Detailed Notes
In this Building Better Developers interview, Michael Toguchi explains why sustainable growth starts with process before tools. Before you buy another platform or automate another workflow, you need clarity, leadership alignment, and a process your team can actually follow—without burning out.
Key takeaways • Why “tool-first” transformation creates faster chaos • How to move from survival mode to sustainable process • How to get real buy-in and build champions for change • Why culture and clarity matter more than the latest platform
About Michael Toguchi Michael Toguchi is the Chief Strategy Officer at eResources, where he leads strategy for a platform that manages complex workflows like scholarships, grants, admissions, and accessibility services. With 25+ years supporting universities, nonprofits, foundations, and associations through digital transformation, Mike focuses on reducing manual work, scaling operations without burnout, and strengthening compliance so teams can spend more time on mission-driven impact.
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Transcript Text
Hello. >> Hey, how's it going? >> Good. Can you hear me? Okay. >> Yeah, no problem at all. >> Perfect. Rob's probably gonna be another minute. He his uh other calls running just a little longer. Apologize. >> No worries. See, disconnect this. Sorry, I had to switch machines so I could get my webcam working. Gotcha. >> Where are you located? I'm in Columbus, Ohio. >> Oh, nice. >> We've got uh we all started in the Northern Virginia DC area, but we've got offices we're just kind of scattered now. We got offices in like six states and we've got people in more than I can count. So, >> I'm in Tennessee. >> Which part? Um >> uh south of Jackson. >> Okay. Yeah. in between uh Memphis and Nashville. My wife retired during COVID and we decided to get away from big cities. >> Yeah. My um my my one of my product leads, he was in was in the Memphis suburbs and then they ended up moving to like the Franklin area by Nashville. So, but I used to visit him and think went through Jackson a little bit. So, >> nice. Yeah, Franklin's a nice area. Um, a little pricey, but uh >> I was just about to say like that's the it it seems, you know, it's kind of like the way Northern Virginia was before. It's like it just it's like this is nice, but like it's you're really paying like top of the market for everything. So, >> well, we used to live in Nolanville. Um, >> and it's become Franklin. I mean, the the real estate I mean, since COVID, housing uh real estate values have more than doubled. It it's just crazy. It's like, how the heck can housing prices go up 50% in like three years? It's like that that's just unsustainable. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty nuts. And you I mean, the thing is a lot of people can't move anyway, right? Like that's like okay well hey my you know my x thousand hundreds of thousand house is now 50% more but my mortgage rate is too low for me to leave and you know just not a lot of fun. >> Yeah. With housing price well I guess with interest rates staying high it's caused a pickle all around. >> Yeah. I don't want to get too far into what you do and all that because I want to save some of that for the podcast. But um I guess I'll touch on weather since we're getting or I'm getting sleep right now. Are you guys getting snow out of this front? >> We had ours. Yeah, we had uh my we had snow on Tuesday. So we had like you know four to six inches on Tuesday and kids were off school. So um but it's it's now just cold and clear now. So it I guess we sent it all east and south to you. >> Nice. Yeah. Here, not only do they shut down schools, but they shut down the roads and uh cuz our state is not designed for snow. >> Yeah. I I grew up in the Midwest. I was used to places that, you know, could take care of it. Uh it was being in the DC area was a shock to the system where it's like the beltway was like you had a dusting threat of a dusting like you know shut down the entire government. So Oh god >> little bit better here little bit better in Ohio now. So >> when I first moved to Nashville in 2001 they were like oh yeah it never snows here. 3 months later, that's when we got the 12 ines of snow that shut down Nashville. And literally, you couldn't go from Lebanon to Dixon. I mean, you're talking like maybe 10 to 20 miles. Took 12 hours. >> Yikes. >> I mean, people were abandoning cars on the interstates on the side. I mean, it was just havoc for weeks. Hey, Rob. >> Howdy. Howdy. Chris Riddle says hi. That was why I was late because, you know, he's it always takes a minute for him to talk and we hadn't caught up in a while. All right, so other Michael, uh, nice to meet you. Sorry I'm late. Running a little, you know, it's just one of those people. >> I I know how it goes. We were having a nice chat. It's all good. >> So, excellent. So, did he tell you how it go? How we sort of approach these? >> He said absolutely nothing of substance. Great. Okay. So, uh what we do is uh we do uh we'll do be on for about an hour or so. Um like I said, we've I think we're up to about a hundred of these. Uh nobody has ever bored us that it hasn't taken the hour plus some. So, just you know, no pressure. >> Okay. >> But there's always a first. >> That's right. You don't want to be that first. Uh but no, I'm like, you know what we'll do is I'll introduce myself. Michael will introduce himself. I'll allow you to introduce yourself because that always works best I found. >> Um, even though technically somebody told me the other day, we were talking about it. It's like supposedly you're supposed to introduce the the person, but I don't know. I get a lot more of their personality letting them know. >> You got to have your own, you got to have your own style. It doesn't have to be, you know, >> and you're just going to say it, but to me it's like then it's just me reading it and it just doesn't have the same feel. And it's been amazing how often in the introduction it like spawns questions and then it's like boop, we're off and running on on the discussion from there. Um, when we show this, when we end up putting this out, it will be it will be a video we do on YouTube. Oh, like hi to everybody that's on the bonus YouTube pre pre-show stuff. Um, we put it out there and, uh, we have a two-parter. So, we'll do about a 30 minute, 25, 30 minutes and then a second part that we're just going to split this. As far as this conversation, we're going to flow all the way through. We'll have Michael will do all the editing magic in the back end to turn that into two episodes. Um, it's audio and visual. So, we've got YouTube. We also have all the different podcast places that are out there. Um, and then we're really going to just sort of dive into questions here. Um, I I want to go real quick on the basics of why. Apologies as I've got to like come back to what we originally talked about talking about. Um >> yeah and and I'm good for like really any direction like if you want to do you know leadership and culture and management if you want to do product development if you want to do automation and workflow if you want to do you know I I can strategy and transformation like we we do all of that stuff and I'm game to chat about whatever direction you want to go with >> perfect because yeah I think we will go with I love the I think the thing that got is that that the your group said that you help missiondriven organizations turn messy people dependent processes into systems that run smoothly. And we between developer developers and the entrepreneur side of our our uh audience, there's a lot of messy processes and businesses out there. And I think that's a great way for us to talk about uh sort of step into some of those things. And our our season focuses on like building better foundations. And I think that's probably where we're going to go is like is talk a little bit about how the messy usually becomes comes from not having a good foundation. You you start off you're like, "Okay, I just got to get it done." And then the next thing you know it's like you got a big old pile of crap. You're like, "That's a lot of get it done that now I got to spend time to get that done as well." So, you know, it's it's doing it right the first time. And and where processes have value even from like the very start of of businesses. So, >> absolutely. Okay. So, let me All right, I'm going to do this since everybody's like head is centered differently. I switch around my little background. >> You mean to move? Uh, I can turn a different way if it's uh >> No, I'm good. I think I just I don't want to be like I don't want to be big guy and I don't want to be little guy. >> Once where it looked like I truly it might have been like a sumo wrestler. Like my head was it was like a my mom took the picture. It was you know it looked like it was the just the whole screen. And I was like, "Well, that's attractive. I hope hope >> that doesn't >> maybe my kids will go find that one and be like, "Geez, Dad, you know, like have a salad." >> Yeah. The only problem I have with that right now is like uh the new the new uh Mac OS it like it will mess with the camera a little bit. It will start zooming in on me and stuff and I'm like, "No, like you're there for a reason. Don't move." >> So, we'll see how this goes. Uh but we will dive in and I think already uh other Michael any questions? >> No, but for the auto tracking I can tell you how to adjust that later. >> Okay, coolness. And we're just going to dive three dos. Oh no. