All right.
Welcome in.
Happy Wednesday, everyone.
Glad you're here joining us.
All right.
We're going to give just a few moments for folks to connect to audio and to join the
call.
It's so good to see all of you here.
Welcome to the EDGE Leader Training, and you know what day it is.
It's Wednesday.
So as you know, we like to hear about weekly wins, so you can share with us in the chat
what your weekly win is, or tell us which training from previous weeks you're finding
particularly helpful or freeing this week.
For me, Kaizen hit me in a new way from last week's training, and I've been Kaizening everything.
Because as you hear these things multiple times, they get you in a new way.
You hear them at a different level, and they have a refreshing to it.
And Dion, did you want to share yours now, or do you want to wait a few minutes for folks
to come in a little bit more?
Oh, on the keybook?
Yes.
Yeah.
If we can do it now, that'll be fine.
It's good to see everybody.
So yeah, I had a cue book moment this morning that I thought would be fun to share.
So as I'm putting all this together, as you know, I have my cue books that go back 20
something years, but I thought I would just grab this group.
So this is going back the last 10 years on my cue book system.
I did a training, I couldn't remember when it was, but I did a training that I knew I'd
done and I remembered what the notes looked like.
And so within 10 minutes, I found what it is.
But I forgot to share with you guys a key, a trick, a Kaizening moment.
Make sure the front of your cue book has that in it, a start date and an end date.
It doesn't have to be to the exact day, but the month and year.
And the reason is when you're looking for stuff quickly, especially if your cue books
get out of order, that's the way you order them.
So I have them from recent down.
Of course, yes, my current one, that's separate.
They all look exactly the same.
I don't know if you know, I buy them from the same place.
They have my name on them.
But this cue book, I found that thing I was looking for within about 10 minutes.
Here's the most amazing thing, though.
I noticed that all these continual improvements, this Kaizening that I've been doing over the
period of 20 something years, I went back and looked at some of my much older ones,
in the early 2000s.
I was writing on both sides of the page.
I didn't have that neat structure.
And so my mind couldn't map it.
And it actually is very hard for me to find something from a page where sometimes the
two's on the left and the right.
And I just wrote everywhere.
And I don't know if I was trying to save paper or what.
But when I did it that way, the whole thing was upside down.
So just to encourage you that if you keep strictly to it, the idea that cue sits at
the top and gives you that cognitive control and underneath you can put all your middleware
stuff, whether you're using Notion or Slack or whatever.
And at the bottom, all your digital assets, your actual physical files and your filing
system, digital filing system where you keep whether it's Dropbox or Google or whatever
it is you do at the bottom of the stack.
But right at the top, you need something that your brain will trust and map to.
And I knew exactly where on the page it was, but I couldn't even remember which year it
was.
And I found it really quickly.
And in fact, I built it into next week's training because I wanted to add that in.
So anyway, I thought that was a fun moment.
So I think this one goes back to let's have a quick look.
Yeah.
So this goes back to 2009.
So that's the batch.
Anyway, I just thought it was a helpful.
I forgot to tell you to put the dates when you finish a cue book.
So you can find them quickly and keep them ordered.
That's huge.
Yeah.
Because great ideas don't have a sell-by date.
That's right.
Well, thanks for sharing that with us.
Obviously, you can't write the date range in it until you use the cue book, but you can
write your start date and then your end date once you transfer over.
All right.
Well, it looks like everyone is logged on.
So just take a moment to say hello to Addie and Bonnie, Cindy, Bridget, Teresa.
Hi, Joe, Leanne.
It's good to see you all here.
We are talking about if you just jumped on, we were just sharing what.
what training we have found especially helpful this week
and Dion shared what he got for the Q book.
All right, we're gonna go ahead and get started.
So as you guys know, last week,
we talked about Kaizen as a way of life and work.
And the core idea of Kaizen is daily micro improvements
that will lead to compounded growth over time
to produce dramatic improvements.
And why you Kaizen is because
it makes improvements effortless,
it creates a lifestyle that serves you better every day
and it feels like free change.
