January 24, 2025 • 28 mins
They call it Infobesity. Too much information. Too much noise. Too much discussion. Too many emails. Too many direct messages. Too many meetings. Not enough execution and getting things done!
It's the biggest problem facing leaders today. Is it driving you insane? What are you going to do about it?
In this episode Lone Rock Leadership co-founder Russ Hill goes off on the issue. We explore how leaders can effectively prioritize what truly matters in their organizations amidst information overload, emphasizing the need for streamlined communication and operational efficiency. The discussion focuses on key strategies like reducing noise, setting key results, and employing first principles for successful leadership.
• Examining the challenges of focus and productivity in large organizations
• Understanding the implications of infobesity and data smog
• Exploring how AI and technology can enhance efficiency
• Strategies for reducing excessive meetings and emails
• The importance of identifying and consistently discussing key results
• Harnessing first principles for effective decision-making
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
How do you help your organization or your team focus
and prioritize on the thingsthat matter most?
Why are so many people wastingso much time?
What are we going to do aboutit?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
You cannot be serious,strengthen your ability to lead
in less than 30 minutes.
You're listening to Lead in 30.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
One of the things that was most stunning to me
when I first started working inthe consulting, the executive
consulting space.
So I had never worked at aFortune 50 company, I'd never
been inside of an organization,a company that had, you know, a
hundred thousand employees,200,000 employees, a million
(00:51):
employees.
There aren't a ton of companiesthat big, but I had never even
been around one that big.
And now here I am, because ofgoing to work for a consulting
firm decade, you know, more thana decade ago.
I'm now walking into theseexecutive offices of these
enormous organizations with justtens of thousands of employees.
(01:16):
And one of the things thatstruck me immediately and it
doesn't matter the industry,right, there are restaurant
chains with tens of thousandemployees or retail outlets,
there are manufacturingcompanies, there are hospital
systems, there are, I mean, thelist goes on and on and on,
right.
So it's industry agnostic.
But one of the things thatstrikes you when that happens or
(01:38):
at least it struck me is Ithought, wow, I've worked at a
company with over a thousandemployees, but, and I've worked
for smaller organizations with ahundred, and I, but I'm.
So when you walk into thesegigantic companies, one of the
things that struck me was howlittle got done, the amount of
(02:03):
waste, the amount of meetings,the amount of discussions that
had to take place.
It was stunning to me.
I thought, oh my gosh, youthink that companies with this
many people could move so fast?
And what you realize is, no,they're actually the Titanic,
(02:29):
they're actually the slowestmoving barges in the ocean.
That's the visual for theselarge companies.
And then you start to you startto realize why the disruptors,
these startups, are sodisruptive, because they're
scrappy and they're nimble andthey move.
(02:50):
Why is that?
And how do we in on our teamsor in the organizations that we
lead?
How do we solve for that?
How do we help our organizationbe more like that?
And I want to share with yousome of the research, the
thinking, the, the studying I'vebeen doing on the amount of
(03:10):
well, there are just some termsthat are just falling in love
with and some data that is isrelevant to all of this because,
by the way, this is only goingto get worse.
It's and you've got to be able,we've got to be able to lead in
an environment like this, andthe most effective leaders, the
leaders with the greatest marketvalue, are those that are able
(03:34):
to themselves, focus andprioritize on the things that
matter and then get others to doit as well.
So how do you do that?
I'm glad you asked.
Let's talk about it in thisepisode.
Welcome into the Lead in 30podcast In less than 30 minutes.
In each episode, we give you aframework, a model, an example,
something that we've beenstudying, thinking about,
researching experiences we'vehad that hopefully, will cause
(03:58):
you to think about how you couldmore effectively lead the group
that you have stewardship over.
If you are obsessed with growth, with learning, with expanding
your impact, improving theorganization results being
successful, then you're in theright place.
My name is Russ Hill.
I make my living coaching,consulting senior executive
(04:19):
teams at some of the world'sbiggest companies.
Lone Rock Leadership is thename of our organization.
I'm one of the co-founders ofit.
Got an incredible team.
You can find out more atlonerockio.
Okay, so let me give you, let mejust throw a bunch of different
terms and things at you andthen we'll get to the takeaways.
(04:39):
Is this on your mind Like?
Is this something that you'rethinking about?
Does it bother you?
Do you think about it as itpertains to you?
And what I'm talking about isfocusing and prioritizing on the
things that matter, like movingthe needle on the results that
matter, driving revenue in asignificant way, driving margin,
(05:06):
improving the customerexperience, expanding market
share, innovating faster thanthe competition, increasing
speed to market expanding all ofthat Does that weigh on your
mind?
Do you think about it?
Or am I the only one that wakesup in the middle of the night
dreaming about this, thinkingabout it, obsessed with it?
(05:29):
And yeah, I'm influencedtotally.
By working in a leadership labfor a living, I'm constantly on
Zoom meetings in the room withexecutives of organizations that
are driven.
They want to be successful.
Why else would they be payingour firm, or any firm or anybody
(05:51):
, to help them think aboutthings they're not thinking
about, make observations onthings that they're missing,
help their team be moreeffective, accelerate
performance inside theirorganization.
They're obsessed with it, andwhy?
Well, because these are highgrowth individuals.
These are people that want toimprove, that aren't yet the
best version of themselves, thatsee capacity that is yet
(06:14):
untapped, that want to beeffective in leading
organizations and coming up withnew solutions or services.
They love the game, they lovethe market, they love solving
the puzzle that is the world ofbusiness.
Right, and I love being aroundthem, I love giving them ideas,
(06:34):
I love learning from them, Ilove being stretched by them,
and so let me give you, let megive you some things that I've
been thinking about and digginginto.