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of building better foundations. This is Building Better Developers, the developer podcast. I happen to be Rob Broadhead, one of the founders of said developing and building better developers. Also the founder of RB Consulting where we help you assess your business and build a technology roadmap for success. Good thing, bad thing, huge good thing. I think I've shared a little bit of our like DIY and house issues and we finally got the house that we wanted to get set up and did a lot of little work on it. uh got it set up and it is now like on the market and ready for uh rentals and stuff like that which has been a long and torturous path. And I am not the main guy that did most of that. My wife is the DIYer. I am the doyour yourselfer somebody else do it as opposed to me. I am the like go hire that person. And so she has beared the brunt of that along with me helping her. And I put that in quotes because I'm not much of a helper in that sense. I'm a little bit more of like the the 2-year-old that's there like helping dig while dad's got the back, something like that. Uh the bad thing is is that uh we're getting towards the end of the year and it is like it's flown by. It's like we are already as we're recording this, we are into December and uh it feels like I've like skipped a half a year. It's like there's a ton of stuff that's gone on but has flown by very fast. So I have not been able to enjoy it. uh much like I have not been able to enjoy often enough Michael introducing himself. So dive right in and take over. >> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malash. I'm one of the co-founders building better developers, also known as developer. I'm also the founder and owner of Envision QA where I work with businesses that are tired of fighting their software. Uh we build and test custom solutions that actually fit the way you work so that you can stop pulling uh out your hair, putting out fires and focus on the growth of your business and you know let the technology work for you not against you. Uh good thing bad thing uh good thing as Rob said we're nearing the end of the year so uh I'm getting into the festive Christmas holidays. Uh wife made me sit down and watch Die Hard one and Die Hard 2 yesterday. So, we've finally got that off the track. Yes. I I I see you. >> Did you say made made you or >> if she had her way, we would watch Die Hard every single month, every single day of the year. It's just her movie. I'm just a little burned out of it. >> It is a quintessential Christmas though. Like, you have to watch Elf and you have to watch Die Hard. >> That's right. >> It is. Which is why I told her you cannot watch it till December 1st now. like I we can watch it in December and we can watch it in January because we do do a week in January of Christmas and July, but um other than that, I'm getting back around to watching some of the new Hallmark uh holidays. Uh my mom got me into that years ago and I'm a sap for that. Uh but I also wanted to get back into some of the traditional Christmas movies uh like Miracle on 54th Street, some of the older ones. I haven't watched those in years. Caught one yesterday. It's like, man, I remember these were feelood movie. I need to go back and watch these. So, looking forward to that. So, the bad side is I have not watched any classical Christmas movies in a long time. So, I'm going to catch up on them. >> And as you may have already picked up, we have a guest today. So, this is going to be one of those interview sessions. And I'm going to let uh we will not call you Michael number two because that just doesn't seem right. But Michael, go ahead and introduce yourself. >> Thanks. Uh Mike Taguchi. I'm the chief strategy officer at E- Resources. We're a digital strategy and transformation company doing everything from uh MSP work for IT. We do marketing, branding, websites, and uh on my side, we oversee a platform called Orchestrate that's uh for missiondriven organizations. Uh we do workflow processes uh anything to try and help automate, save time, let people actually focus on impactful work. That's something that we do at higher ed, nonprofits, associations, uh any kind of solution in that area. And we also do a great deal of work with disability centers and in higher ed as well. And so I'm really excited to be here and and chat with you guys and hear a little bit more about the this holiday movie situation we've got going on. Um you know, we would be more on the I would be my family would be more on the die hard than the Hallmark side, but my wife would probably be fine on on both. She would probably she play both sides of the aisle. Yes, I have uh I've spent the last few years slowly like expanding out and plus there have been some new movies that have come in recent years. I would say Christmas Chronicles 1 and two that came out of uh Netflix is a a great one. Um there's a couple others I'm trying to think of recent years, but I I have like my my mid-range of like your elf and stuff like that. The new Grinch, the full like uh whoever is I uh Pixar, whoever did I wasn't Pixar, whoever did that one, it's phenomenal. Uh great soundtrack to it. But then I got to have like I got a few of the the old classics, but definitely Die Hard is right up there. >> Um I have like I have like my my downer ones like Family Stone and some things like that as well. >> Family Stone. I have Family Stone as well. I I I also really like I'm embarrassed to admit a little, but there are a couple newer run not newer runchy ones like um uh The Night Before and uh Office Christmas Party with Jason Baitman that we like to watch as kind of guilty guilty pleasures. But we bought my father-in-law a Nakatomi Plaza, you know, shirt because we're in we got the we we're on team die hard for Christmas. >> Those are definitely some of the best. U a recommendation if you have never seen it's a series. I think there's three shows of it. Uh is a Brit. It's called The Worst Christmas of My Life or I think it's the worst Christmas week of my life. Uh it is it is very cringey to watch as far as like like you're the guy goes through some very tough situations. You're like, "Oh my gosh, stop. Stop." Oh no. It's actually going to happen. But it's a fun one. And I Yeah, you got to mix it up, but you got to have like the You got to have the like really good ones. You got to have like the tearjerker types like the Jack Frost or something like that. But then there's like Yeah, it's like it's nice having that mix. And then you got to have like the Charlie Brown Christmas. There's those like I can I could probably recite it from like start to finish, but I just I got to watch that every year. >> So, I threw out with my wife uh Iron Man 3 since Die Hard is officially a Christmas movie. Iron Man 3 is officially a Christmas movie because it does take place during Christmas. >> There's there's a lot of that argument, but I think it's people that are just trying to like detract from the Die Hard is truly a Christmas movie. I mean, it's like >> I think that's one of those is just it's it's unquestionable. even though like I also have a household argument with that on a regular basis of like no it is definitely a Christmas movie and she's like well you can just watch it I don't really care I would add while while you were sleeping into that as like the sappy I think that's a big Christmas movie too so >> I I think so I think there's that and uh love actually is another one of those I don't know how sappy but it's like yeah there's some of those that I think have like a >> that kind of rolled into um when Harry met Sally for New Year's for you know for for because they because they ended at the you know at the New Year's party. >> Yeah, that is definitely that's like my late Christmas one is like after Christmas I still want to watch a couple Christmas movie like Harry Met Sally is definitely right up there on on that one. So well now this is probably going to come out I think this comes out after Christmas. We'll find out. So everybody will be able to like reminisce a little bit but we're we're in a jolly jolly mood which is a good start to so one of the things that that you mentioned is like uh is missiondriven organizations and organizing missiondriven uh organizations to me is um we talked in the the pregame the pre-show a little bit about u you just entrepreneurs and startups in general I think it becomes hard there is a mess to fix after you go through the like you're going nuts, you're in survival phase, you're just getting stuff done and then you usually you're really not defining and and refining processes during that time. Your process is just get the thing out the door and so you have some mess to to clean up. Um, but I'd also like to I think that I found that a lot of of missiondriven nonprofits have a very similar situation. And it's it's a little different because I think it's more um there's a little bit of like you're driven to the mission. So that's what you're focused on. It's not really the building a business behind that becomes I think part of the problem or part of the the challenge with that. And then also that I think there's like there tends to be some turnover and things like that that you get as as as the mission grows and the the organizations involved. So, I think I'd like to to start out with like if you're in that situation, you got a company, you're like, "Okay, that's you're you're speaking my my language. I'm in a situation where we've been we've been doing business. We've been doing our mission for a while and it's a mess. Like, where would you where do I begin? Where would you start with that?" >> Yeah, that that's a that's a that's a tough one and I agree with you. think the the missiondriven groups, they end up with a lot of the same challenges that um a business or an entrepreneur that's in startup mode. Uh everyone's going a million miles an hour. Um you're you know, you're just trying to survive some days. And so the idea of like SOPs and you know those kinds of things, that's not really what you're focused on. You're focused on on the survival part of it. Uh, I think if you are a group that has gone through one of those sprint periods and, you know, chicken with your head cut off and you're just trying to make it and then you have a second to take a deep breath and realize you've created a giant mess. You know, that's sort of the situation we're we're talking about. Um, you know, one, you have to kind of start in small digestible bits, right? Like you're not going to be able to wave a magic wand and fix your entire business. You have to kind of set it up as like there's people and culture. Um there's you know what what is the mission again you know when we say mission I might be talking nonprofit but you know we we're we run a business as well so you're talking about what's the P&L like what are our what are our goals and things like that and all of those ultimately like there's a strategy and what you're trying to achieve and accomplish and so what we try and do with our groups whether