So it puts change in the background
yet things keep getting better as you go.
So today we're talking about making things less dumb.
This teaching is based on Elon Musk's approach at SpaceX
and it's designed to empower teams
to stop optimizing things that should not even exist.
This is gonna be a fun topic and once you learn it,
you're gonna apply it to everything.
You're gonna say, what can I make less dumb
or how can I make this less dumb?
So before we get into that fun topic,
I'm gonna share today's pro tip.
Just remember that slow learning is great learning.
And so by implementing slow learning,
especially as you have new team members
or you and a team member are working together
or you're learning something new,
implementing slow learning,
you give your team time to digest change
and to enjoy the process of growth and transformation.
And then as a result, working patiently and methodically
to see a cultural and personal change
that empowers each team member
will focus on real life change overhead learning,
which is just taking in the information
but never actually seeing that transformational change.
All right, is everyone ready to dive in?
As a friendly reminder, as we're going along,
please add questions to the chat
and Dion, I'm gonna hand it over to you now.
Thanks, Jenny, I appreciate it.
You know, as you're sitting thinking back here on week 36,
now, you know, you're being empowered
with some of the most effective,
powerful leadership techniques,
from habits to how to think, how to innovate,
how to self-leadership, your own leadership in a team,
understanding economics, and we're gonna have a fun,
you know, we're gonna land this on a fun in week 39.
So if you know what,
if you still wanna know what's coming next,
today we're gonna do making things less dumb.
And this is actually a very sophisticated training
and why we do it right at the end or towards the end
is because of what's involved.
And I found a wonderful graphic
from a company called modelthinkers.com
and without their permission,
I stole it and put it in your worksheet.
So if anybody complains, please delete it.
But here's what it is,
making things less dumb is a design system.
Now, when I explain this, do not be tempted to think,
oh, this is for engineering types.
Oh, this is for people who produce products.
This is for anything we do, any process that we do.
And I wanna share five things to make things less dumb.
But before I do,
I wanna tell one of my favorite stories about this.
And I may have shared part of the story before,
but I remember that at Brilliant,
we were trying to think of
what was the next generation of our product.
And at that time we had Brilliant TV subscriptions
that were $20 a month.
And we were trying to think what was next.
And then we had already introduced
a lifetime membership option.
People loved that.
And we ended up with about 2,500 lifetime members
or whatever the total amount was at the end.
It was pretty significant.
And we loved the growth of that.
And we were thinking,
what's our next kind of premium product?
And so I spent a lot of time
and I did the high-level thing,
shaped it up sort of thing.
And we'd sit time aside as a team to review it.
And initially I was thinking we might do a six hats.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to see where the team was at,
but we had just finished this training.
We'd just done this,
making things less dumb training a few weeks earlier.
And so I get up and I present,
here's the, I think our new premium product
and how it should be.
And for those of you know,
Danielle in our team,
who's head of customer service
and she's also a wiring expert.
She's pops up immediately.
I'm about what, seven or 10 minutes into the talk
and she pops up and says,
that idea is really dumb.
She says to the president of the company,
I loved it.
I thought, man, to me,
that was a milestone in our culture
that somebody who wasn't even directly involved in this,
but by the way,
your customer service people
are some of the best people to ask about products
because they.
know they the ones who talk to the actual customers all day
long. And so she explained why. And I had three levels and I had
all this stuff and she simplified and for about 50
minutes, she just talked, the rest of the team took notes and
we wrapped it up and the product that was launched was designed
by Danielle. Now maybe initiated by me, but if it wasn't for this
teaching, we would have probably launched a pretty dumb product
and gone through fail, you know, failures and, you know, false
starts and so on. So if you're tired of that, if you're tired
of the false starts and the learning and so on, you have to
start with one massive assumption. Your perception of
what the customer needs, and their requirements is wrong. The
only question is how wrong. Right? I know, Matt is busy
reinventing aspects of Brilliant TV right now it's going through
next generation. And boy, are we finding out how wrong we are
on a whole bunch of things we've been doing. We've had
subscriptions since 2016. This is, you know, this is not our
first rodeo. I think we're coming into whatever, what
version of the app are we on now version nine? Right? Yeah, 10.
