Episode 147 · 21 November 2024 · 46:13

Operational chaos is killing your culture: Here's what most CEOs miss, with Garrett Delph

Featuring Garrett Delph

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Introducing Garrett Delph and Clarity Ops
intro#clarity-ops #garrett-delph #introduction
The accidental entrepreneur origin story
interview#entrepreneurship #accidental-entrepreneur #origin-story
The Quad-Core Management Framework
interview#quad-core-management-framework #management #framework
What operational chaos actually looks like
interview#operational-chaos #operations #chaos
When culture and operations collide
interview#culture #operations #collision
Is streamlining bad for workplace culture?
interview#streamlining #workplace-culture #efficiency
The P3 model explained
interview#p3-model #fast-solutions-playbook #model
Tesla, procurement, and why change is hard
interview#tesla #procurement #change-management
Changing your thinking every 5 years
interview#thinking #5-years #rx7-model
Advice for leaders ready to implement
interview#leadership #implementation #advice

Show notes

Operational Chaos Is Killing Your Culture: Here's What Most CEOs Miss — with Garrett Delph

Guest: Garrett Delph — founder and CEO of Clarity Ops, a consultancy focused on optimizing operations, eliminating inefficiencies, and driving operational growth.

Operational chaos is quietly eroding your culture — and most CEOs never see it coming.

Garrett joins Al and Leanne to unpack why operations and culture are two sides of the same coin, and why treating them as separate problems is a recipe for stagnation. He shares hard-won lessons from scaling three ventures generating over $50 million in revenue, including his "Quad-Core Management Framework," the P3 model, and why streamlining doesn't have to mean soul-crushing redundancies.

They dig into how leaders can spot the difference between healthy creative energy and harmful operational chaos, why building repeatable systems actually frees up space for innovation, and the uncomfortable truth about what happens when culture and operations fall out of alignment.

Top 3 Takeaways

Operations and culture aren't separate — they're the same system. When processes break down, trust erodes, stress rises, and culture quietly dies. Fix the chaos and you fix the culture.
Streamlining isn't the enemy of creativity. Done right, removing waste and bloat gives your team space to focus on their superpower — the thing only they can do. That's where real innovation lives.
Build for repeatable success. Predictable systems aren't boring — they're the foundation that lets your business scale without losing its soul.

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

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Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.

Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.

Garrett DelphNice.

Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning psychology podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered psychologist.

Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.

Leanne ElliottWe are here to help you simplify the science of work and create amazing workplace cultures. And I gave my cold to Al.

Al ElliottYes, you did. Yes, you did.

Leanne ElliottSorry, love.

Al ElliottThat's okay. I think I'm through. Leanne's had it. You had it for about 7 days, didn't you? And I think—

Garrett Delph2 weeks.

Leanne ElliottOh no, 3 weeks. 2 weeks.

Al ElliottYeah, I think I'm probably about day 6. And so, so probably today's not the day. If you were thinking of switching over to watch us, the video podcast on YouTube, today's not the day to do that. Don't do that. Anyway, welcome, welcome. Hello to you if you're brand new listener here.

Garrett DelphHi.

Al ElliottHello. Hopefully you care about the culture at your organization. I think you're gonna like it here. And if you have listened before, then welcome back. And of course, yes, we said we've got— I've got Leanne's cold. There's not much for me to say today apart from a quick reminder that every single Tuesday we bring you your weekly dose of workplace news, spicy takes from our expert panel, and of course our weekly, weekly world famous— that's one of those words— famous workplace surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. But it's Thursday and that means we are sitting down with an guest who's been there, done that. We are talking about real strategies that will help you to create an amazing workplace culture.