we're working corporate nonprofit or whatever else is make sure leadership is bought in on some core principles uh that they're focused and they're not trying to do too much um that where they have folks that are championing their ideas and getting buy in at all the levels so that the staff understands that they're being accountable and transparent with the communication so that people aren't just like am I just working to get to make you more money or am I working an 80hour a week just for you know where is this all going uh so that there is a vision that's been articulated um and the you know the last then you start getting into the actual technology where you say like please don't make it about tools like it's not like oh well we can fix it if we HubSpot or you know whatever else it might be. It needs to be like what what are the reasons we're doing this? Like how are we better serving our audience or or serving our customers or whoever the members it doesn't matter. Every group has got somebody that they're serving. Like how are we better accomplishing this? And then back to you know sort of my my original piece like one of our main areas is people that work are there for a reason. like whether it's to make money or or it's to again serve a particular mission like they want to help a certain kind of people whatever that might be they want to spend their time doing that and on the things that are skillful for them they don't want to spend their times copying and pasting from spreadsheets tracking down things in emails logging into 75 tools during the day and so you know part part I think for for groups like ours is helping folks figure out like it's not about these you know having more tools it's about finding ways to find efficiencies to automate things to get people and that's how they start understanding the ROI both from a leadership level saying like this investment is good and this thought process is good because we're going to be saving people's time and making them more productive. So from that corporate standpoint that's what we're really we would be looking at it in that area like your efficiency you know this is dollars that you would be wasting if people are just like you know again in a spreadsheet or doing some sort of manual tasks that aren't helpful. I think that's that's awesome because that was actually like one of the follow-up questions is a lot of times I think I you talk to people and they're like, "Oh, like you know, SOPs and all that kind of stuff. That sounds like big business thing. That sounds like something that you know, we're not there yet. We're you know, we're a small business or we're you know, we're we're a little uh you know, we're we're a little city-based organization or we're a little nonprofit or something like that. We can't do that." Um, but I think it is I think that's like that's where you go is like there is an ROI on those things and it is not you're not just doing it just to do it that there is there is an investment on that and so how do you like take it a step further like how do you get that buy particularly you can sell it to the executives or the the people running the company as far as like yeah this is like bottom line this is what's going to happen uh but the people that are actually have to that you really have to I think normally you have to go to to get the information to like how do I build out an SOP well I need to know how the you know the frontline workers are working and balancing that with them going like okay are you going to automate me out of a job or something especially in the world of AI and stuff like that I think there's just like regular fear of such thing >> well I mean I think the the first piece that you mentioned is an important point and I it resonates for me because we went through it we were a small we were a small business we were in startup mode for many years, you know, and we created a lot of technical debt for ourselves and a lot of process debt where we were just, oh well, techn is going this direction and we were zigging and zagging and zooming around, you know, and uh you suddenly find yourself with like how do I scale this operation? Like if your or if your leadership is like, well man, I you know, my family would really like it if I I was actually at home or not working at 10 p.m. was like part of that is you've created this and you know where everybody has to work this way. You're singlethreaded through things. You haven't created good processes. You haven't found a way to to onboard people. And so that really rings true to me that it's important the group shouldn't think, well that's, you know, that's for Accenture and Google to do those sorts of things. Like I don't care if you're if you're a small mom and pop or you're two or three person, you know, kind of small group doing guerrilla warfare. Like you still, you know, you still need to have those things in place if you ever want to escape the cycle that uh that you're in. So I do think of it in that area where it's important to emphasize it doesn't matter the size. in terms of the you know the second question you asked I think that's really one of the most important ones and that's where it it is a piece where you think of it sort of in story brand mode of like who's the hero in the story right like if you're leadership if you're if you're the CEO you're seuite and you're talking to somebody like it's not about you you've got these workers that are executing they're in the tactical day-to-day they're you know working their behinds off for you and so but they want to understand again What's the vision for this? Where is this going? Like what's the medium longer term plan? How do I fit into that? Like if you I have so much stuff on my plate and you're asking me to, you know, sort of transform on the fly or change concurrently. Like how am I supposed to fit all of that in? And you know, how what what what assurances are you giving me that I'm not just going to be like I'm not creating a process document so you can fire me and hire someone cheaper or not replace me. Um and that's where that I mean again communication like the vision, articulation, transparency, accountability, all those things like they sound buzzy but you bundle them up like that is good leadership. Like that is that is how you create a culture. And like there may be some people that you have to replace or that don't that don't come back. But ultimately like those people you know I like to say you win with people. That's an old like Woody Hayes quote is an old football coach. You win with people meaning like if you have a bad process you can fix it. If you have a bad tool, you can replace it. If you have bad people and they don't believe in you, you're dead. You're DOA, right? Like your your business is not going anywhere. And so that's we really spend a lot of time trying to work with leadership to get that buy in because otherwise they're, you know, they may be thinking, well, I can add this tool and, you know, that's sort of the end all be all of it and maybe I'll save this money and that's how I'm that's how I'm that's my success metrics. your staff is not going to buy into that. That's your your initiative is not going to succeed that way. >> So, so I kind of got a twofold question on this. Um, so >> with that, how would you approach like new startups or people starting new missions and getting things going to essentially set themselves up for success, not failure. But then flip that around and and how would you go about h uh helping those organizations or what suggestions would you give to those organizations that are already into this mess didn't plan ahead of time? How would they kind of walk their way back to kind of maybe at the beginning or somewhere? How do you reverse engineer the I think the first the first piece is is good because I mean you mentioned that you know road mapping and I think uh you know strategic planning and things like that there >> I mean there's a part of this where take a company that's in startup mode or take a nonprofit like here's two two scenarios that are very similar that are likely to happen. uh you get a new client as a startup and your processes and what you're doing start revolving around the money you're bringing in as opposed to you know sticking to what you're best at and creating a process you know pushing your process on how you do business. You let the client kind of dictate how you're small organ because when you're small it has such an outsized undue influence on you know the people that you're working with and the same thing happens at nonprofits. Oh, we got a grant from this foundation. And so suddenly instead of your mission being one thing, it's like, well, we've got to fulfill the terms of this grant and we've got to spend a lot of focus here. So in both cases, whether corporate or nonprofit, the business is is is morphing based on external variables as opposed to like staying a course where you say like this is who we are. This is how we're going to get there. There may be some like rough choppy waters, but we will need to develop processes and ways of doing things that fit that. not letting the external variables affect what we're doing. um in terms of fixing that once it happens. Uh yeah, I mean it's I think that's why those you know those exercises where you kind of take that deep breath and say we can't wave the wand at it but and we can't you know you're always going to be stuck especially from like a the entrepreneur standpoint like you probably have contracts that you have to fulfill and you're trying to say like well how do I keep the money coming in the door while also you know concurrently making this change that's that shifts our processes and that's where it's going to have to be you know you can't do it all at once. You have to set up you have to set up a timeline. You have to give people room to fit this into their schedule. Like you can't say, well, I expect you to do the 80 hours plus implement this like >> and that's we talk for our AI clients that we're doing AI work. Well, like you have to have room to experiment. You have to have room to fail because this all isn't going to go perfectly. Um but you know with with these transformations or with places where we're implementing new processes or workflows we're trying to do them