 So I've seen this headline on ink and it says Elon Musk's management device is so brilliant that I threw away 37 business books But I'm going to title this video never do anything that would make a great Dilbert cartoon So me and Brett have all spent some time in the corporate world and we can tell you that Dilbert is spot-on way too many times and So we figured we'd discuss this and I'm going to talk about I mean that's a great clickbait headline Maybe for both of us and don't make a Dilbert cartoon. We're actually going to run through the list of some of Elon's Advice, but why are we even doing this at all? And this is a business talk if you didn't guess already This is not a tech review, but it's hugely important if you run a business that you set the tone for the culture This is it, you know, I can't express really how important culture and Methodologies play in business and will impact your success too many people get hung up on what technology I should use what Should I deploy in my network and all that fun stuff that concerns it companies? But the reality of it the culture that gets set is what leads to you like famous companies like Equifax They had such a culture of not getting along That they had over a hundred people on a mailing list to say to fix something and no one did it because there Was so much in fighting if you really dig into the story It's not about technology and you can point your finger at a technology failure But there's a culture failure that allow the technology to fail and that's more related than people want to believe So let's start running down this list here. I we were I was looking at this list before we started and it's it I got I got caught on the Dilbert That that that stopped me so go ahead. Yeah That stopped me So as you start with the first one it says no large meetings unless they're a value to the entire audience keep them short die No, no large meetings You know, it's you know, it's funny is as I used to work for somebody that that talked about, you know I don't want to have meetings to have meetings, right? But it never worked out that way because we always had a Friday sales meeting a Friday recruiting meeting Monday house things going meeting and and a meeting on Tuesday and I and it almost became to a point where you get nothing done Because you're doing meetings. Yeah, and I felt this way, you know when it when I have my corporate job very much So we had a meeting about a meeting to have another meeting and you know, anyone who spent time in corporate is Made jokes like that. My wife had a corporate job for a little while and they used to say I do like the phrasing they use that the corporate companies you work for We cordially you're cordially obligated not cordially invited you're cordially obligated to attend these meetings They they called them. Well Internally they called them the rah-rah meetings, right because they were all a bunch of get everybody hyped up And that's what number one's about is the rah-rah the large meeting to rah-rah people, right? I mean, that's what it seems like to me And I'll segue a little bit to this if you haven't seen this before and I'll leave it this is the oatmeal and We have this posted in our office because I want people to really remind of this. This is called multiplicative idiocy and the Troudification of an idea and basically the concept is and I have witnessed this firsthand in too many instances If you have two half wits in the meeting, you don't get a full wits. You get a quarter wits It's multiplicative idiocy And if you want to watch an idea go to die watch a lot of people with bad ideas Sit in a room sit in a room and make the idea worse, you know, and it's It's really just a funny thing because it the way it works out is I have an idea and someone goes I can make that idea worse and then the third person goes hold on. I can do it even worse. Yes, QR codes I mean, but this is really important on this it just dumps things down and you don't want too many people in these meetings this is a huge huge problem that you face what you realize you're not so you do you need an all-hands meeting and Again, you know segues into the two don't have frequent meetings unless they matter truly urgent It's kind of the same thing one and two just keep them short Don't have them through if they're urgent if you are not adding value to a meeting walk out and drop off the call Now I've done that as a contractor Oh, it's become easier as a contractor when I'm being paid for my time as a consultant So to speak because when you're doing that I can say hey, I'm not adding any value But I'm gonna bill you for my time they go they think about the value But unfortunately a lot of companies don't and they just want these all-hands meetings all the time Where they want everyone on the call and really if you're sitting in a call in silence You're not gaining anything from it because it you know, they're running through every department We just went through this with a big job. We did they had they called their all-hands Tuesday meeting on this big project I was driven nuts because of the requirement to be there But I'm like you guys realize how inefficient this is and I'm vocal about that even though I'm paid for the job This is it's don't it doesn't hurt to just say I'm gonna leave because I'm not adding value And I'm not gaining value that's as simple as sentences I say and then I drop off the call unless someone has a rebuttal of why I'm adding or they can prove why I'm adding or gaining value to that Well me having having a meeting and being being up the worst thing to have to be is in a meeting Where you're not gonna say a thing, right? You