Oh, so we're coming into version 10 of the app. So we've done
this before and yet we still find how wrong we are. So here's
the thing I want to say to you. Step number one, make the
requirements less dumb. The requirements are definitely
dumb. It is not it really doesn't matter how smart you
are, how many years experience you have, what a veteran in the
industry you are. And it's particularly dangerous and
particularly dumb when they come from a highly intelligent
person, or somebody who is a higher rank up the org chart
than you. And the reason for that is we tend not to question
people who are above us in the structure. Or you know, this
came from PhD so and so or from famous engineer so and so or
from famous whoever, right. So the idea is everybody is wrong.
It's just the extent that varies. And that sounds
desperately, you know, negative, but it really isn't. It's a very
mature view, because it makes you cautious not to take
yourself too serious. Does everybody remember rule number
six? Do you remember the story of rule number six? No, shall
remind you of rule number six, rule number six came from Ben
Zander, who was the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra
conductor, and he told the story about, you know, the English,
the British Prime Minister sitting there, and he has a
visiting Prime Minister, and while they're meeting, somebody
rushes in, and, you know, they're in a tizz, and they're
just going crazy. And, and the Prime Minister says, you know,
my dear, sir, remember rule number six, and immediately
they're just restored to real calm, they leave. And you know,
as as stories go, it happens three times. So of course, it
goes three times and a lady comes in, she's all in. And he
says, my dear lady, remember rule number six, and she's
immediately restored to calm. And of course, the third time.
So finally, the visiting Prime Minister says, he said, you
know, Mr. Prime Minister, would you mind sharing this rule
number six? Oh, he said, Sure, I would is don't take yourself so
damn seriously. And so, and this rule number six, and he says,
Well, that's fascinating. May I ask you what the other rules
are? He says, No, there are no others. So rule number six is,
and this is really a rule number six moment, because what it's
saying is, we want to serve our customers. But if we're willing
to deeply challenge the assumptions, who is our
customer, you know, you know, what you can maybe have had
training, like who's your who or focus on, you know, who got
called you to whatever the thing is, who you feel passionate
about whatever your topic is, it has to come down to you
knowing that you probably don't know. And that makes you look
deeper, it makes you search deeper. So when you get a
requirement, we need to go and build this. The first
assumption is, there's probably something dumb in that, and my
job is to find out what it is. And because when you constantly
question your requirements, as recently as April, I'm up, we're
applying this all the time, by the way, in April, you know, we
were doing another round and Pedro a day and myself decided
to do a five day challenge together for the edge. And we
assumed that we would be able to do this program and offer this
program through the challenge model. I didn't, I didn't
question that assumption one, he's done a lot of them. We've
done a brilliant over, I think 38 of them challenges, whatever
it is. And so we just assumed, notice the mistake, that this
will work for this program. We, we had a we had 56 or whatever
company sign up and sign up for the challenge and not a single
sale, not one, not even a fallout, not even an interest
point.
because you can't sell a product like this
through a challenge.
And that blew me away.
Now I've gone into it a lot more deeper and understand why.
So anyway, I know Jenny, I asked you to tell us,
just tell us about some times when you found
you had to constantly challenge your assumptions.
Sure.
Just last week, Jalen and I were discussing the topic
and I said, okay, let's challenge this assumption
just so you know, it is a daily thing that we implement.
But there are two instances that stand out in my mind
and one of them is a product evaluation model
that we did here at Brilliant.
So what that was is Dion and I created a model
to collect white hat data so that we could find out
what product our customers were responding to.
In our minds, what we were going,
the assumption that we went into that project with
was that digital media, digital product
was where our sales were at most
and what we needed to focus our time,
our attention and our resources on.
And when we created that model,
it was astonishing to see what product
our community actually responded to.