in digestible bits where you can then get on the ground feedback like is this working you know are you saving time and that it answer it goes back to the original question where people start to see the the fruits of it like oh this is great I I I'm not you know re-entering this from one place to another suddenly getting that 30 minutes back in the day allows me to do something something else. And so, yeah, I think it's it's it's never easy once you've already created some of the mess. But, I mean, that's all of us, right? Like, we've we've all in one in one form or another, we've got some things that um we would like to clean up. And so, >> yeah, it's it's interesting. Uh especially when you were talking about the grants and effort, like the the startups and new businesses. So often, and I've noticed this too, you know, you're working, you find someone comes to you uh as a customer and it may not quite fit, but you can help solve their problem. And you know, being a startup, you need money. So typically, you don't say no a lot and you could end up in situations where you are off mission, you're serving multiple masters, and you just kind of lose focus on where you're going, and it just becomes a disaster. Uh the second part I I thought was interesting. So rolling things back, pulling it back, working through the problems. It's interesting there especially with the AI component. How would you um how would you talk to like the business owners in encouraging as their leaders working with their people to encourage them for the fast to fail. So I've worked with a lot of different groups and there's a huge shift in different markets. Shift left, shift right, fast to fail, more time building the processes. there is a balance and it's good to get you know fast to fail but how would you define that for organizations so that they're not essentially rushing their people to fail too fast like not thinking through the problem but still encouraging them enough that it's okay to try things out without consequences. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's that's some of the big challenge where we're, you know, we're talking to folks and we're like, okay, you want to have some sort of digital transformation. Again, whether you could be corporate, nonprofit, higher ed, doesn't really matter. And like you want to utilize technology as a force multiplier to create this highly efficient set of processes that empower your staff to, you know, or your your employees to effectively do their jobs. And so um yeah we we we try and we we try and take the idea of failure less as about like we don't we don't want to do fail fast failing but we want u you know sort of an ongoing an you know assessment audit uh design and implement something automate it and then just be doing analysis you know sort of constant feedback and uh explaining you know hey this is what's on the ground you know kind of what's working what what isn't. Um, and so we're not looking for the people to like rush into failure uh because it just it rarely ever has long-term benefits. The metrics we use for evaluating success of projects like that, it never seems to go go well. We're looking more for a measured approach, but a constant approach. You know, it's not it's not 10 years ago uh digital strategy where like you create the road map like you've implemented and then you're re-evaluating it in, you know, 18 to 24 months or something. this is as soon as it's as soon as the ink is dry, you're really kind of thinking about like the next phase of it. And so we take that approach with these the micro parts of it too where it's like okay well hey if you're trying to you know create an agentic chatbot to provide support for so and so like it's it's not something that we want to like rush into production and then say it's successful or failure in you know short period of time. we want to be constantly uh you know refining it or determining whether or not it it's it's serving the mission that we need it to. Are you seeing then, you know, like I guess continuing down this this path a little bit, are you seeing that um is that what you're seeing sort of across the the board with businesses is that they are starting to embrace this instead of this like you know 12 18 month and even I guess even five or five five or six years ago it was still six to 12 month cycles of like you go through it you build it then you assess it versus um what I'm seeing and I'm wondering if this is you know you're seeing this as well where it's like it's starting to become almost very quick like you know days and weeks at most to be able to put something together so that now things that that in the past maybe took a little bit longer like you know AB testing has always been existed to some level uh but now it's actually it feels like it's it's it's ABCD A through Z almost because you can so quickly iterate on these things get some feedback and then like you said I think it's like instead of fast fail it's more like a fast assess. >> Yeah, I think that's right. I think the modernization is essentially a continuous process now and that um good companies are balancing their agility and innovation or disruption depending on how you look at it uh with some with the steadiness of the over you know that's where you have to combine or thread together the like here's our steady leadership and our vision and mission and this is what we're going to stick to with this hyperness of the the technological ical change. >> Yeah, I think that's like that's the god that's the danger is now that it's like you can't you you have the ability and this is this is the entrepreneur or the yeah the visionary entrepreneur dilemma is that I like I I have all these ideas and all these great places and all these things I can do. I actually just got off a call before this with somebody that has is so much that is the visionary where you can sit down and talk to them about a product and the next thing you know you've developed and you know theoretically developed a dozen different products and now that you can you know with the like vibe coding and no code and some of these other things are out there they're sort of they're promising that that to to some level. So, how do you and and how do you when working with like founders and that like how do you rein them in a little bit to like to to bring them into that that original why you know vision and mission? >> Uh not easily. Um that is that uh it's it's it is one of the reasons why you know when we when I talk about we we work across many verticals um leadership at higher ed or missiondriven nonprofits and associations they tend to be a little bit more um conservative or reserved and you know so they're we work more with them from the leadership standpoint of the communication and helping to understand on the corporate and entrepreneurial side. Yeah. It's it's exactly what you said. There is this danger now where it's like it used to be well the executives they've got a million ideas and like they're going to throw them at the staff. Now like there's actually a reasonable way for them to start having those things appear. And so you really have to you know start getting I think you know again it's a road map. It's a it's a P&L with a plan and a and a vision where you start saying like you can do this but like this is the wild wild west and unknown in some places. And like if you drift too far out like you you you know you could lose a great deal of what you're doing. And so we we try and work on those benchmarks and again the the idea of these small digestible things where there's constant evaluation to ensure that people don't go so far off track or splinter into like oh well hey we had one product and suddenly there's four. Um because that I mean that you can do that. you can easily say like, well, I've got this this is now well, we're going to do this in this niche. And you've >> you start to tie that to the rest of this conversation where like the staff is like, well, no, wait, are we doing this or are we doing this? Or wait, you want me to do all of these things at once? And like they start to lose, you know, they start to lose faith in what's going on. And so, um, it all you can do from a leadership standpoint with those sea level folks that have the brain going a million miles an hour is is try and keep it steady. So, and that is where we're going to pause episode one, part one, uh, die hard one of this interview. Uh, this has been a great one. This has been a fun one. We we had a really good time diving into very non-technical stuff beforehand. So, uh, that's awesome. But come on back for part two because it really does continue to have a a really good discussion. There's a lot of valuable stuff here. um not a ton of specifics necessarily as much as I think these are the things that you should be thinking of uh particularly as when you're getting into the end of the year and the beginning of a new year uh as as you we're getting into now when this is is coming out is like how do I move forward this year? It's you know hopefully you've got a plan at this point and these are some of the things that you want to knock down. These are some of the things you want to accomplish, but uh maybe there's some things that in this interview, you know, come to light that you're like, "Oh, I should probably think about that as well." So, uh do so and then come back for the next episode as well because there's probably going to be more. Till then, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time.
Transcript Segments
Hello.
>> Hey, how's it going?
>> Good. Can you hear me? Okay.
>> Yeah, no problem at all.
>> Perfect. Rob's probably gonna be another
minute. He his uh other calls running
just a little longer. Apologize.
>> No worries.
See, disconnect this.
Sorry, I had to switch machines so I
could get my webcam working.
Gotcha.
>> Where are you located? I'm in Columbus,
Ohio.
>> Oh, nice.
>> We've got uh we all started in the
Northern Virginia DC area, but we've got
offices we're just kind of scattered
now. We got offices in like six states
and we've got people in
more than I can count. So,
>> I'm in Tennessee.
>> Which part? Um
>> uh south of Jackson.
>> Okay. Yeah. in between uh Memphis and
Nashville. My wife retired during COVID
and we decided to get away from big
cities.