think about Your billable time right you think about the things you do when you do a job you're you're you're billing out for these aspects and sometimes Those meetings it's it's wasting the client's money If anything else because you're being you're billing out for whatever your hourly right whatever my hourly rate is and and and I have dropped off meetings and stop my hourly time because it's it's important for my client to understand that I value That relationship and I if I'm not gonna be able to input or have any input in that meeting It's not gonna be important for me to be there I love this list and that that one resonated with me because when you when I've been in and you've been in meetings where We're sitting there and he for an hour and a half and you don't say a word What were you there for? Well, and I'll note to a time when I was on I've belonged to some boards some charity boards and things like that that I've just paid in and I've Witnessed and this has been very helpful in my career is watching good leadership on a meeting See you as a leader of a meeting. You're the one that called it in picture Let me set the scene a little bit you have a meeting you have a lot of people who volunteer other time There are CEOs of other companies. They are That I guess the word is a tight personality and one of the persons there who I don't know why he said this but it was to discuss a problem that was occurring on with a fundraiser and It's like the first thing this guy said his name is Brian and Brian says I know what the problem is Well, I'm not saying anything in a person running meeting. He says no problem Brian Can you step outside and Brian's like what but I'm part of this no You're not you just said you don't have anything say itself But he goes he took them right out and he goes that's great leadership Yeah, and he said in the guy running meeting I said is there anyone else who has no helpful things you can just leave now So the both of us that want to solve this problem not blame and make sarcastic comments can move in Brian's kind of wandering out the door and you have someone who's in charge of a lot of things It is a day job who's not used to having someone telling you what to do but Robert's rules of order in that meeting and the person running meetings moved them out But you set that tone and you it's one of the things you have to decide It's a sign of good leadership when you set the tone for the rest of the meeting But this is you know invaluable that you do that It's not that you're being a ass as I've seen people said it But sometimes you kind of have to be that perception may be on there That's certainly a perception that Brian had who has asked leave the meeting with the rest of us felt respect We didn't think he was being asked We're like wow great now all of us that really care about solving the problem and not you know making those I know what the problem is but I'm not saying you know because we were we actually knew we knew someone made some mistakes They spent some money. They shouldn't have we knew the problem There was an elephant in the room so to speak But we were there to address and solve it the money was spent we can't get it back How are we gonna fill this gap and solve this problem at this fundraiser, you know these are the type of things that it was a meeting that needed to be solved and Having only people who are effective and wanted to work towards the goal and that you know Blame another person huge. Well, what what what do you have a meeting? What's what's the purpose of meeting Tom? Yeah, well to hopefully solve a problem have a strong solid agenda Skip the platitudes really jump right into it matter of fact this person is running a meeting That's one things he does all the time skip the platitudes jumps right into the meeting. He's there and he also gave you a great piece of advice It known Ray a long time and right What did he say he says the meeting the meetings of formality all the problems are already solved He always winked at me like that. He's like the meetings of formality So he's already got he's already talked to all of us. We're already there. So the meetings anytime I'm when he was running it I loved it because it was always short meetings already saw all the problems are solved the meetings of formality to make sure it Was on the same page exactly you've already collaborated earlier and it's it's done. There's at least a good strong idea This is just to solidify that everyone's on the same page and it did I think the meeting was like 20 minutes All the problem everything went well exactly what you want. Let's jump to the next one here Okay, now this is very relevant to my industry Elon Musk industry here Don't use acronyms and nonsense words for object software processes avoid any terms that require explanation because they inhibit communications That is huge huge. Yeah filling the word filling the world with acronyms I mean there may be something very relevant, but absolutely if if you have to say it's XYZ But then explain and expand what is XYZ? Yeah, what is this? You've now only added more syllable Who's been in a meeting before and had an acronym and didn't know what that acronym was You've been at this company for a long period of time and they someone rattles off an acronym And you don't want to be the dumb one in the room and and say excuse me Can you explain what that is and you stand there and think for the next five minutes? What is this acronym until they get to the end of it and then you realize what it is and during that time? You weren't even thinking of the problem. You were thinking of the acronym. Yeah happens. It happens