There's a book that came out.
I haven't read it, I haven'tread it in detail, I have
skimmed it.
And, by the way, ai like I know, I've been talking about AI a
(06:55):
lot I just am absolutelyconvinced that the world we're
going to live in in two years,four years, five years from now,
is going to look radicallydifferent.
Do you feel that?
Do you feel the seismic shiftsthat are happening in society,
in government, in business, intechnology, in hardware?
(07:19):
There has never been a moreexciting time to be alive.
The ground is shifting rightnow in significant ways.
It's never been more pronounced, more significant than it is
now.
That's so exciting.
(07:39):
For some people it'sdemoralizing, or they're like in
the fetal position in thecorner, because things are
happening in the world that theydon't like, or what you have no
control over it.
For me, it's exciting.
I don't agree with all of thechanges that I see around me.
Who would?
Nobody agrees with everythingor is aligned because we don't
know the outcome.
(08:00):
We don't know the effect, theimpact, but it's just exciting
to be alive and to see theseseismic shifts and to try to
stay ahead of it or at least upwith it and manage and lead
through it.
I just think that'sphenomenally engaging, and so
this book.
Well, so AI let me finish thatthought, like, if you aren't
(08:20):
using AI tools whether it'sClaude, whether it's chat, gpt,
whether it's some of Google'stools that are out, or grok from
X and Elon Musk, whatever it is, I mean there's so many good
tools out there and they justkeep coming out and they they're
getting better like every week.
Do you remember, like when, wheninstagram initially came out,
or facebook a long time ago,like those products were
(08:42):
innovating and they werechanging, they were adjusting
and you had to get the latestversion downloaded on your phone
and it was exciting becausethere were so many different
things.
Or the iphone you had to getthe new iphone was exciting
because there were so manydifferent things.
Or the iPhone you had to getthe new iPhone every year
because there were so many newfeatures on it.
Well, all that technologyslowed down.
Like, if you're buying aniPhone every year right now, you
look just like crazy, right, Imean, the improvements just
(09:03):
don't justify the ROI.
I don't care how much money youhave, you just like.
That's just, we might as wellthrow it into a, a trash can,
right, and and, and the same istrue for these social media apps
.
Or like the innovation.
The amount of innovation inthose areas has slowed
dramatically, but it, whereyou're seeing it now, is in ai
and it's yeah, it's scary andfrightening and there's all
(09:27):
kinds of implications, and andit's exciting too at the same
time.
But so I can, I, I can do, um, Ican have a book, and somebody
tells me about a book, and andyou can plug it into AI, and
suddenly I mean you've justaccelerated what would have
taken you.
I've got to make an order.
I've got to go to Barnes andNoble that's, by the way, a
(09:48):
bookstore, like which used to bethese kind of square shaped
structures in our neighborhoodsor cities that you would drive
to, by the way.
You would get in the car andactually touch the steering
wheel, drive to the physicallocation, walk inside, look for
the book Hopefully they had itin stock you would purchase it,
(10:10):
drive back home and, when youhad time, read part of the book.
Now you type into AI hey, whatis this book?
What?
Give me the main points, tellme some of the data share.
Boom, I've got the main thingsin 30 seconds Stunning,
unbelievable.
So if you're not using it, youare so far behind the times.
(10:30):
I mean, or uploading documentsfrom your organization or
articles, or like.
There's just so many advantagesto it and my favorite right now
is the chat GPT.
I talked about this a fewepisodes ago, the chat GPT
conversation tool.
If you don't know what I'mtalking about, do some digging
on it.
Like the conversation you couldhave with your phone, like it
(10:53):
makes a conversation with Alexaor Siri feels so outdated, so
like elementary, such a waste oftime because those, those
technologies are so behindinstantly.
Where now I can get on.
I can choose the voice that I'mlistening to or interacting
with and I'm just having thisconversation, free flowing as
(11:15):
I'm driving somewhere, aboutwhatever, with the chat GPT.
It's in the chat GPT app onyour phone and then you just
click on that, that icon on thebottom right-hand corner.
That's the voice, right, andyou just start talking.
It's on believable.
Our youngest son he like he'slike he'll he'll spend an hour
(11:35):
having a conversation with AI.
This, literally, this happensall the time.
He's having a conversationabout certain things and it's
taking them deep into thesetopics and whatever.
It's awesome, I love it anyway.
So, um, this book, uh, what thecrap is the name of it?
I don't even have the.
I better look it up real quick.
It's a book in 1997 that wasabout information overload, and
(12:05):
so let's see here I just got tofind it real quick A data, yeah,
the name of the okay, my noteswere right Data smog, don't you
love that?
So this is 1997, which doesn'tthat feel like, I'm saying like
1850, 1997 feels like so longago.
(12:26):
And a book written in 1997called Data Smog Surviving the
Information Glut what the crapdid anyone in 97 think that they
knew about data smog?
I love the term, but, wow, Imean, if we thought we had too
much data in 97, we had no ideawhat was going to be in place in
(12:50):
2025, which makes you think,well, what's it going to look
like in 2030 or 20?
Like insane, you can't evenimagine it.
But anyway, I love the title ofthat book data smog.
Don't you feel like there's datasmog in your company?
Don't you feel like there'sthis information glut, that
(13:12):
there are productivity clogs,that I just feel like I see it
in so many organizations, I seeit in our firm Like, how does it
take us?
We're not even close to one ofthese big, gigantic
organizations, but as theco-founder of a company that
five years, six, seven years agowas just me and then a few
(13:35):
months later I had a businesspartner, and then a few months
later I had another businesspartner and then we started
adding team members and then theteam started expanding and then
we got a training company andwe've got the consulting firm
and we're we're growing rightand we're our client list is
getting bigger and all.
