

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aren't being deleted to such an extent that you have to put a piece of it back, that means

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you're just not deleting enough. Well, once we finished the deletion process, now we had

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a simple, clear product I thought was just amazing. It was so much better than the thing

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that I'd proposed. And I thought it was pretty smart going in. In fact, I rather liked my

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proposal, that's why I proposed it. But leaving space for the team to really call things dumb

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and challenge those requirements and then go to step 2 and delete as much of it as we

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can, even having to put a bit back, therein lies where all the bang for the buck is. From

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then on, we have a lot of trainings that help you with steps 3, 4 and 5. Now, step 3 and

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4, let's go to step 3, to simplify or optimize. Well, from that point, once we launched this

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premium subscription service, then we were, you know, we sat down and thought for a minute

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and said, before we get to accelerate or automate, a lot of times we automate things

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too early. And if you automate things too early, it's because you haven't simplified

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them enough. So, we've called things dumb, challenged all the requirements, deleted as

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much as we can, now we really simplify it down. And so the reason this is step 3 and

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not step 1 is because the most common error most smart people make is to optimize something

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that should not exist. So, you have to ask the question, if this thing should even exist?

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That's why we went through step 1 and 2. Well, now that we've gone through that, you know,

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we want to make sure that we have really thought through what's the simplest version of this

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that could exist. And if we can make the simplest version of this, then it's a lot easier to

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optimize. And when you're optimizing it, sometimes you're simply changing it because it, it

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easier for you to deliver,

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easier for your customers to understand.

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Now that we've done step three, we can go to step four.

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So step four starts with a new assumption.

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The new assumption in step four is

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we're moving too slowly.

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We need to go faster.

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So how do we go faster now that we have a simplified,

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scaled down, optimized product?

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How can we really make this go faster?

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Notice this is step four, not step one, two, or three.

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You know, if you're digging a grave,

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you don't want to be digging faster.

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That's why step one through three exists,

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to stop you just digging your grave quicker.

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So that's what we want to do.

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How do we make this go faster?

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How do we get better market responses?

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How do we get better customer support?

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How do we make this work quicker?

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How do we get payments faster?

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Whatever the make it go faster thing is.

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And finally, once we've learned

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from these first four steps,

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we are now in a position to start to automate.

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It is the final step.

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It's not the mid-step, it's the final step.

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And especially when we are using AI tools,

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the temptation is try to automate

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before you've done these other steps.

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It's a blind spot.

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You know, just because you can automate it

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doesn't mean you should.

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Look, we've all personally made the mistakes

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on going backwards on these steps.

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Here's the thing, we could automate it.

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Oh, we could make it go faster.

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That's amazing.

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Oh, hang on a second.

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That's quite complex.

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Let's simplify.

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Hang on a second.

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Why do we even have this?

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Let's delete this piece.

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And then we go all the back.

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Why are we building this in the first place?

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Literally go through the process backwards.

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Well, you don't need to do that.

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So making things less dumb is a five-step process.

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And let's make them really simple with five words.

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Reduce, calling things dumb, reducing the requirements.

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Delete as much as possible.

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Simplify, and then make it optimize the product.

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Accelerate it, go faster.

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And automate it, step five.

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So in the worksheets, we'll literally go through that.

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I'd love you to think through a project

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you're doing right now and do this in order.

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You know, as leaders, we need to create space

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for making things less dumb.

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So I wanna end this with a very recent story

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that's literally happening at the time of this recording.

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You know, as our organization has grown

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and it's ended up with different divisions,

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we've spent a lot of time trying to simplify.

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And it's always, it's amazing how we wanna make

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step three, step one.

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Again, the biggest bang for the buck here,

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the biggest thing that moves the needle is step one and two.

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So we hit the pause button,

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and we literally went through,

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what's the requirement for this?

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Let's start with the assumption

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that there's definitely something dumb about this,

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that there's things that are wrong,

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and let's make it less wrong.

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That makes you question the real purpose

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of why do we even do this product?

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Why do we even offer it in this way?

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Why do we use these words

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or these marketing processes or whatever?

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Then we started to delete.

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When we deleted, it was painful.

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It was like losing something precious.

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But look, we had to delete until,

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oh, well, a little too far, we added something back.

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I wanna encourage you to do that.

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Start off, make the requirements less dumb.

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Start with the assumption

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that what you're doing is wrong in some way,

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that the requirements are wrong or dumb in some way.

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Second, try to delete as much of the process

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or parts of the product or the offering,

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whatever it is, as much as you can

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until you have to put something back.

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Three, simplify.

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Start with a basic question, not just should this exist,

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you've already done that in step one and two,

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but just get into how can we make this

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as simple as possible so people can follow it,

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so people can understand it.

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Four, now's the time to go faster.

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We start with the assumption we're moving too slowly.

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How do we make it go faster?

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And once we've done that for a while

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and we've got our hands around what it means to accelerate,

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now we've learned enough to automate enough.

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If you haven't learned enough, you cannot automate enough.

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Jumping straight into automation

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just because you have AI tools that can do that

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is a serious mistake.

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So, final step is automation.

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Enjoy doing this.

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As we've done this very recently,

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you can do this for your personal life

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and for your professional life.

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I hope you found that useful.