>> Yeah. My um
my my one of my product leads, he was in
was in the Memphis suburbs and then they
ended up moving to like the Franklin
area by Nashville. So, but I used to
visit him and think went through Jackson
a little bit. So,
>> nice. Yeah, Franklin's a nice area. Um,
a little pricey, but uh
>> I was just about to say like that's the
it it seems, you know, it's kind of like
the way Northern Virginia was before.
It's like it just it's like this is
nice, but like it's you're really paying
like top of the market for everything.
So,
>> well, we used to live in Nolanville. Um,
>> and it's become Franklin. I mean, the
the real estate I mean, since COVID,
housing uh real estate values have more
than doubled. It it's just crazy. It's
like, how the heck can housing prices go
up 50% in
like three years? It's like that that's
just unsustainable.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty nuts.
And you I mean, the thing is a lot of
people can't move anyway, right? Like
that's like okay well hey my you know my
x thousand hundreds of thousand house is
now 50% more but my mortgage rate is too
low for me to leave and you know just
not a lot of fun.
>> Yeah. With housing price well I guess
with interest rates staying high it's
caused a pickle all around.
>> Yeah.
I don't want to get too far into what
you do and all that because I want to
save some of that for the podcast. But
um I guess I'll touch on weather since
we're getting or I'm getting sleep right
now. Are you guys getting snow out of
this front?
>> We had ours. Yeah, we had uh my we had
snow on Tuesday. So we had like you know
four to six inches on Tuesday and kids
were off school. So
um but it's it's now just cold and clear
now. So it I guess we sent it all east
and south to you.
>> Nice. Yeah. Here, not only do they shut
down schools, but they shut down the
roads and uh cuz our state is not
designed for snow.
>> Yeah. I I grew up in the Midwest. I was
used to places that, you know, could
take care of it. Uh it was being in the
DC area was a shock to the system where
it's like the beltway was like you had a
dusting threat of a dusting like you
know shut down the entire government. So
Oh god
>> little bit better here little bit better
in Ohio now. So
>> when I first moved to Nashville in 2001
they were like oh yeah it never snows
here.
3 months later, that's when we got the
12 ines of snow that shut down
Nashville. And literally, you couldn't
go from Lebanon to Dixon. I mean, you're
talking like maybe 10 to 20 miles. Took
12 hours.
>> Yikes.
>> I mean, people were abandoning cars on
the interstates on the side. I mean, it
was just havoc for weeks.
Hey, Rob.
>> Howdy. Howdy. Chris Riddle says hi. That
was why I was late because, you know,
he's it always takes a minute for him to
talk and we hadn't caught up in a while.
All right, so
other Michael, uh, nice to meet you.
Sorry I'm late. Running a little, you
know, it's just one of those people.
>> I I know how it goes. We were having a
nice chat. It's all good.
>> So, excellent. So, did he tell you how
it go? How we sort of approach these?
>> He said absolutely nothing of substance.
Great. Okay. So, uh what we do is uh we
do uh we'll do be on for about an hour
or so. Um like I said, we've I think
we're up to about a hundred of these. Uh
nobody has ever bored us that it hasn't
taken the hour plus some. So, just you
know, no pressure.
>> Okay.
>> But there's always a first.
>> That's right. You don't want to be that
first. Uh but no, I'm like, you know
what we'll do is I'll introduce myself.
Michael will introduce himself. I'll
allow you to introduce yourself because
that always works best I found.
>> Um, even though technically somebody
told me the other day, we were talking
about it. It's like supposedly you're
supposed to introduce the the person,
but I don't know. I get a lot more of
their personality letting them know.
>> You got to have your own, you got to
have your own style. It doesn't have to
be, you know,
>> and you're just going to say it, but to
me it's like then it's just me reading
it and it just doesn't have the same
feel. And it's been amazing how often in
the introduction it like spawns
questions and then it's like boop, we're
off and running on on the discussion
from there. Um, when we show this, when
we end up putting this out, it will be
it will be a video we do on YouTube. Oh,
like hi to everybody that's on the bonus
YouTube pre pre-show stuff. Um, we put
it out there and, uh, we have a
two-parter. So, we'll do about a 30
minute, 25, 30 minutes and then a second
part that we're just going to split
this. As far as this conversation, we're
going to flow all the way through. We'll
have Michael will do all the editing
magic in the back end to turn that into
two episodes. Um, it's audio and visual.
So, we've got YouTube. We also have all
the different podcast places that are
out there. Um, and then we're really
going to just sort of dive into
questions here. Um, I I want to go real
quick on the basics of why. Apologies as
I've got to like come back to what we
originally talked about talking about.
Um
>> yeah and and I'm good for like really
any direction like if you want to do you
know leadership and culture and
management if you want to do product
development if you want to do automation
and workflow if you want to do you know
I I can strategy and transformation like
we we do all of that stuff and I'm game
to chat about whatever direction you
want to go with
>> perfect because yeah I think we will go
with I love the I think the thing that
got is that that the your group said
that you help missiondriven
organizations turn messy people
dependent processes into systems that
run smoothly. And we between developer
developers and the entrepreneur side of
our our uh audience, there's a lot of
messy processes and businesses out
there. And I think that's a great way
for us to talk about uh sort of step
into some of those things. And our our
season focuses on like building better
foundations. And I think that's probably
where we're going to go is like is talk
a little bit about how the messy usually
becomes comes from not having a good
foundation. You you start off you're
like, "Okay, I just got to get it done."
And then the next thing you know it's
like you got a big old pile of crap.
You're like, "That's a lot of get it
done that now I got to spend time to get
that done as well." So, you know, it's
it's doing it right the first time. And
and where processes have value even from
like the very start of of businesses.
So,
>> absolutely. Okay.
So, let me All right, I'm going to do
this since everybody's like head is
centered differently. I switch around my
little background.
>> You mean to move? Uh, I can turn a
different way if it's uh
>> No, I'm good. I think I just I don't
want to be like I don't want to be big
guy and I don't want to be little guy.
>> Once where it looked like I truly it
might have been like a sumo wrestler.
Like my head was it was like a my mom
took the picture. It was you know it
looked like it was the just the whole
screen. And I was like, "Well, that's
attractive. I hope hope
>> that doesn't
>> maybe my kids will go find that one and
be like, "Geez, Dad, you know, like have
a salad."
>> Yeah. The only problem I have with that
right now is like uh the new the new uh
Mac OS it like it will mess with the
camera a little bit. It will start
zooming in on me and stuff and I'm like,
"No, like you're there for a reason.
Don't move."
>> So, we'll see how this goes. Uh but we
will dive in and I think already uh
other Michael any questions?
>> No, but for the auto tracking I can tell
you how to adjust that later.
>> Okay, coolness. And we're just going to
dive three dos. Oh no. Well, hello and
welcome back. We are continuing our
season of building better foundations.
This is Building Better Developers, the
developer podcast. I happen to be Rob
Broadhead, one of the founders of said
developing and building better
developers. Also the founder of RB
Consulting where we help you assess your
business and build a technology roadmap
for success. Good thing, bad thing, huge
good thing. I think I've shared a little
bit of our like DIY and house issues and
we finally got the house that we wanted
to get set up and did a lot of little
work on it. uh got it set up and it is
now like on the market and ready for uh
rentals and stuff like that which has
been a long and torturous path. And I am
not the main guy that did most of that.
My wife is the DIYer. I am the doyour
yourselfer somebody else do it as
opposed to me. I am the like go hire
that person. And so she has beared the
brunt of that along with me helping her.
And I put that in quotes because I'm not
much of a helper in that sense. I'm a
little bit more of like the the
2-year-old that's there like helping dig
while dad's got the back, something like
that. Uh the bad thing is is that uh
we're getting towards the end of the
year and it is like it's flown by. It's
like we are already as we're recording
this, we are into December
and uh it feels like I've like skipped a
half a year. It's like there's a ton of
stuff that's gone on but has flown by
very fast. So I have not been able to
enjoy it. uh much like I have not been
able to enjoy often enough Michael
introducing himself. So dive right in
and take over.
>> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malash.
I'm one of the co-founders building
better developers, also known as
developer. I'm also the founder and
owner of Envision QA where I work with
businesses that are tired of fighting
their software. Uh we build and test
custom solutions that actually fit the
way you work so that you can stop
pulling uh out your hair, putting out
fires and focus on the growth of your
business and you know let the technology
work for you not against you. Uh good
thing bad thing uh good thing as Rob
said we're nearing the end of the year
so uh I'm getting into the festive
Christmas holidays. Uh wife made me sit
down and watch Die Hard one and Die Hard
2 yesterday. So, we've finally got that
off the track. Yes. I I I see you.
>> Did you say made made you or
>> if she had her way, we would watch Die
Hard every single month, every single
day of the year. It's just her movie.
I'm just a little burned out of it.
>> It is a quintessential Christmas though.
Like, you have to watch Elf and you have
to watch Die Hard.
>> That's right.
>> It is. Which is why I told her you
cannot watch it till December 1st now.
like I we can watch it in December and
we can watch it in January because we do
do a week in January of Christmas and
July, but um other than that, I'm
getting back around to watching some of
the new Hallmark uh holidays. Uh my mom
got me into that years ago and I'm a sap
for that. Uh but I also wanted to get
back into some of the traditional
Christmas movies uh like Miracle on 54th
Street, some of the older ones. I
haven't watched those in years. Caught
one yesterday. It's like, man, I
remember these were feelood movie. I
need to go back and watch these. So,
looking forward to that. So, the bad
side is I have not watched any classical
Christmas movies in a long time. So, I'm
going to catch up on them.
>> And as you may have already picked up,
we have a guest today. So, this is going
to be one of those interview sessions.
And I'm going to let uh we will not call
you Michael number two because that just
doesn't seem right. But Michael, go
ahead and introduce yourself.
>> Thanks. Uh Mike Taguchi. I'm the chief
strategy officer at E- Resources. We're
a digital strategy and transformation
company doing everything from uh MSP
work for IT. We do marketing, branding,
websites, and uh on my side, we oversee
a platform called Orchestrate that's uh
for missiondriven organizations. Uh we
do workflow processes uh anything to try
and help automate, save time, let people
actually focus on impactful work. That's
something that we do at higher ed,
nonprofits, associations, uh any kind of
solution in that area. And we also do a
great deal of work with disability
centers and in higher ed as well. And so
I'm really excited to be here and and
chat with you guys and hear a little bit
more about the this holiday movie
situation we've got going on. Um you
know, we would be more on the I would be
my family would be more on the die hard
than the Hallmark side, but my wife
would probably be fine on on both. She
would probably she play both sides of
the aisle.
Yes, I have uh I've spent the last few
years slowly like expanding out and plus
there have been some new movies that
have come in recent years. I would say
Christmas Chronicles 1 and two that came
out of uh Netflix is a a great one. Um
there's a couple others I'm trying to
think of recent years, but I I have like
my my mid-range of like your elf and
stuff like that. The new Grinch, the
full like uh whoever is I uh Pixar,
whoever did I wasn't Pixar, whoever did
that one, it's phenomenal. Uh great
soundtrack to it. But then I got to have
like I got a few of the the old
classics, but definitely Die Hard is
right up there.
>> Um I have like I have like my my downer
ones like Family Stone and some things
like that as well.
>> Family Stone. I have Family Stone as
well. I I I also really like I'm
embarrassed to admit a little, but there
are a couple newer run not newer runchy
ones like um uh The Night Before and uh
Office Christmas Party with Jason
Baitman that we like to watch as kind of
guilty guilty pleasures. But we bought
my father-in-law a Nakatomi Plaza, you
know, shirt because we're in we got the
we we're on team die hard for Christmas.
>> Those are definitely some of the best. U
a recommendation if you have never seen
it's a series. I think there's three
shows of it. Uh is a Brit. It's called
The Worst Christmas of My Life or I
think it's the worst Christmas week of
my life. Uh it is it is very cringey to
watch as far as like like you're the guy
goes through some very tough situations.
You're like, "Oh my gosh, stop. Stop."
Oh no. It's actually going to happen.
But it's a fun one. And I Yeah, you got
to mix it up, but you got to have like
the You got to have the like really good
ones. You got to have like the
tearjerker types like the Jack Frost or
something like that. But then there's
like Yeah, it's like it's nice having
that mix. And then you got to have like
the Charlie Brown Christmas. There's
those like I can I could probably recite
it from like start to finish, but I just
I got to watch that every year.
>> So, I threw out with my wife uh Iron Man
3 since Die Hard is officially a
Christmas movie. Iron Man 3 is
officially a Christmas movie because it
does take place during Christmas.
>> There's there's a lot of that argument,
but I think it's people that are just
trying to like detract from the Die Hard
is truly a Christmas movie. I mean, it's
like
>> I think that's one of those is just it's
it's unquestionable. even though like I
also have a household argument with that
on a regular basis of like no it is
definitely a Christmas movie and she's
like well you can just watch it I don't
really care I would add while while you
were sleeping into that as like the
sappy I think that's a big Christmas
movie too so
>> I I think so I think there's that and uh
love actually is another one of those I
don't know how sappy but it's like yeah
there's some of those that I think have
like a
>> that kind of rolled into um when Harry
met Sally for New Year's for you know
for for because they because they ended
at the you know at the New Year's party.
>> Yeah, that is definitely that's like my
late Christmas one is like after
Christmas I still want to watch a couple
Christmas movie like Harry Met Sally is
definitely right up there on on that
one. So well now this is probably going
to come out I think this comes out after
Christmas. We'll find out. So everybody
will be able to like reminisce a little
bit but we're we're in a jolly jolly
mood which is a good start to so one of
the things that that you mentioned is
like uh is missiondriven organizations
and organizing missiondriven uh
organizations to me is um we talked in
the the pregame the pre-show a little
bit about u you just entrepreneurs and
startups in general I think it becomes
hard there is a mess to fix after you go
through the like you're going nuts,
you're in survival phase, you're just
getting stuff done and then you usually
you're really not defining and and
refining processes during that time.
Your process is just get the thing out
the door and so you have some mess to to
clean up. Um, but I'd also like to I
think that I found that a lot of of
missiondriven nonprofits have a very
similar situation. And it's it's a
little different because I think it's
more um there's a little bit of like
you're driven to the mission. So that's
what you're focused on. It's not really
the building a business behind that
becomes I think part of the problem or
part of the the challenge with that. And
then also that I think there's like
there tends to be some turnover and
things like that that you get as as as
the mission grows and the the
organizations involved. So, I think I'd
like to to start out with like if you're
in that situation, you got a company,
you're like, "Okay, that's you're you're
speaking my my language. I'm in a
situation where we've been we've been
doing business. We've been doing our
mission for a while and it's a mess.
Like, where would you where do I begin?
Where would you start with that?"