And so I've just watched it inour own organization Like, how
(13:55):
can it take us so long?
What would have taken us amonth five years ago now takes
us six months.
Why?
Because as you increase theamount of people, the speed goes
down dramatically.
Why is that?
There are lots of reasons.
(14:15):
One of the reasons I want totalk about in this episode
that's on my mind is the amountof data, the amount of
information.
I was listening to a podcastrecently and this person, who's
extremely wealthy, verysuccessful, doesn't need to work
anymore just by everydefinition of the term very well
off and this person was talkingabout.
(14:37):
I find a lot of value inlistening to them.
I don't agree with them on alot of things, but they have
strong opinions and they've gotthought behind them, behind
their opinions, reasoning behindit, and I like to be challenged
and I like to be, I like tolike, I just like that process
and mentally, and so I'mlistening to this and this
(15:01):
person's talking about, they geton a kind of a side tangent and
they start talking aboutgetting rid of this.
Somebody who owns obviouslymultiple homes and different
countries and yada, yada, yada.
And this person is talkingabout how they have been on this
kick for the last few years ofgetting rid of things.
And they're talking about theamount of mental, emotional,
(15:23):
even physical, stress or anxietyor weight, the weightiness of
owning a lot of things.
And yeah, this is a first worldproblem.
And some of you listen to thatand you go, oh my gosh, serious.
Well, but it's real for peoplein that situation and so and and
I think, once you get past 35years of age or something, and
(15:44):
maybe you've had a few kids andand even if you've got one house
or maybe you've got a coupleand you've got all, you get all
this crap, like I.
And even if you've got one house, or maybe you got a couple and
you get all this crap, like I'mat the point now where I'm going
to I think I'm about to askeveryone that I know and love
and care about to not get meanother gift.
Or like, if they give me a gift, make it edible, like some
gummy worms or Mike and Ike's,or I like something or or I
(16:05):
don't know what, but somethingsmall and whatever, because I've
got so much junk and I don'tmean that rudely because I
bought most of it for myself or,but you get these gifts and I'm
like, oh my gosh, I just spendso much time cleaning the garage
, emptying out storagecontainers, emptying out
(16:26):
cupboards, like there's so muchstuff, and, and so I've been in
the process I'm in it right nowof cause.
That really spoke to me when Iwas listening to that podcast
and interview or thatconversation.
This person's talking about thefreedom, the liberating impact
of getting rid of things and I,and so I thought you know what I
(16:48):
?
I, I believe in that I, I'mweighed down by junk and messes
and whatever else, and I'venever been good at at keeping
all that stuff organized, causeI'd rather spend my time on
something else making money orexpanding something at work, or
studying, or thinking or workingout or whatever else.
So, whatever, Anyway.
So I put some time and energyinto this.
I'm in the middle of it rightnow and it's actually the mental
(17:15):
, emotional, um impact of it isreal and that causes me to.
So you think about thatphysical stuff.
The same is true inorganizations, and so you, as a
leader, how do you focus andprioritize, help your team to
focus and prioritize?
How do you spend your timefocusing and prioritizing on the
right things?
One of the things that youmight considering, you might
(17:37):
consider, is reducing the amountof information and noise, the
data smog Recently.
Well, I talked to you, uh, manyepisodes ago, like the amount,
the volume of email just in ourown firm was driving me insane.
I'm was terrible.
(17:58):
I still am terrible atresponding to emails because
there's so much junk and there'sso much whatever that it's just
an insanely inefficient way tocommunicate in my mind.
And so that's when we you knowwe started really leaning into
Slack in our organization.
It is so much more valuable theamount of emails back and forth
(18:20):
between people that work in ourfirm.
I bet I get emails internallyin our organization.
The amount of emails in ourfirm now, granted, not, we're
not stinking amazon with twomillion employees, right um but
the amount of emails I getinternally each day is probably
around two, three, four.
(18:40):
Yeah, but that took a lot ofeffort, like I, literally I
would respond to an email andsay hey, you all, um, can you
take this offline into Slack,our messaging platform?
You've got one too, whetherit's you know teams or this,
that or the other, where youhave to have a literal channel
and and that channel is centeredto a certain topic, and then
(19:04):
you post to that and whateverelse, right.
And then now you've got AItools in things like Slack and
productivity, tools that cansummarize the conversations and
you can get up to speed, andthen, and then you have to make
sure I mean, there's some effortthat you have to put into this
and and and so take it into amessaging platform and then make
sure there aren't too many.
(19:24):
I can't tell you how manychannels we've deleted.
We don't need that anymore.
No, let's do that.
And I'm literally in there andother people in our firm are
like, hey, can you take thisover to that conversation or can
we do this or whatever, likewe're managing that and the
reason is to reduce, focus, thenoise.
One of your jobs I my one of mycontentions.
(19:46):
You tell me what you thinkabout this.
One of my beliefs is that yourjob yeah, you, one of your jobs
as an effective executivemanager, supervisor in an
organization, is to reduce noise, reduce noise, reduce noise.
That is one of your keypriorities, jobs,
(20:11):
responsibilities.
I really believe that If you'regoing to increase productivity,
increase speed to market,increase focus and
prioritization, you've got toreduce the noise.
There have to be fewer meetingsand more time spent doing this
stuff.
There have to be fewer emails.
(20:32):
There have to be fewer, like,the info.
You're not helping, not meaningyou, the individuals in our
organizations that just nonstopmessaging, nonstop emails,
nonstop meetings Like it'sinsane, and those of you that
work at us, especially largeorganizations, doesn't it drive
you nuts?