Overwhelmingly so.
The biggest assumption that we had
was completely done away with.
The model showed that our customer base
wanted physical product.
In particular, they wanted physical books.
Overwhelmingly so.
And so that was one way that we did that
and it completely turned around
how we marketed our product.
And then the second place that I can think of
that I really use this is,
when I am inheriting a particular role
or a task from someone,
one of the very first things that I do
are challenge the assumptions
because we don't wanna stay stuck
in a particular routine or outcome
just because it's what we've always done.
That's one of, I think, the pitfalls
is that you just do something
because it's always been done that way.
And by taking that particular role or task
and looking at it as to,
okay, what assumption can I challenge
or how can I make this less dumb,
you find new ways to innovate that task or role
and I don't wanna get ahead of you, Dion,
but also you can completely eliminate it.
Is it really actually even necessary
or is it just something that we've done?
I also do that when I'm handing something off to someone,
I hand it off with the caveat
that because it's done this way,
you don't have to continue to do it this way.
If you can automate it, if you can delete something,
you do that.
It doesn't have to be done this way.
And so those are the biggest
that I can think of examples off the top of my head
that I've used.
What I love about the first one,
because I remember that analysis
and it was in the context of our online store
because we have about 103 products on our Shopify store.
And we assumed that people would like the digital books more
because they can get them instantly, blah, blah.
Now, here's the fun thing.
After we did our white hair data,
we have a new assumption that they want physical products,
but as young people come on
and find out they don't want physical products,
they now want digital books.
So it's a constant thing.
So it's a wonderful thing.
In other words, you got to keep rule number six in mind.
Keep it light.
So this is what we understand today,
but there's probably still things that are dumb.
So just because we made one correction
doesn't mean we have to make another one later on.
So it keeps you in a very fresh place.
Number two, try to delete part of the process.
Now, notice we're not saying
most of us do this in reverse, right?
We find something and we get all the requirements.
Then we try to simplify the requirements.
Then we try to optimize them.
Then we find out we don't need the whole thing
and we delete it.
All that work was for nothing.
Or worse, we don't delete it
because we put so much work in it.
Now we live with something
that honestly shouldn't even exist.
So there are things in your organization right now
that shouldn't exist.
There are things in your workflow that shouldn't exist,
but you're so vested in them, right?
It's the way I do it.
It's the way I consume materials.
It's the way I work.
It's the way I...
And those things shouldn't exist.
So before you go through all that complexity,
save yourself and just...
It's like a pyramid of complexity.
The pyramid grows.
The further you go down, the bigger the pyramid.
If you can delete it when it's a little pyramid,
you avoid all that expense,
all that complexity and all that time.
So there are definitely things in your organization,
in your workflow that are dumb.
And there are definitely things in your organization
that shouldn't exist.
Now these two very, you can see why it takes us
all these weeks of months of training.
Cause if I had said that up front,
they would have just got discouraged,
but you've got a whole group of tools now
to replace those things and to address those things.
So if parts, if you, in fact, at SpaceX,
they are so encouraged to delete parts or parts
of a process so much so that if they must find themselves
accidentally going, Oh dear, we cut too much out.
We need to put something back.
The rule of thumb is if they're not putting something back
at least 10% of the time, at least, in other words,
sometimes it's 20% or even 30% of the time,
they're putting stuff back that they shouldn't have deleted
cause they deleted too much.
That's the rule.
Rather err on deleting too much than too little.
So it, you know, and it's amazing.
I know that when, when Gigafactory Berlin
came online for Tesla, you know,
it took much longer to build the factory
through other reasons.
But once the Germans got involved,
suddenly they took something that had like 180 parts
and turned it into two parts, much stronger, much lighter,
much quicker to produce.
They deleted the manufacturing of 90 something percent
of the parts required for a model three.
So in that idea is, it's this idea that if we can delete it
before it gets complex and waste our time,
that is an unbelievably sophisticated skill as a leader.
It sounds simple, but it actually isn't.
And that's why it's on the advanced side of this training.