>> Yeah, that that's a that's a that's a
tough one and I agree with you. think
the the missiondriven groups, they end
up with a lot of the same challenges
that um a business or an entrepreneur
that's in startup mode. Uh everyone's
going a million miles an hour. Um you're
you know, you're just trying to survive
some days. And so the idea of like SOPs
and you know those kinds of things,
that's not really what you're focused
on. You're focused on on the survival
part of it. Uh, I think if you are a
group that has gone through one of those
sprint periods and, you know, chicken
with your head cut off and you're just
trying to make it and then you have a
second to take a deep breath and realize
you've created a giant mess. You know,
that's sort of the situation we're we're
talking about. Um, you know, one, you
have to kind of start in small
digestible bits, right? Like you're not
going to be able to wave a magic wand
and fix your entire business. You have
to kind of set it up as like there's
people and culture. Um there's you know
what what is the mission again you know
when we say mission I might be talking
nonprofit but you know we we're we run a
business as well so you're talking about
what's the P&L like what are our what
are our goals and things like that and
all of those ultimately like there's a
strategy and what you're trying to
achieve and accomplish and so what we
try and do with our groups whether we're
working corporate nonprofit or whatever
else is make sure leadership is bought
in on some core principles uh that
they're focused and they're not trying
to do too much um that where they have
folks that are championing their ideas
and getting buy in at all the levels so
that the staff understands that they're
being accountable and transparent with
the communication so that people aren't
just like am I just working to get to
make you more money or am I working an
80hour a week just for you know where is
this all going uh so that there is a
vision that's been articulated um and
the you know the last then you start
getting into the actual technology where
you say like please don't make it about
tools like it's not like oh well we can
fix it if we HubSpot or you know
whatever else it might be. It needs to
be like what what are the reasons we're
doing this? Like how are we better
serving our audience or or serving our
customers or whoever the members it
doesn't matter. Every group has got
somebody that they're serving. Like how
are we better accomplishing this? And
then back to you know sort of my my
original piece like one of our main
areas is people that work are there for
a reason. like whether it's to make
money or or it's to again serve a
particular mission like they want to
help a certain kind of people whatever
that might be they want to spend their
time doing that and on the things that
are skillful for them they don't want to
spend their times copying and pasting
from spreadsheets tracking down things
in emails logging into 75 tools during
the day and so you know part part I
think for for groups like ours is
helping folks figure out like it's not
about these you know having more tools
it's about finding ways to find
efficiencies to automate things to get
people and that's how they start
understanding the ROI both from a
leadership level saying like this
investment is good and this thought
process is good because we're going to
be saving people's time and making them
more productive. So from that corporate
standpoint that's what we're really we
would be looking at it in that area like
your efficiency you know this is dollars
that you would be wasting if people are
just like you know again in a
spreadsheet or doing some sort of manual
tasks that aren't helpful.
I think that's that's awesome because
that was actually like one of the
follow-up questions is
a lot of times I think I you talk to
people and they're like, "Oh, like you
know, SOPs and all that kind of stuff.
That sounds like big business thing.
That sounds like something that you
know, we're not there yet. We're you
know, we're a small business or we're
you know, we're we're a little uh you
know, we're we're a little city-based
organization or we're a little nonprofit
or something like that. We can't do
that." Um, but I think it is I think
that's like that's where you go is like
there is an ROI on those things and it
is not you're not just doing it just to
do it that there is there is an
investment on that and so how do you
like take it a step further like how do
you get that buy particularly
you can sell it to the executives or the
the people running the company as far as
like yeah this is like bottom line this
is what's going to happen uh but the
people that are actually have to
that you really have to I think normally
you have to go to to get the information
to like how do I build out an SOP well I
need to know how the you know the
frontline workers are working and
balancing that with them going like okay
are you going to automate me out of a
job or something especially in the world
of AI and stuff like that I think
there's just like regular fear of such
thing
>> well I mean I think the the first piece
that you mentioned is an important point
and I it resonates for me because we
went through it we were a small we were
a small business we were in startup mode
for many years, you know, and we created
a lot of technical debt for ourselves
and a lot of process debt where we were
just, oh well, techn is going this
direction and we were zigging and
zagging and zooming around, you know,
and uh you suddenly find yourself with
like how do I scale this operation? Like
if your or if your leadership is like,
well man, I you know, my family would
really like it if I I was actually at
home or not working at 10 p.m. was like
part of that is you've created this and
you know where everybody has to work
this way. You're singlethreaded through
things. You haven't created good
processes. You haven't found a way to to
onboard people. And so that really rings
true to me that it's important the group
shouldn't think, well that's, you know,
that's for Accenture and Google to do
those sorts of things. Like I don't care
if you're if you're a small mom and pop
or you're two or three person, you know,
kind of small group doing guerrilla
warfare. Like you still, you know, you
still need to have those things in place
if you ever want to escape the cycle
that uh that you're in. So I do think of
it in that area where it's important to
emphasize it doesn't matter the size. in
terms of the you know the second
question you asked I think that's really
one of the most important ones and
that's where it it is a piece where you
think of it sort of in story brand mode
of like who's the hero in the story
right like if you're leadership if
you're if you're the CEO you're seuite
and you're talking to somebody like it's
not about you you've got these workers
that are executing they're in the
tactical day-to-day they're you know
working their behinds off for you and so
but they want to understand again What's
the vision for this? Where is this
going? Like what's the medium longer
term plan? How do I fit into that? Like
if you I have so much stuff on my plate
and you're asking me to, you know, sort
of transform on the fly or change
concurrently. Like how am I supposed to
fit all of that in? And you know, how
what what what assurances are you giving
me that I'm not just going to be like
I'm not creating a process document so
you can fire me and hire someone cheaper
or not replace me. Um and that's where
that I mean again communication like the
vision, articulation, transparency,
accountability, all those things like
they sound buzzy but you bundle them up
like that is good leadership. Like that
is that is how you create a culture. And
like there may be some people that you
have to replace or that don't that don't
come back. But ultimately like those
people you know I like to say you win
with people. That's an old like Woody
Hayes quote is an old football coach.
You win with people meaning like if you
have a bad process you can fix it. If
you have a bad tool, you can replace it.
If you have bad people and they don't
believe in you, you're dead. You're DOA,
right? Like your your business is not
going anywhere. And so that's we really
spend a lot of time trying to work with
leadership to get that buy in because
otherwise they're, you know, they may be
thinking, well, I can add this tool and,
you know, that's sort of the end all be
all of it and maybe I'll save this money
and that's how I'm that's how I'm that's
my success metrics. your staff is not
going to buy into that.
That's your your initiative is not going
to succeed that way.
>> So, so I kind of got a twofold question
on this. Um, so
>> with that,
how would you approach
like new startups or people starting new
missions and getting things going to
essentially set themselves up for
success, not failure. But then flip that
around and and how would you go about h
uh helping those organizations or what
suggestions would you give to those
organizations that are already into this
mess didn't plan ahead of time? How
would they kind of walk their way back
to kind of maybe at the beginning or
somewhere?
How do you reverse engineer the I think
the first the first piece is is good
because I mean you mentioned that you
know road mapping and I think uh you
know strategic planning and things like
that there
>> I mean there's a part of this where take
a company that's in startup mode or take
a nonprofit like here's two two
scenarios that are very similar that are
likely to happen. uh you get a new
client as a startup and your processes
and what you're doing start revolving
around the money you're bringing in as
opposed to you know sticking to what
you're best at and creating a process
you know pushing your process on how you
do business. You let the client kind of
dictate how you're small organ because
when you're small it has such an
outsized undue influence on you know the
people that you're working with and the
same thing happens at nonprofits. Oh, we
got a grant from this foundation. And so
suddenly instead of your mission being
one thing, it's like, well, we've got to
fulfill the terms of this grant and
we've got to spend a lot of focus here.
So in both cases, whether corporate or
nonprofit, the business is is is
morphing based on external variables as
opposed to like staying a course where
you say like this is who we are. This is
how we're going to get there. There may
be some like rough choppy waters, but we
will need to develop processes and ways
of doing things that fit that. not
letting the external variables affect
what we're doing. um in terms of fixing
that once it happens. Uh yeah, I mean
it's I think that's why those you know
those exercises where you kind of take
that deep breath and say we can't wave
the wand at it but and we can't you know
you're always going to be stuck
especially from like a the entrepreneur
standpoint like you probably have
contracts that you have to fulfill and
you're trying to say like well how do I
keep the money coming in the door while
also you know concurrently making this
change that's that shifts our processes
and that's where it's going to have to
be you know you can't do it all at once.