Well, what are you doing aboutit?
(20:55):
And so a couple other terms that97 book in 97 about um data
smog.
There was a term actually Idon't think it came from that
book, it came from somewhereelse the term infobesity.
I just love that terminfobesity.
We are bloated, we are obese,we are overweight, we need to,
(21:26):
we, we need to get ourorganizations to be fitter.
So we have infobesity too muchinformation, too much data, too
much conversation.
And now there's an extreme ofthis.
Right, we teach this first.
Secondly, third leader, thirdleader concepts and patterns in
Lead in 30, in the leadershipdevelopment course that some of
(21:49):
you have been through, and thesecond leader would what we call
the second leader of thegeneral, a person that
micromanages, leans intoposition power.
They would be the extreme ofthis, potentially where they'd
be like well, we don't need anyconversation, just go execute.
Well, that's the extreme.
This potentially where they'dbe like well, we don't need any
conversation, just go execute.
Well, that's the extreme.
I'm not advocating that, but Iam advocating closer to that
(22:12):
than we are right now in so manyorganizations where there's
just I don't know what it is,but people feel like they get.
I absolutely believe that peoplefeel like they get paid to show
up, like literally, that's whatthey're paid to do to show up
and and just like make, makenoise, engage in conversation,
(22:38):
and and the older I get, themore that drives me insane.
Like at 25 didn't really botherme.
I'm like, oh, you got acorporate job, you hang out here
, you get paid for it.
This is kind of cool.
Some of these people are niceand fun to be around.
I kind of like them and we getalong and the wow, the, the
office is nice and all the perksand the break room and this,
that and the other like thatused to get, like I used to be.
(23:01):
Wow, this facility isunbelievable, the campus is,
whatever, and this is just sucha cool place to be.
Yeah, I'm not into that anymore.
Not impressed Doesn't do it forme.
I'd rather be home.
I'd rather be at the gym.
I'd rather be at the lake.
I'd rather be at the beach.
I'd rather be reading a book.
(23:22):
I'd rather be hanging out withmy family.
I'd rather be reading, likelearning something.
So if I'm going to be here, Ireally don't care what perks you
have, doesn't matter to meanymore what the break room has
in it or how cool the office is.
Like I'm totally willing tocome in and work here.
(23:43):
But let's get crap done,because I don't want to be here
all day and we, there's somebodywe're meeting with one more
example and then I'll.
I'll a couple more thoughts andthen we'll wrap.
I hope, I hope you.
I got the wheels in your headspinning.
Can you tell I'm passionateabout this.
Are you passionate about it?
What are you going to do aboutit?
Like we've got to solve some ofthis, and who's going to solve
(24:07):
it?
You are, I am, we are, we'rethe leaders, the executives
tasked with leading in thisenvironment.
Did you know that?
The average, the amount ofinformation this is an
interesting stat.
There's more informationgenerated in a single day back
in the mid nineties Imagine thisnow.
More information generated in asingle day back in the mid 90s.
Imagine this now Moreinformation generated in a
(24:28):
single day than the averageindividual in the 16th century
encountered in their entirelifetime.
I'll say it again In the 90s,more information was generated
in a single day than the averageindividual in the 16th century
encountered in their entirelifetime.
(24:50):
Think about what it is in 2025stunning, or whenever you're
listening to this.
We've got to help our teams,we've got to master this, we've
got to reduce the noise, we'vegot to take this info beast, uh,
organization, team, society,and we got to get it focused on
what matters.
(25:10):
Well, a couple of things thatyou do.
Okay, actually, I just got togive you the takeaways.
A couple of them are you've gotto have key results.
You've got to be talking aboutthem constantly.
These are the three things thatmatter.
Yes, there's 80 million thingsout there.
These are the three that matter.
It's these three metrics, it'sthese things.
Whatever your team has to havethose, you need to.
(25:31):
They need to be in every deck,every meeting.
You need to be talking aboutthem constantly.
All these other metrics, theydon't matter as much as these.
We've got to move the needle onthese three things and if
you're not working on themactively every day, shift what
you're doing, get, carve out therest.
(25:53):
It's infobesity, it's waste.
We need a diet in the amount ofconversation, the amount of
meetings like work on thesethings.
Stop making so much noise.
You're distracting people fromgetting things done.
We need less noise in thesystem.
Okay, we need less data, theright data.
(26:18):
Only share, only hit submit,only hit send if it's going to
impact these results and it'sabsolutely critical.
Otherwise, don't send themessage, don't send the email,
don't create the slides, don'thave the conversation.
(26:40):
I'm reducing the noise, so keyresults out front and center
conversation.
I'm reducing the noise, so keyresults out front and center and
then we used to call thesethings cultural beliefs or a
culture principles.
I'm now a huge fan of the termfirst principles.
It's a term that technologycompanies have used quite a bit.
People some people I'veinteracted with have talked a
(27:00):
lot about it in the last year.
I'm converted.
First principles these are thefirst principles of this
organization, and there are fouror six of them.
These are the way we need youto think and act and you need to
adapt these.
We used to work withorganizations and keep them
around for three or four or fiveyears.
Now, I think, the shelf life istwo years max in most cases and
(27:26):
a lot of cases, 12 months.
We're updating them.
This is the way we need.
These are the things we needyou to be thinking about.
These are the principles thatmatter most in 2025.
If we're going to achieve thesekey results, then I need you
thinking and we need to beacting in these four ways.
They are our first principles.
(27:46):
Before you think or dosomething different, consider
this is what you're about to do.
Does it match these things?
In other words, like beingscrappy or speaking up, or
impacting the customerexperience, or taking
accountability, or looking aheadand being proactive like these
(28:07):
things.