Number three, once you've made the requirements less dumb
and number two, you've deleted parts of the process
or you've deleted parts themselves,
if it's something physical,
or you've deleted aspects of the process,
then number three is to simplify.
So the reason this is the third step is that,
and not the first step obviously,
is because the most common mistake
that people who design a process or design products make,
the number one mistake is to create something
that shouldn't exist.
So, it's amazing to me,
we see this in the realm of finance.
Warren Buffett calls it the institutional imperative,
which is a long word,
but basically what he means is this.
So this is how this goes.
So this literally exists in billion dollar companies
and it exists in solopreneurs and everybody in between.
This is a human thing.
So you find, you think, wow, a company like,
a big multi-billion dollar company,
they've got it all sorted out.
They do not have this sorted out.
You literally watch a CEO say to their senior team,
hey, I wanna acquire this company,
we're gonna acquire this other company
and we're gonna bring it in.
By the way, 90% of companies that are acquired,
those acquisitions rarely work.
And mostly it's an ego thing anyway.
You know, I mean, some acquisitions make sense,
but mostly they don't.
But anyway, the CEO says, I want this to work.
What's happened here is a requirement was created
that shouldn't exist.
This whole acquisition,
a multi-billion dollar acquisition should not occur,
but because the CEOs mandated this
and it wasn't, should we do it?
It's tell me how to make it work.
A good, strong leader would raise their hand and say,
why are we acquiring this in the first place?
Now that takes a lot of courage.
You can see why this is a sophisticated leadership element
because you gotta do that with grace
and skill and sophistication.
So, you know, for me, having one of our team members
tell me my plan was done was for me a great milestone
because there was no disrespect in the words.
There was no tone that conveyed disrespect.
It was genuinely looking for the best way to do this.
So once we've simplified and optimized it,
then we move to the next one, which is quite hard to do.
And that's accelerate the cycle time.
You're moving too slowly.
Assume again, another big one,
you can for sure you're moving too slowly.
Whatever you're doing, you're doing it too slowly.
And so go faster,
but don't go faster until you've worked
on the other three items.
Because if you're digging your grave,
you don't want to dig it quicker.
So, you know, you want to work fast
on something that should actually exist.
So here's the thing about going faster.
I think I misquoted one of space,
this whole training comes from SpaceX.
SpaceX, I mean, I think everybody by now
has heard of Starship.
I know there's ones been sitting on the launch pad
waiting for final approval
to take off the second time Starship, you know,
which everybody know what I'm talking about Starship, right?
This is the big mega thing that they're doing.
And so it's Starship as Starship launches their plan.
iron is to build. Now, think of what how long it took NASA to
build one. And by the way, that's the biggest payload ever,
it can take 100 people, you can put the entire contents of a
Boeing 747 inside of Starship. So it's massive. Now, if you
think about how long that would take, what would be a really
incredibly accelerated cycle time? Wow, if we can produce one
of those, every two years, that would be like phenomenal, right?
What about one, one a year? What about one a month? Okay, well,
none of those applied there. They're set up to produce one
per day.
Build a Starship one per day. Now, here's the fascinating
thing. I don't know if it's the Elon effect, or what it is. But
that guy said such high goals for his team, which has got a
huge compliment built in, but it owns those high goals. People
always quote his high goals outside of this framework. It's
a, it's a dumb idea to go and produce a lot of stuff you don't
need quickly. Stuff that shouldn't exist doesn't need a
fast, accelerated cycle time. So you can see why this framework
works. If you've questioned this, the requirements, you've
deleted everything you can to the point you deleted too much
and you had to put a little back, then use what was left,
you simplified and optimized. Now once you're at that point,
then coming up with an accelerated, let's do this
faster and faster. And you can always do it a whole lot
quicker. Now, their goal is once they start launches to the moon
and ultimately to Mars, they want to do how many launches how
often? How about three per day? With 100 people in each?