And no one wants to admit they don't know what they're talking about. What do you mean? You know the XYZ thing we all look around no one wants to be that guy that says, oh, I don't know what that means Well, actually It's good if you are but it's a general reaction is not to Not to let people know that you don't know right well You know you're getting usually you're getting paid a lot of money to be in this company or whatever in that meeting and You don't want to be that person of why are we paying this guy anyways? He doesn't even know what this is right But in reality is you may be the problem if you're the one bringing up everything as an acronym that you aren't absolutely confident They understand it and this is you know when I worked in corporate I mean I worked at head of IT But I had to pitch to the board to the management teams why they needed to spend money on a firewall Security or any of those things This is if I just threw a bunch of acronyms out there That doesn't help the meeting at all It's about showing the value that these things created sales pitch, but just you don't want to just try to talk over your head It doesn't really make you seem smarter It is a default way a lot of people want to do things or maybe it's because in your environment before you brought it to This meeting that is all the acronyms you use But you have to make sure you're in and evaluate your audience and make sure they all understand because everyone on the same Page saves time once again helps keep the meeting Shorter well, they brought you in to have that you were brought in Whoever you are you're brought into that meeting to explain something to people that don't know what you do So if you talk over their heads if you use acronyms, you're still Explaining something to people that don't know what you do and they have no understanding of what you're still talking about So I think it's important to not and I don't want to say dumb it down because they're they're we're all smart No, in respect. There's a lot of things Tom says and I've been in the three months. I spent with Tom In learning what he what Tom does I learned a lot, but there were days things went over my head and I'm smart in some ways Tom's smart nurse. He's the smartest man. I know and you need to know more people But it seems that if you're running a meeting Especially if you're running the meeting and having to present the information It's important to know your audience think about who that audience is Do they understand that acronym? Do they understand what a firewall is? Are you going to have to have some things that you have to maybe send out before a meeting? So hey, this is the dictionary of terms. I'm going to be using I mean, it might be important to think and have forward thinking when you're going to lead a meeting To people who don't know what you're going to be talking about. Yeah, and this is all this effective stuff Now there's a couple of you know, they're a little weird. Oh, okay. Yeah, we'll read we'll run through this other part of the list here And is Communicate directly with individuals rather than through chain of command any manager enforcing chain of command rules Communication will be fired and I think that's kind of an interesting of okay We do have org charts, but I think there's something to be said for there's times You got to bypass it and I've run into this before because of where I'm supposed to address problems and that person was not addressing it and that person was very angry when I went around them and There's times you have to this is just the nature of it We we're given rules and guidelines as staff or employees when you work somewhere in decision IT But there are times when you have that direct chain of command and they're just not listening to you But be careful if you're brand new there it may not be the best thing to do Or maybe it will but this is a careful territory where you tread because your inexperience may not Bode well for you. You may think you need to go over that person's head But they actually do have a better understanding of it and hopefully they convey that to you. So this is a tricky one It's hard. That's it's not an easy one to have you may instantly assume you know more But maybe you don't that's that's a back and forth That's a real it can be the last time you work at a place because I've seen people lose their jobs over They went around their manager to you know complain about a problem that wasn't being resolved But it turned out the manager had also expressed that and they're like you just broke chain of command But it sounds like in Elon at least values people who think that and I think overall my success has been by going around And of course being right Well, it's not breaking the chain of command if you do it respectfully, right? I I've had instances where I've had to go where I Let's say I couldn't get in touch with my my manager. I was working with at the time and there was something that was time-sensitive Where I was working they believed in a flat leadership or supposed Flat leadership that you know everyone had access to everybody open-door policies beware of open-door policies I'm just gonna be be be frank with that because that can't bite you because what you say can and will be used against you In a corporate world. Yes So when you if you do it respectfully if you go and say, hey I've talked with my my my manager or my supervisor and we had discussed this But I wanted to come to you because I think we need to get this moving My manager has done some really good things to make you know You never want to talk bad above you to the person between you does that make sense? Yeah