That's the way we need you tothink.
So how do we help anorganization focus?
We give them key results.
We have a set of firstprinciples that are very
applicable to right now.
We're talking about themconstantly and we're reducing
the noise in this organization.
We're making this organizationlean, not only when it comes to
(28:30):
the amount of people anddepartments and whatever else,
but the amount of noise, becausewe're focusing on what matters
most.
That's what's on my mind inthis episode of the Lead in 30
podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
How do you help your organization or your team focus
and prioritize on the thingsthat matter most?
Why are so many people wastingso much time?
What are we going to do aboutit?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
You cannot be serious,strengthen your ability to lead
in less than 30 minutes.
You're listening to Lead in 30.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
One of the things that was most stunning to me
when I first started working inthe consulting, the executive
consulting space.
So I had never worked at aFortune 50 company, I'd never
been inside of an organization,a company that had, you know, a
hundred thousand employees,200,000 employees, a million
(00:51):
employees.
There aren't a ton of companiesthat big, but I had never even
been around one that big.
And now here I am, because ofgoing to work for a consulting
firm decade, you know, more thana decade ago.
I'm now walking into theseexecutive offices of these
enormous organizations with justtens of thousands of employees.
(01:16):
And one of the things thatstruck me immediately and it
doesn't matter the industry,right, there are restaurant
chains with tens of thousandemployees or retail outlets,
there are manufacturingcompanies, there are hospital
systems, there are, I mean, thelist goes on and on and on,
right.
So it's industry agnostic.
But one of the things thatstrikes you when that happens or
(01:38):
at least it struck me is Ithought, wow, I've worked at a
company with over a thousandemployees, but, and I've worked
for smaller organizations with ahundred, and I, but I'm.
So when you walk into thesegigantic companies, one of the
things that struck me was howlittle got done, the amount of
(02:03):
waste, the amount of meetings,the amount of discussions that
had to take place.
It was stunning to me.
I thought, oh my gosh, youthink that companies with this
many people could move so fast?
And what you realize is, no,they're actually the Titanic,
(02:29):
they're actually the slowestmoving barges in the ocean.
That's the visual for theselarge companies.
And then you start to you startto realize why the disruptors,
these startups, are sodisruptive, because they're
scrappy and they're nimble andthey move.
(02:50):
Why is that?
And how do we in on our teamsor in the organizations that we
lead?
How do we solve for that?
How do we help our organizationbe more like that?
And I want to share with yousome of the research, the
thinking, the, the studying I'vebeen doing on the amount of
(03:10):
well, there are just some termsthat are just falling in love
with and some data that is isrelevant to all of this because,
by the way, this is only goingto get worse.
It's and you've got to be able,we've got to be able to lead in
an environment like this, andthe most effective leaders, the
leaders with the greatest marketvalue, are those that are able
(03:34):
to themselves, focus andprioritize on the things that
matter and then get others to doit as well.
So how do you do that?
I'm glad you asked.
Let's talk about it in thisepisode.
Welcome into the Lead in 30podcast In less than 30 minutes.
In each episode, we give you aframework, a model, an example,
something that we've beenstudying, thinking about,
researching experiences we'vehad that hopefully, will cause
(03:58):
you to think about how you couldmore effectively lead the group
that you have stewardship over.
If you are obsessed with growth, with learning, with expanding
your impact, improving theorganization results being
successful, then you're in theright place.
My name is Russ Hill.
I make my living coaching,consulting senior executive
(04:19):
teams at some of the world'sbiggest companies.
Lone Rock Leadership is thename of our organization.
I'm one of the co-founders ofit.
Got an incredible team.
You can find out more atlonerockio.
Okay, so let me give you, let mejust throw a bunch of different
terms and things at you andthen we'll get to the takeaways.
(04:39):
Is this on your mind Like?
Is this something that you'rethinking about?
Does it bother you?
Do you think about it as itpertains to you?
And what I'm talking about isfocusing and prioritizing on the
things that matter, like movingthe needle on the results that
matter, driving revenue in asignificant way, driving margin,
(05:06):
improving the customerexperience, expanding market
share, innovating faster thanthe competition, increasing
speed to market expanding all ofthat Does that weigh on your
mind?
Do you think about it?
Or am I the only one that wakesup in the middle of the night
dreaming about this, thinkingabout it, obsessed with it?
(05:29):
And yeah, I'm influencedtotally.
By working in a leadership labfor a living, I'm constantly on
Zoom meetings in the room withexecutives of organizations that
are driven.
They want to be successful.
Why else would they be payingour firm, or any firm or anybody
(05:51):
, to help them think aboutthings they're not thinking
about, make observations onthings that they're missing,
help their team be moreeffective, accelerate
performance inside theirorganization.
They're obsessed with it, andwhy?
Well, because these are highgrowth individuals.
These are people that want toimprove, that aren't yet the
best version of themselves, thatsee capacity that is yet
(06:14):
untapped, that want to beeffective in leading
organizations and coming up withnew solutions or services.
They love the game, they lovethe market, they love solving
the puzzle that is the world ofbusiness.
Right, and I love being aroundthem, I love giving them ideas,
(06:34):
I love learning from them, Ilove being stretched by them,
and so let me give you, let megive you some things that I've
been thinking about and digginginto.
There's a book that came out.
I haven't read it, I haven'tread it in detail, I have
skimmed it.
And, by the way, ai like I know, I've been talking about AI a
(06:55):
lot I just am absolutelyconvinced that the world we're
going to live in in two years,four years, five years from now,
is going to look radicallydifferent.
Do you feel that?
Do you feel the seismic shiftsthat are happening in society,
in government, in business, intechnology, in hardware?