So you see, we all go, wow, that wow thing didn't, I tell you
that didn't come out because he walked in one day and shouted
at someone. That's not how that worked. It wasn't because as a
leader, he just made an unreasonable demand. What
happened is they worked up to that. And by the way, the real
hero of that story is the president whose name, I've just
forgotten her name for a second. Somebody can look it up. Anyway,
she's I think she was the fourth employee at SpaceX. Anyway,
she's the genius who runs that show, by the way. And I can tell
you they have gone through this process so many times deleted,
deleted. I remember a particular interview, where an influencer
was interviewing Elon at SpaceX at one of the rockets. And this
person who's doing the interviewing is very, very
knowledgeable about rockets, and asked him why this one
component does that. And why is it in that mode or so big or
whatever it was. And he started explaining and then he stopped
and he says, we're doing it again. That part shouldn't
exist. We will delete it. While an influencer now that's
humility to admit that on YouTube with an influencer. I
just thought there was a lot of humility. And then the last
point now only we get to the point now that we've accelerated
something that exists that we brought it down to that point.
Now it's about automating. This is the last step. And we've all
personally made the mistake of doing these things out of order
or even backwards. But now you know, so, you know, in many
times, you know, in an interview, I think it was with
the guy runs TED Talks. Elon pointed out that the model three
was the biggest mess Tesla ever created, because they did all
these steps in reverse. They automated, then they simplified,
then they realized they didn't need that part. So they deleted
it. Think of the waste and things now you can say, well,
that's how they learned. Sure enough, that is the learn, but
you've got to put yourself in this mode. And so the so the
worksheets, as you can see, I've got some really got a very
beautiful graphic that I think I think we can drop it in here.
Can I drop it straight in here? No, I can't. But anyway, it's in
your worksheet, I'll put it in there for you. But making things
less dumb questions. Okay, does that? Does that ring true for
you? You know, when you're thinking about this, does this
true for you that when you make the assumption that your
requirements are probably dumb, or at least dumb to some degree,
no matter how good you are, that that's a pretty smart way of
thinking. And because it's going to cut out so many missteps.
Secondly, that you are going to actively delete even over delete
steps in the process or parts of the product or whatever the
components are, to the point you might actually
to put some stuff back.
Oop, we went a bit far, got too deep.
And then simplify.
Once you're at that point,
then you simplify it even further and optimize
because this thing now should exist.
But the assumption that there are things,
the fact is that they are not assumption.
The fact is there are things that exist
in your organization, in your products,
in your workflow, in your processes that should not exist.
Now, how cool would this be?
Imagine if you could identify
one of those things once a month.
In a year, you will have removed 12 things
out of your organization or your personal workflow
or out of your professional career that shouldn't exist.
How would that accelerate you in your career?
How would that accelerate your business?
How would that accelerate and improve the products?
And once you're there to then go and look for the,
the super fastest accelerated cycle time.
And it's interesting when you can turn these things around.
I know that thin slicing is such a useful way
to test the waters very quickly
to go and find out all the dumb stuff,
the dumb requirements.
And then finally we automate.
Because at that point, something that should exist
that has been simplified, that has been optimized,
that cycle time has been improved, now we optimize.
I mean, automate, sorry.
Now we automate, that makes sense.
When you think about it,
it's counterintuitive to start with,
but you can tell there are billions and billions of dollars
wasted figuring out that framework.
You just got it free in 25 minutes.
There you go.
Questions, how are we doing?
We're doing well.
Gwen Shotwell is the president of SpaceX.
Shotwell.
Thank you.
She's a genius leader, by the way.
Robin.
Yeah, I, we're over here in California.
So we're having a good time,
but I was looking at a couple of things.
I'm thinking about our business
and how to plug this in.
Can we take an existing system
and run this through what we've already been doing
and just say, okay, we're just gonna assume
that there's dumb things in what we've been doing
and run this through all of our systems
that we already have.
And then does it have to always end with automation?
In other words, some things may not be able to automate
but is that like the last step
or can we automate some of everything that we're doing?
So I was just thinking it through
how to apply it to NOAA and what we do.