No, and that's a good rule is don't start out with my boss is an idiot while you're talking to their boss If you start with deprecating them you start with saying they don't know what they're doing You always come across like kind of there There's a perception that's gonna be placed upon you by the person you're talking to like well you first thing You says they're an idiot. I hired them. So am I an idiot for hiring them? You may get some of that you may get them agree with you if they're really screwing up And they're doing something that would make a great Dilbert cartoon, but yeah But either way you have I always start with talking very respectfully I knew the person when I've done this before when I worked at places or even we've he had a very similar incident from my business standpoint The owner hired a guy who we was supposed to be like the office manager There's no other way to say it the guy was not smart and Caused a lot of chaos and we had to very carefully talk to the owner and going this new guy He's making a lot of tech decisions for your company that are really bad So we in it did turn out though because it turned out when we did talk to the CEO of the company He who was kind of an absence CEO for a while, which is why I hired this person He wanted to work on another venture He was having a lot of problems internally unrelated to technology goes. Yeah, I think I'm gonna fire him like oh, okay Cool, we're all in the same page. Yeah, we think you should fire him We just didn't want to come out and start it is that but his decisions are horrible And it turned out he had a lot of other management decisions completely not tech related They were also in equally horrible and was causing him to lose untold monies Oh, it's funny how some people get into a position because they were good at something below them And so let's let them manage that process and then they can't yeah turns out he was not cut out for leadership Yeah, and that happens and you know and and I think people above you and I guess we're getting off the chain We're on what we're starting to change. Yeah people people above you if you're respectful and come to them and saying hey This is what I'm seeing This might it might be a big but it'll bode better for you in the long run Because if you're looking to climb that chain of command as well and be inclined that corporate ladder It's not gonna be in your best interest to start talking bad about people in between you and there But you know the boss and boss and boss and going up that road You want to be respectful because then they're gonna look back and say well if he's we he's gonna be that guy We want to lead our change or whatever it right? Now a couple of next things. I'll blend together as well Don't follow any company rule that doesn't make common sense and ideas that increase productivity or happiness are always welcome Now those actually resonate very well with me because I've had Staff over my years in business argue with me about a policy or a methodology that I used to do something But I'm always like if there's a way you think it's better more efficient Let me know I hear I heard you say that many times in the three months. I was here. Oh, yeah If you have a better idea, please I'm not I'm not the smartest guy in a room I tell you say all the time I If there's a better way to do this if there's a process you think is better because a lot of what I do is You know as an owner of a business you set up processes for people to follow you set up procedures for them I welcome them to those that do the procedure are often best set to improve upon it Provided they're willing to think in an innovative manner now I've had arguments from previous staff that no longer work here of just skipping things like documenting some of the process Why do I have to document this and I'm like because you may not be the next person doing it? You know, those are some of the dumb arguments But I've had other people that have brought efficiencies to the process I gave a lot of stuff Steve handles a lot of the I've let Steve write a lot of the processes for things The onboarding process for MSP stuff that we do has been dramatically reduced and made easier by Kyle because he writes law scripts for things. So there's always like efficiencies brought some I'm like awesome It can makes two things happen one. We're all happier because it gets done faster and just rewrite the process It's a really simple. We do a lot of our stuff in Google Docs They edit the doc and the doc is now shorter, but still gets the job done. Awesome. Everybody wins everything fish and seas Efficiencies it's funny. So I do for people out there that are leading people and you're wanting to build a process for something How about let the person that's doing it build the process because I bet you you will be you'll be much In a much better position moving forward letting the person that's actually doing it every day Do it instead of somebody up here doing it. Yeah, so and it's a thing So one I'm good at it because I'm a geek with my hands on a keyboard a lot So I do know the process and but letting them improve it I've always welcomed that as long as it brings more efficiencies as long as it doesn't break any of the process So things are still getting done. So that's all those things I'm not hard-nosed about it and as I've always disliked as I found it very childish people the we've always done it This way, that's why we do it this way. Well, that's not ever an answer You should have there should be a reason for each step in the program If there's not a reason for that step Why are we doing it and because we should is frequently