(07:19):
There has never been a moreexciting time to be alive.
The ground is shifting rightnow in significant ways.
It's never been more pronounced, more significant than it is
now.
That's so exciting.
(07:39):
For some people it'sdemoralizing, or they're like in
the fetal position in thecorner, because things are
happening in the world that theydon't like, or what you have no
control over it.
For me, it's exciting.
I don't agree with all of thechanges that I see around me.
Who would?
Nobody agrees with everythingor is aligned because we don't
know the outcome.
(08:00):
We don't know the effect, theimpact, but it's just exciting
to be alive and to see theseseismic shifts and to try to
stay ahead of it or at least upwith it and manage and lead
through it.
I just think that'sphenomenally engaging, and so
this book.
Well, so AI let me finish thatthought, like, if you aren't
(08:20):
using AI tools whether it'sClaude, whether it's chat, gpt,
whether it's some of Google'stools that are out, or grok from
X and Elon Musk, whatever it is, I mean there's so many good
tools out there and they justkeep coming out and they they're
getting better like every week.
Do you remember, like when, wheninstagram initially came out,
or facebook a long time ago,like those products were
(08:42):
innovating and they werechanging, they were adjusting
and you had to get the latestversion downloaded on your phone
and it was exciting becausethere were so many different
things.
Or the iphone you had to getthe new iphone was exciting
because there were so manydifferent things.
Or the iPhone you had to getthe new iPhone every year
because there were so many newfeatures on it.
Well, all that technologyslowed down.
Like, if you're buying aniPhone every year right now, you
look just like crazy, right, Imean, the improvements just
(09:03):
don't justify the ROI.
I don't care how much money youhave, you just like.
That's just, we might as wellthrow it into a, a trash can,
right, and and, and the same istrue for these social media apps
.
Or like the innovation.
The amount of innovation inthose areas has slowed
dramatically, but it, whereyou're seeing it now, is in ai
and it's yeah, it's scary andfrightening and there's all
(09:27):
kinds of implications, and andit's exciting too at the same
time.
But so I can, I, I can do, um, Ican have a book, and somebody
tells me about a book, and andyou can plug it into AI, and
suddenly I mean you've justaccelerated what would have
taken you.
I've got to make an order.
I've got to go to Barnes andNoble that's, by the way, a
(09:48):
bookstore, like which used to bethese kind of square shaped
structures in our neighborhoodsor cities that you would drive
to, by the way.
You would get in the car andactually touch the steering
wheel, drive to the physicallocation, walk inside, look for
the book Hopefully they had itin stock you would purchase it,
(10:10):
drive back home and, when youhad time, read part of the book.
Now you type into AI hey, whatis this book?
What?
Give me the main points, tellme some of the data share.
Boom, I've got the main thingsin 30 seconds Stunning,
unbelievable.
So if you're not using it, youare so far behind the times.
(10:30):
I mean, or uploading documentsfrom your organization or
articles, or like.
There's just so many advantagesto it and my favorite right now
is the chat GPT.
I talked about this a fewepisodes ago, the chat GPT
conversation tool.
If you don't know what I'mtalking about, do some digging
on it.
Like the conversation you couldhave with your phone, like it
(10:53):
makes a conversation with Alexaor Siri feels so outdated, so
like elementary, such a waste oftime because those, those
technologies are so behindinstantly.
Where now I can get on.
I can choose the voice that I'mlistening to or interacting
with and I'm just having thisconversation, free flowing as
(11:15):
I'm driving somewhere, aboutwhatever, with the chat GPT.
It's in the chat GPT app onyour phone and then you just
click on that, that icon on thebottom right-hand corner.
That's the voice, right, andyou just start talking.
It's on believable.
Our youngest son he like he'slike he'll he'll spend an hour
(11:35):
having a conversation with AI.
This, literally, this happensall the time.
He's having a conversationabout certain things and it's
taking them deep into thesetopics and whatever.
It's awesome, I love it anyway.
So, um, this book, uh, what thecrap is the name of it?
I don't even have the.
I better look it up real quick.
It's a book in 1997 that wasabout information overload, and
(12:05):
so let's see here I just got tofind it real quick A data, yeah,
the name of the okay, my noteswere right Data smog, don't you
love that?
So this is 1997, which doesn'tthat feel like, I'm saying like
1850, 1997 feels like so longago.
(12:26):
And a book written in 1997called Data Smog Surviving the
Information Glut what the crapdid anyone in 97 think that they
knew about data smog?
I love the term, but, wow, Imean, if we thought we had too
much data in 97, we had no ideawhat was going to be in place in
(12:50):
2025, which makes you think,well, what's it going to look
like in 2030 or 20?
Like insane, you can't evenimagine it.
But anyway, I love the title ofthat book data smog.
Don't you feel like there's datasmog in your company?
Don't you feel like there'sthis information glut, that
(13:12):
there are productivity clogs,that I just feel like I see it
in so many organizations, I seeit in our firm Like, how does it
take us?
We're not even close to one ofthese big, gigantic
organizations, but as theco-founder of a company that
five years, six, seven years agowas just me and then a few
(13:35):
months later I had a businesspartner, and then a few months
later I had another businesspartner and then we started
adding team members and then theteam started expanding and then
we got a training company andwe've got the consulting firm
and we're we're growing rightand we're our client list is
getting bigger and all.
And so I've just watched it inour own organization Like, how
(13:55):
can it take us so long?
What would have taken us amonth five years ago now takes
us six months.
Why?
Because as you increase theamount of people, the speed goes
down dramatically.
Why is that?
There are lots of reasons.
(14:15):
One of the reasons I want totalk about in this episode
that's on my mind is the amountof data, the amount of
information.