Yeah, that is a very insightful question, Robin,
because firstly, going back
and looking at existing products and processes
and services that you have is a great idea.
Absolutely should do that.
Cause it's kind of like a fresh start,
but now you've got a framework
that's gonna foundationally challenge those elements.
And even if the whole product should exist,
should we even acquire the company?
You know, that's the idea.
Yes, it does always on some form of automation.
Even if that automation is a playbook,
it ends somewhere.
It ends on some mechanism that has to be handed over.
Even if the automation, some automations,
somebody is gonna own that automation
and maybe what they'll own is the playbook.
So you could definitely try it that way around.
Eddie.
Well, my question is, I'm doing a new things now.
So it's a new industry, new thing.
I'm learning so much thing,
but I truly feel like everything that I'm doing is dumb now
because I don't know a whole lot about it.
So can you speak into that, how I should do it?
Absolutely.
You actually have a fantastic now toolbox
of things to use here.
So when you're doing something new,
this is where super thin slices is the answer.
So for instance, if I could swivel my camera around,
you'll see that right next to my office,
I'm busy building a new studio.
Now that can be a very expensive process.
And I assumed that almost every requirement
I put on that studio was probably gonna be done.
And having been seeing the beautiful stuff at Sage
when you're a few weeks ago in Charleston,
I knew that we're not doing any of that.
So I started to do super thin slices.
Like what can I do with my existing stuff on my desk?
I can simulate it because I want to be able to stand up and speak because you speak better
when you're standing right here I am seated got a good setup and all the rest good lighting
and all the rest but I wanted something more so I just raised my cameras if I could stand
and I practice and I look for the thinnest possible slice and I kept doing that and after
about several thin slices I realized okay I've got it now now I just need to make it
all bigger so now we've got four TVs and all that stuff and it's set up with cameras and
there's more space and so on but all I did was I took something that now I deleted every
component that I possibly could and brought it down to its basics now probably have deleted
too much you know I'll find out but thin slicing is the cheap fast way to learn and make yourself
make it less dumb so it's got to be it it's got to be so thin you can see through it by
that I mean if you can you do it in half an hour can you do it in an hour rather than
investing weeks and months in a product that you've baked all the dumbness in what thin
slicing does is it helps you learn really quickly and make rapid changes and and track
and find out another thing I would say is part of your thin slice go to your customer
remember the training about start with the end in mind start with the custom and then
work backwards don't don't design products in a lab and then go to the customer or don't
design a marketing plan and go to the market because normally doesn't work so what you
need to do is go to the customer and talk to as many customers as you can and people
will love to give you the opinion you can even call competitors and say if you have
one and say you know I'm thinking of entering this market you know what would your advice
be you'd be amazed how many people want to help you ninety percent of the time they'll
help you they'll go well you know I wouldn't come into this industry if I were you or they
would say if I did it again I would do this I would definitely you know be bold but you
know the whole thing is because you're starting with the assumption I don't know the minute
you think you know then it gets really expensive and you make a lot of mistakes and you waste
a lot of time awesome so there I just combined three sets of tools for you but you you got
all these tools now it's really helpful anyone else want to weigh in make a comment question
before we break out so it's going to be fun to do the breakout so when you do a breakouts
and you're looking at the worksheets you know I knew that people might struggle with a little
but I don't know what project so think of a project or a process you're working on or
one that already exists as Robin you suggested that we could we could look at so back with
you Jenny I don't think everyone is back in yet they're all coming back in welcome back
in we're all coming back in and connecting to audio from our breakout groups let us know
how that went for you in the chat I think I'll be interested to know yes please let
us know in the chat how that went for you yeah I think some of the big takeaways from
our group were I'm paraphrasing here not not being specific but challenging the assumption
that people want to hear from us in the same way that they always have you know that is
one of the assumptions that are being challenged and and I think when another one is to delete
like you were saying up top delete first before you go through the whole process and what
a time saver that will be sure yes Bridget said it's always a good reminder to rethink
your assumption so you don't waste time and resources absolutely yeah all right Dion Joe
asked a question before we went into the groups of do you set the wow goals first I'm assuming
the big goals first is why yes certainly I think I think the idea maybe we can make a
distinction between new initiatives and existing ones because I think you know when at first
glance when you listen to this training it may sound almost negative or kind of a little
discouraging but it isn't it's actually a very powerful and because it keeps you innovative
and it keeps you definitely always rethinking and it keeps it exciting actually and because
it puts you in a mode where you you want to grow at the maximal maximum possible level and you want
to serve your customers at the highest possible level so I think that makes it exciting but so
it's actually a very exciting process so when you say
you set your goals first or your wow goals,
I would definitely put them there
because that will cause you to ask the right questions,
talk to the right people,
and think of the thinnest slides.