You have to set up you have to set up a
timeline. You have to give people room
to fit this into their schedule. Like
you can't say, well, I expect you to do
the 80 hours plus implement this like
>> and that's we talk for our AI clients
that we're doing AI work. Well, like you
have to have room to experiment. You
have to have room to fail because this
all isn't going to go perfectly. Um but
you know with with these transformations
or with places where we're implementing
new processes or workflows we're trying
to do them in digestible bits where you
can then get on the ground feedback like
is this working you know are you saving
time and that it answer it goes back to
the original question where people start
to see the the fruits of it like oh this
is great I I I'm not you know
re-entering this from one place to
another suddenly getting that 30 minutes
back in the day allows me to do
something something else. And so, yeah,
I think it's it's it's never easy once
you've already created some of the mess.
But, I mean, that's all of us, right?
Like, we've we've all in one in one form
or another, we've got some things that
um we would like to clean up. And so,
>> yeah, it's it's interesting. Uh
especially when you were talking about
the grants and effort, like the the
startups and new businesses. So often,
and I've noticed this too, you know,
you're working, you find someone comes
to you uh as a customer and it may not
quite fit, but you can help solve their
problem. And you know, being a startup,
you need money. So typically, you don't
say no a lot and you could end up in
situations where you are off mission,
you're serving multiple masters, and you
just kind of lose focus on where you're
going, and it just becomes a disaster.
Uh the second part I I thought was
interesting. So
rolling things back, pulling it back,
working through the problems. It's
interesting there
especially with the AI component. How
would you
um
how would you talk to like the business
owners in encouraging as their leaders
working with their people to encourage
them for the fast to fail. So I've
worked with a lot of different groups
and there's a huge shift in different
markets. Shift left, shift right, fast
to fail, more time building the
processes.
there is a balance and it's good to get
you know fast to fail but how would you
define that for organizations so that
they're not essentially rushing
their people to fail too fast like not
thinking through the problem but still
encouraging them enough that it's okay
to try things out without consequences.
>> Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's that's some of
the big challenge where we're, you know,
we're talking to folks and we're like,
okay, you want to have some sort of
digital transformation. Again, whether
you could be corporate, nonprofit,
higher ed, doesn't really matter. And
like you want to utilize technology as a
force multiplier to create this highly
efficient set of processes that empower
your staff to, you know, or your your
employees to effectively do their jobs.
And so um yeah we we we try and we we
try and take the idea of failure less as
about like we don't we don't want to do
fail fast failing but we want u you know
sort of an ongoing an you know
assessment audit uh design and implement
something automate it and then just be
doing analysis you know sort of constant
feedback and uh explaining you know hey
this is what's on the ground you know
kind of what's working what what isn't.
Um, and so we're not looking for the
people to like rush into failure uh
because it just it rarely ever has
long-term benefits. The metrics we use
for evaluating success of projects like
that, it never seems to go go well.
We're looking more for a measured
approach, but a constant approach. You
know, it's not it's not 10 years ago uh
digital strategy where like you create
the road map like you've implemented and
then you're re-evaluating it in, you
know, 18 to 24 months or something. this
is as soon as it's as soon as the ink is
dry, you're really kind of thinking
about like the next phase of it. And so
we take that approach with these the
micro parts of it too where it's like
okay well hey if you're trying to you
know create an agentic chatbot to
provide support for so and so like it's
it's not something that we want to like
rush into production and then say it's
successful or failure in you know short
period of time. we want to be constantly
uh you know refining it or determining
whether or not it it's it's serving the
mission that we need it to.
Are you seeing then, you know, like I
guess continuing down this this path a
little bit, are you seeing that um is
that what you're seeing sort of across
the the board with businesses is that
they are starting to embrace this
instead of this like you know 12 18
month and even I guess even five or five
five or six years ago it was still six
to 12 month cycles of like you go
through it you build it then you assess
it versus um what I'm seeing and I'm
wondering if this is you know you're
seeing this as well where it's like it's
starting to become almost very quick
like you know days and weeks at most to
be able to put something together so
that now things that that in the past
maybe took a little bit longer like you
know AB testing has always been existed
to some level uh but now it's actually
it feels like it's it's it's ABCD A
through Z almost because you can so
quickly iterate on these things get some
feedback and then like you said I think
it's like instead of fast fail it's more
like a fast assess.
>> Yeah, I think that's right. I think the
modernization is essentially a
continuous process now and that um good
companies are balancing their agility
and innovation or disruption depending
on how you look at it uh with some with
the steadiness of the over you know
that's where you have to combine or
thread together the like here's our
steady leadership and our vision and
mission and this is what we're going to
stick to with this hyperness of the the
technological ical change.
>> Yeah, I think that's like that's the god
that's the danger is now that it's like
you can't you you have the ability and
this is this is the entrepreneur or the
yeah the visionary entrepreneur dilemma
is that I like I I have all these ideas
and all these great places and all these
things I can do. I actually just got off
a call before this with somebody that
has is so much that is the visionary
where you can sit down and talk to them
about a product and the next thing you
know you've developed and you know
theoretically developed a dozen
different products and now that you can
you know with the like vibe coding and
no code and some of these other things
are out there they're sort of they're
promising that that to to some level.
So, how do you and and how do you when
working with like founders and that like
how do you rein them in a little bit to
like to to bring them into that that
original why you know vision and
mission?
>> Uh not easily. Um that is that
uh it's it's it is one of the reasons
why you know when we when I talk about
we we work across many verticals um
leadership at higher ed or missiondriven
nonprofits and associations they tend to
be a little bit more um conservative or
reserved and you know so they're we work
more with them from the leadership
standpoint of the communication and
helping to understand on the corporate
and entrepreneurial side. Yeah. It's
it's exactly what you said. There is
this danger now where it's like it used
to be well the executives they've got a
million ideas and like they're going to
throw them at the staff. Now like
there's actually a reasonable way for
them to start having those things
appear. And so you really have to you
know start getting I think you know
again it's a road map. It's a it's a P&L
with a plan and a and a vision where you
start saying like you can do this but
like this is the wild wild west and
unknown in some places. And like if you
drift too far out like you you you know
you could lose a great deal of what
you're doing. And so we we try and work
on those benchmarks and again the the
idea of these small digestible things
where there's constant evaluation to
ensure that people don't go so far off
track or splinter into like oh well hey
we had one product and suddenly there's
four. Um because that I mean that you
can do that. you can easily say like,
well, I've got this this is now well,
we're going to do this in this niche.
And you've
>> you start to tie that to the rest of
this conversation where like the staff
is like, well, no, wait, are we doing
this or are we doing this? Or wait, you
want me to do all of these things at
once? And like they start to lose, you
know, they start to lose faith in what's
going on. And so, um, it all you can do
from a leadership standpoint with those
sea level folks that have the brain
going a million miles an hour is is try
and keep it steady. So,
and that is where we're going to pause
episode one, part one, uh, die hard one
of this interview. Uh, this has been a
great one. This has been a fun one. We
we had a really good time diving into
very non-technical stuff beforehand. So,
uh, that's awesome. But come on back for
part two because it really does continue
to have a a really good discussion.
There's a lot of valuable stuff here. um
not a ton of specifics necessarily as
much as I think these are the things
that you should be thinking of uh
particularly as when you're getting into
the end of the year and the beginning of
a new year uh as as you we're getting
into now when this is is coming out is
like how do I move forward this year?
It's you know hopefully you've got a
plan at this point and these are some of
the things that you want to knock down.
These are some of the things you want to
accomplish, but uh maybe there's some
things that in this interview, you know,
come to light that you're like, "Oh, I
should probably think about that as
well." So, uh do so and then come back
for the next episode as well because
there's probably going to be more. Till
then, go out there and have yourself a
great day, a great week, and we will
talk to you next time.