I was listening to a podcastrecently and this person, who's
extremely wealthy, verysuccessful, doesn't need to work
anymore just by everydefinition of the term very well
off and this person was talkingabout.
(14:37):
I find a lot of value inlistening to them.
I don't agree with them on alot of things, but they have
strong opinions and they've gotthought behind them, behind
their opinions, reasoning behindit, and I like to be challenged
and I like to be, I like tolike, I just like that process
and mentally, and so I'mlistening to this and this
(15:01):
person's talking about, they geton a kind of a side tangent and
they start talking aboutgetting rid of this.
Somebody who owns obviouslymultiple homes and different
countries and yada, yada, yada.
And this person is talkingabout how they have been on this
kick for the last few years ofgetting rid of things.
And they're talking about theamount of mental, emotional,
(15:23):
even physical, stress or anxietyor weight, the weightiness of
owning a lot of things.
And yeah, this is a first worldproblem.
And some of you listen to thatand you go, oh my gosh, serious.
Well, but it's real for peoplein that situation and so and and
I think, once you get past 35years of age or something, and
(15:44):
maybe you've had a few kids andand even if you've got one house
or maybe you've got a coupleand you've got all, you get all
this crap, like I.
And even if you've got one house, or maybe you got a couple and
you get all this crap, like I'mat the point now where I'm going
to I think I'm about to askeveryone that I know and love
and care about to not get meanother gift.
Or like, if they give me a gift, make it edible, like some
gummy worms or Mike and Ike's,or I like something or or I
(16:05):
don't know what, but somethingsmall and whatever, because I've
got so much junk and I don'tmean that rudely because I
bought most of it for myself or,but you get these gifts and I'm
like, oh my gosh, I just spendso much time cleaning the garage
, emptying out storagecontainers, emptying out
(16:26):
cupboards, like there's so muchstuff, and, and so I've been in
the process I'm in it right nowof cause.
That really spoke to me when Iwas listening to that podcast
and interview or thatconversation.
This person's talking about thefreedom, the liberating impact
of getting rid of things and I,and so I thought you know what I
(16:48):
?
I, I believe in that I, I'mweighed down by junk and messes
and whatever else, and I'venever been good at at keeping
all that stuff organized, causeI'd rather spend my time on
something else making money orexpanding something at work, or
studying, or thinking or workingout or whatever else.
So, whatever, Anyway.
So I put some time and energyinto this.
I'm in the middle of it rightnow and it's actually the mental
(17:15):
, emotional, um impact of it isreal and that causes me to.
So you think about thatphysical stuff.
The same is true inorganizations, and so you, as a
leader, how do you focus andprioritize, help your team to
focus and prioritize?
How do you spend your timefocusing and prioritizing on the
right things?
One of the things that youmight considering, you might
(17:37):
consider, is reducing the amountof information and noise, the
data smog Recently.
Well, I talked to you, uh, manyepisodes ago, like the amount,
the volume of email just in ourown firm was driving me insane.
I'm was terrible.
(17:58):
I still am terrible atresponding to emails because
there's so much junk and there'sso much whatever that it's just
an insanely inefficient way tocommunicate in my mind.
And so that's when we you knowwe started really leaning into
Slack in our organization.
It is so much more valuable theamount of emails back and forth
(18:20):
between people that work in ourfirm.
I bet I get emails internallyin our organization.
The amount of emails in ourfirm now, granted, not, we're
not stinking amazon with twomillion employees, right um but
the amount of emails I getinternally each day is probably
around two, three, four.
(18:40):
Yeah, but that took a lot ofeffort, like I, literally I
would respond to an email andsay hey, you all, um, can you
take this offline into Slack,our messaging platform?
You've got one too, whetherit's you know teams or this,
that or the other, where youhave to have a literal channel
and and that channel is centeredto a certain topic, and then
(19:04):
you post to that and whateverelse, right.
And then now you've got AItools in things like Slack and
productivity, tools that cansummarize the conversations and
you can get up to speed, andthen, and then you have to make
sure I mean, there's some effortthat you have to put into this
and and and so take it into amessaging platform and then make
sure there aren't too many.
(19:24):
I can't tell you how manychannels we've deleted.
We don't need that anymore.
No, let's do that.
And I'm literally in there andother people in our firm are
like, hey, can you take thisover to that conversation or can
we do this or whatever, likewe're managing that and the
reason is to reduce, focus, thenoise.
One of your jobs I my one of mycontentions.
(19:46):
You tell me what you thinkabout this.
One of my beliefs is that yourjob yeah, you, one of your jobs
as an effective executivemanager, supervisor in an
organization, is to reduce noise, reduce noise, reduce noise.
That is one of your keypriorities, jobs,
(20:11):
responsibilities.
I really believe that If you'regoing to increase productivity,
increase speed to market,increase focus and
prioritization, you've got toreduce the noise.
There have to be fewer meetingsand more time spent doing this
stuff.
There have to be fewer emails.
(20:32):
There have to be fewer, like,the info.
You're not helping, not meaningyou, the individuals in our
organizations that just nonstopmessaging, nonstop emails,
nonstop meetings Like it'sinsane, and those of you that
work at us, especially largeorganizations, doesn't it drive
you nuts?
Well, what are you doing aboutit?
(20:55):
And so a couple other terms that97 book in 97 about um data
smog.
There was a term actually Idon't think it came from that
book, it came from somewhereelse the term infobesity.
I just love that terminfobesity.
We are bloated, we are obese,we are overweight, we need to,
(21:26):
we, we need to get ourorganizations to be fitter.
So we have infobesity too muchinformation, too much data, too
much conversation.
And now there's an extreme ofthis.