what I got when I worked at places like why are we adding this right here? We don't even use this anymore and I never got good answers at some of the places I worked and I was like This is aggravating and you know once again, it's something that will just end up in a Dilbert cartoon Yes Well one thing you've done Tom though is and that I've seen and as long as I've known you is that you're Active in what you're doing. You don't you don't just you're not just you're you're onboarding people in the msp space You're doing some people come in. I've seen it. You're actually fixing the computer You're doing some of the wiring and cable You're doing you can do every aspect and you're not an absentee owner. No, you're there I mean, yeah, you're doing these videos But that's part of why you're you have the credibility because you're able to do Everything within your business. Well in in this is something I read Elon Musk spoke to and I've really admired his management style for this Yes, so even musk will be there He takes the time to read the specs on there. Let's say to talk about SpaceX He understands the specs and the details of the motors and the rocket engines are building which is Incredibly Challenging that's a lot of knowledge to have right there. So he can have an intelligent meeting now Where do you provide value as a leader? So I have a lot of knowledge. Yes I know how and I've admittedly bad at it putting cable ends on and things like that But I understand the infrastructure where I don't provide value is me punching down a hundred cables As long as I know how they're punched down I know where they need to go where the process is is having one of my staff punch down the next hundred cables or the MSP process Yeah, sure. I know how to run a check. I know how to Do things in our dashboard But doing it to the scale of how many computers we have in there. Well, that's where you hire staff I understand structure. I've hands-on done. Let's face it. Kyle's gonna do it faster than you anyways Oh, that's yeah, because they do it because they do it repeatedly They do it faster Watching me kind of sometimes because I'm not as familiar with the menu Especially because they just launched a new thing that I have to check out. Yeah, my Mcstaff was all excited about it yesterday I didn't look at it, but it's a new back-end management system for managing computers But once again, I understand it. I've read through the I do a lot of reading So I've read through all the new features that are on here I'm going to do some testing with it so I have a good clear understanding it And then I'm gonna talk to him about what processes are gonna change not they have these features that add more value Right, you know, so I can have an intelligent conversation whether I am going to do some testing but Being that involvement allows the process In having understanding of it. It's just what works for me. Absolutely. Oh, what do we got left on this list? And when we get left in here, I don't think this is relevant to small business But it is interesting the way it's worded contractors who can't find an employee to vouch them will be fired I think this is a problem when you scale up a big company of you and you have a lot of contractors It's making sure each contractor has an employee that understands what they're doing because when you work in a larger corporate environment the You end up having a budget and you're like, okay I need this thing done, but I don't need a staff member because it's a temporary I need a three for next three months. I need to write this code I need a contractor who's really good at this section of code rating for example So you bring in a contractor on here, but you as an employee sometimes what happens is I'm busy doing my own things And I don't know what the program is doing now Well, you have to vouch for what they're doing often. I think that's what he's referring to there And I managed some programming teams and when I worked in corporate bringing contractors didn't you for that? Oh, yeah Yeah I brought a lot of contractors so I managed and that's that's still how I manage my business So the scale and scope of my business and we had fun. We had a fun business conversation We're on that call. Yes, because the person was talking about well, how do you scale? You only have this many employees or how do you get these big projects done? I'm like contractors Oh, I have a lot of relationships with other IT companies and contractors We farm out work all the time right because man managing day-to-day really easy when you have computers scale What about when I have to swap out 40 50 computers at a time at one of my clients managing 40 50 computers once they're installed managing updates to a Dashboard click click click. That's easy. That doesn't take but a couple people When someone goes can you deploy all of these why bring in contractors? That's how I get how did you run? you know 100,000 square foot warehouse with three IDF rooms you didn't do it with just Corey right? No We brought an entire team in an entire denim was of nine people. We brought nine extra contractors to make that happen That's a big part But they can run away because you can assume they're doing their job and maybe they are maybe they're not You kind of have to vouch for my that's a validation portion of that where you got to go the validating vouch for what they're doing You got to know it you were on that site a lot Yeah, and I was on that site visiting a lot because we're problems and not related to us But related changes change request orders that were coming through really fast But this is that validating the contractors. I didn't