I could go and build a prototype
and go and show it to a bunch of people,
or I could just call them.
Usually the cheapest, fastest, quickest way is the best.
Just call people and say,
hey, do you mind if I take a minute?
Because I've got this program, I've got this new product,
or we're thinking of changing,
hey, you're one of our top clients
and we're trying to change our process
and we have some thoughts
and we would very much appreciate your feedback.
Here's what we're thinking of doing, what do you think?
You'll be amazed.
You make five phone calls like that
and you'll have a whole different perspective.
So I think by setting your wow goals first,
it will cause you to go to the right place,
talk to the right people and ask the right questions.
For sure.
All right.
Well, we have about one more minute.
If anyone else had any other questions
or wanted to share surrounding this topic.
I bet you they're all thinking about what they can delete.
I know they're all thinking about what can they delete
and then what can they add back in.
Yeah.
Somebody asked Elon,
does that mean that we have to question you
when you give us something?
And he said, especially me.
I like that answer.
The higher up the person is from you,
the more credentialed they are,
the more experienced or academic they are,
you should definitely question their assumptions.
Cause that's the problem with the more learned you become,
you do get stuck in assumptions
and it's tough to challenge assumptions.
It really is.
But once you get used to the idea of it,
you realize how freeing it is actually.
You can rethink the problem from the ground up.
We have a question from DJ.
Hey, I have a question.
My boss, my wonderful bosses, Robin and Bonnie Butler.
Robin is very much, thinks a lot like you.
Plunge in and go for the stars.
And that's cool.
But I also worry about drawbacks.
Is there any problem with just picking up a phone
and just calling someone?
Are we burning bridges?
Are we opening doors?
I mean, I think that's important
because a lot of people,
there's a lot of people's lives that are at risk
who are in each company and Robin's been really successful,
but we wanna keep it going.
And maybe I'm just a worry wart,
but there's something to that, I think.
What do you think?
Yeah, I think I know what you're referring to, I think.
But what we're saying is when you're calling someone
and say, how can we serve you more?
That doesn't burn bridges, that builds them.
If you're calling customers say,
hey, we're thinking of this new product.
Is that something you'd be interested in?
Hey, we're thinking of whatever.
Could you give me your input?
People are genuinely complimented
when you ask their opinion and their advice.
Even if you're a competitor, they'll do it.
Yeah, so I know that if you're writing a book,
one of the fastest ways to get your research done,
instead of going and spending hours on the internet
or doing a lot of reading or sitting in a library,
call the people involved and ask them directly.
And even if they're in opposition to your viewpoint,
they're complimented by the fact
that you took the time to ask them.
People like to share their opinions and what they think.
And they appreciate when you ask, I think.
Thank you, thank you very much.
Yeah, no, I think it's got a lot to do with the tone
and the approach and how you position it.
Not like, oh, we wanna change our whole business
and they go, what about the product I paid for?
If that's what you're referring to,
yeah, we don't wanna do that.
We don't put what we have at risk, we wanna make it better.
Well, I know we're a minute over there, Jenny,
but thanks everyone, we appreciate it.
Yes, all right, everyone have fun finding out
what you can delete and make less dumb.
And we'll see you next week for week 37, bye-bye.