Right, we teach this first.
Secondly, third leader, thirdleader concepts and patterns in
Lead in 30, in the leadershipdevelopment course that some of
(21:49):
you have been through, and thesecond leader would what we call
the second leader of thegeneral, a person that
micromanages, leans intoposition power.
They would be the extreme ofthis, potentially where they'd
be like well, we don't need anyconversation, just go execute.
Well, that's the extreme.
This potentially where they'dbe like well, we don't need any
conversation, just go execute.
Well, that's the extreme.
I'm not advocating that, but Iam advocating closer to that
(22:12):
than we are right now in so manyorganizations where there's
just I don't know what it is,but people feel like they get.
I absolutely believe that peoplefeel like they get paid to show
up, like literally, that's whatthey're paid to do to show up
and and just like make, makenoise, engage in conversation,
(22:38):
and and the older I get, themore that drives me insane.
Like at 25 didn't really botherme.
I'm like, oh, you got acorporate job, you hang out here
, you get paid for it.
This is kind of cool.
Some of these people are niceand fun to be around.
I kind of like them and we getalong and the wow, the, the
office is nice and all the perksand the break room and this,
that and the other like thatused to get, like I used to be.
(23:01):
Wow, this facility isunbelievable, the campus is,
whatever, and this is just sucha cool place to be.
Yeah, I'm not into that anymore.
Not impressed Doesn't do it forme.
I'd rather be home.
I'd rather be at the gym.
I'd rather be at the lake.
I'd rather be at the beach.
I'd rather be reading a book.
(23:22):
I'd rather be hanging out withmy family.
I'd rather be reading, likelearning something.
So if I'm going to be here, Ireally don't care what perks you
have, doesn't matter to meanymore what the break room has
in it or how cool the office is.
Like I'm totally willing tocome in and work here.
(23:43):
But let's get crap done,because I don't want to be here
all day and we, there's somebodywe're meeting with one more
example and then I'll.
I'll a couple more thoughts andthen we'll wrap.
I hope, I hope you.
I got the wheels in your headspinning.
Can you tell I'm passionateabout this.
Are you passionate about it?
What are you going to do aboutit?
Like we've got to solve some ofthis, and who's going to solve
(24:07):
it?
You are, I am, we are, we'rethe leaders, the executives
tasked with leading in thisenvironment.
Did you know that?
The average, the amount ofinformation this is an
interesting stat.
There's more informationgenerated in a single day back
in the mid nineties Imagine thisnow.
More information generated in asingle day back in the mid 90s.
Imagine this now Moreinformation generated in a
(24:28):
single day than the averageindividual in the 16th century
encountered in their entirelifetime.
I'll say it again In the 90s,more information was generated
in a single day than the averageindividual in the 16th century
encountered in their entirelifetime.
(24:50):
Think about what it is in 2025stunning, or whenever you're
listening to this.
We've got to help our teams,we've got to master this, we've
got to reduce the noise, we'vegot to take this info beast, uh,
organization, team, society,and we got to get it focused on
what matters.
(25:10):
Well, a couple of things thatyou do.
Okay, actually, I just got togive you the takeaways.
A couple of them are you've gotto have key results.
You've got to be talking aboutthem constantly.
These are the three things thatmatter.
Yes, there's 80 million thingsout there.
These are the three that matter.
It's these three metrics, it'sthese things.
Whatever your team has to havethose, you need to.
(25:31):
They need to be in every deck,every meeting.
You need to be talking aboutthem constantly.
All these other metrics, theydon't matter as much as these.
We've got to move the needle onthese three things and if
you're not working on themactively every day, shift what
you're doing, get, carve out therest.
(25:53):
It's infobesity, it's waste.
We need a diet in the amount ofconversation, the amount of
meetings like work on thesethings.
Stop making so much noise.
You're distracting people fromgetting things done.
We need less noise in thesystem.
Okay, we need less data, theright data.
(26:18):
Only share, only hit submit,only hit send if it's going to
impact these results and it'sabsolutely critical.
Otherwise, don't send themessage, don't send the email,
don't create the slides, don'thave the conversation.
(26:40):
I'm reducing the noise, so keyresults out front and center
conversation.
I'm reducing the noise, so keyresults out front and center and
then we used to call thesethings cultural beliefs or a
culture principles.
I'm now a huge fan of the termfirst principles.
It's a term that technologycompanies have used quite a bit.
People some people I'veinteracted with have talked a
(27:00):
lot about it in the last year.
I'm converted.
First principles these are thefirst principles of this
organization, and there are fouror six of them.
These are the way we need youto think and act and you need to
adapt these.
We used to work withorganizations and keep them
around for three or four or fiveyears.
Now, I think, the shelf life istwo years max in most cases and
(27:26):
a lot of cases, 12 months.
We're updating them.
This is the way we need.
These are the things we needyou to be thinking about.
These are the principles thatmatter most in 2025.
If we're going to achieve thesekey results, then I need you
thinking and we need to beacting in these four ways.
They are our first principles.
(27:46):
Before you think or dosomething different, consider
this is what you're about to do.
Does it match these things?
In other words, like beingscrappy or speaking up, or
impacting the customerexperience, or taking
accountability, or looking aheadand being proactive like these
(28:07):
things.
That's the way we need you tothink.
So how do we help anorganization focus?
We give them key results.
We have a set of firstprinciples that are very
applicable to right now.
We're talking about themconstantly and we're reducing
the noise in this organization.
We're making this organizationlean, not only when it comes to
(28:30):
the amount of people anddepartments and whatever else,
but the amount of noise, becausewe're focusing on what matters
most.
That's what's on my mind inthis episode of the Lead in 30
podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
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