just leave them to their own devices The other thing too is there's contractors and there's subcontractors of those contractors So there was there's a couple tiers down of different things that can happen So you have to make sure you know that everything's being done effectively So it still requires some management because they're not like employees. So they do things their own style They may not be aligned with the culture or rules because they're contractors So you just have to make sure they're clear all the time it needs to be done That's kind of probably what I'm assuming they mean by vouching for them Well, and let's face it if you're hiring contractors within a corporation and you're you're the lead for that It's gonna vote on you who you are and what you are. So yeah, you have to be able to vouch for them Very important. Yeah, and number 11's is a thing we said first never do anything to make a great Dilbert cartoon And that's just a good rule to start with is think about, you know How this plays out state take a step back. Is this a good meeting to have and like we said at the very beginning So that's uh, yeah, I like you remember the office, right? Yeah, if it could be a scene in the office Oh, yeah, don't do it. Don't do it. It's actually, you know, that's fun. And if you haven't watched office space That's such a classic red stapler. Yeah, well, and it's funny because What's his name that wrote the office space? Right now Mike judge and he worked in corporate reading his background Of course, if you haven't seen Silicon Valley same thing He got that because he's worked and lived in Silicon Valley and those jokes are so based in reality It's just like the Dilbert cartoon It's not it's not that someone had to spend a lot of time creatively thinking about it They just had spent some time in corporate America and watch watch the dumb things happen, right? And But the problem is people scripts and movies and cartoons get written because of reality Yeah, there's a lot of reality that this is all based on matter of fact If you don't know if you're a fan like I am of Silicon Valley The HBO show a lot of it if you look at who some of the writers are some of them have worked in I think some of the Venture Capital World things like that. They're they're not writers. They're going oh, we just want to write about what happened Really happened is what they're doing. Yeah, if you watch some of these documentaries about some of these Silicon Valley startups They're ridiculous You can't believe some of the stupid that happened like who gave these people I sometimes face palm when I read this Because there's I think someone called it kick farted or something like that So it's Kickstarter. So I how can you give these people this much money to do dumb things, right? You know, there's all kinds of stories like that and just like someone got excited and gave a bunch of funding to it Made there's just there's no product there like how did you know, and of course I watched the Theranos documentary If you haven't watched that I have not you really should it's called Theranos out for blood and it is Deep and dark because you can't believe so much funding was given to someone who didn't even have a viable product at all That was not base any type of reality. You're just like what and we think what could we do with that phone? What we could have done with that funding ourselves. I mean, yeah, think what you could have done Yeah, they were given so much money and so many lies were told and But how will people kept believing them? I mean it is more of a story of fraud it's it's basically a VC version venture capital and tech version of the fire So but it's one of those things like you know think about all that stuff that comes to reality So we'll go babbling on about this and I'll leave links to some of the other business talks We do let me know what else you want to hear because I've had some requests from our business talks And Brett happened to be in the area today, so we recorded this one But I'll leave your thoughts below or continue discussion and forums on this You know maybe even share some of your Dilbert moments that you've had if you work in corporate I know at least quite a handful of you do that watch these so hopefully this is helpful Maybe it'll get you out of a meeting or two gracefully and tastefully out of a meeting Gracefully respectfully if you I'll leave a link to Chittum Consulting I've read does business consulting and maybe and help you have more effective meetings I'll leave links to his website and of course There's always think to my website and all the fun things that you can hire us for related technology This is the man right here. We our focus is more on the technology He focuses on some of the business coaching. All right, thanks. Have a good one Thanks for watching if you liked this video give it a thumbs up if you want to subscribe to this channel to see more Content hit that subscribe button and the bell icon and maybe YouTube will send you a notice when we post If you want to hire us for a project that you seen or discussed in this video head over to Lawrence systems calm Where we offer both business IT services and consulting services and are excited to help you with whatever project you want to throw at us Also, if you want to carry on the discussion further head over to forums at Lawrence systems calm Where we can keep the conversation going and if you want to help the channel out in other ways We offer affiliate links below which offer discounts for you and a small cut for us That does help fund this channel and once again, thanks again for watching this video and see you next time