Leanne ElliottYes, today we are diving into something I see all too often when working with fast-growing businesses— operational chaos. It's a term our guest Garrett Delph has coined, and if you've ever felt like your organization is being held together with duct tape and goodwill, you're going to want to listen closely. As an occupational psychologist, and I do, as you know, specialize in workplace culture and employing engagement. I found that one of the biggest challenges impacting employee morale and engagement is workload. And I get it, mentioning workload to a small business owner often gets me an eye roll. Small businesses are busy places. But here is the thing, most of the workload issues I've seen don't come from employees not working hard enough. They come from clunky operations that create bottlenecks, waste time, and add unnecessary frustration. And that is where our guest Garrett comes in. This episode is a masterclass in streamlining operations, making workloads manageable, and freeing up your team to focus on the activities that actually add value to your business. So in this episode, we aim to answer 3 key questions. First, what does operational chaos look like and how did it affect Garrett's own startup? 2, how do you streamline operations without adversely affecting employee engagement? And 3, can AI help smooth out your processes without sucking the soul from your workplace culture? Garrett Delph is a serial entrepreneur who, over the last 25 years, has started several businesses and grown them fast. But on the way to building hugely valuable brands, he experienced total chaos and has now made it his mission to help other organisations avoid the expensive problems chaos inevitably brings to an organisation.

Al ElliottNow, I'll admit it, and I did say this to Garrett as well when I interviewed him. I'm kind of a lazy optimist, so I used to think that operations was a little bit dull. But Garrett completely changed my perspective because he's got countless stories that prove an entrepreneurial mindset is perfect. for solving operational problems. Plus, he shows that fast growth doesn't have to mean total chaos.

Leanne ElliottSo, without further ado, let's join Al and Garrett to find out why operational chaos might be hurting your business, and most importantly, how to fix it.

Garrett DelphSo, my name's Garrett Delph. I'm the founder and CEO of ClarityOps, where we basically help businesses reorganize, re-architect their infrastructure to increase their gross profits, and build rails to scale their business into the future where they want to go. I have a growing reputation for restoring, and this is often a pleasant surprise to CEOs and founders, restoring their gross profits. Typically, there's a ton, ton of waste and inefficiency in what I call the engine of success inside of the business. And it's often hidden, but very easy to find if you have the right tools and you have the right eyesight. My mission is to, in a fast way, increase the gross profits of businesses through frameworks, systems, tools, and techniques that are easy to follow, easy to implement, and can start redirecting the business in the success that they want. That's my mission.

Al ElliottI'm looking at your LinkedIn. You've done an awful lot of things. So what made you go into streamlining operations? What made you start ClarityOps? What was the story?

Garrett DelphI was an accidental entrepreneur. I never anticipated or expected to work for myself. And so getting into business, I was sort of like, I played learned how to play business by ear, if you will, kind of the musical metaphor. I didn't know how to read music, didn't know how to read business, didn't know how to do it. And with that approach going in, made a ton of mistakes and went through a lot of painful times. And, you know, by God's grace, got through all of that. But looking back on it, what I realized is I ended up solving complex problems In business that I just had to homegrown— I, sorry, I had to homegrow. And it reminds me a little bit of, obviously on a very small scale, what happened with Amazon's transition into Amazon Web Services, where they brought a ton of new innovation to the market to meet market demand.

Al ElliottMm-hmm.

Garrett DelphAnd the way they did that is they built their own tools because those tools didn't exist. And they then leveraged those tools for a brand new market opportunity, which birthed AWS. And so what I began to see in, in my businesses that I was growing is everybody around me is suffering, is suffering from these same challenges, and they're often going under. And I ended up building tools that I was able to replicate and repeat in using that kept solving very complex problems and kept enabling and empowering our success, even in the wake of the stats that 9 of 10 businesses fail. And about 5 years ago, it dawned on me, these tools should be in the market. You know, small and medium-sized businesses shouldn't just live in status quo and determine that you just have to live in chaos and we just have to be one of the stats that generally goes under. My thought was, wow, I know these tools work that I built. I should bring them to the market and help businesses basically drop in these frameworks, tools, techniques, systems in a fast way where they don't have to spend a bunch of time trying to figure it out like I did. And I did spend a ton of time and a ton of money trying to figure it out. And that was really the, the impetus for founding and ultimately taking ClarityOps to market.

Al ElliottCan you give us an example of one of the tools that perhaps you built for your— which scratched your own itch and then has become really popular today?

Garrett DelphOne of them is a framework called the Quad-Core Management Framework. And that was birthed out of me as a CEO and as a leader, not understanding that the power of load balancing your human resources in business when you seek growth. And so, like, what does that mean? It means I made these mistakes. I often would find great people that we hired and go, you're a superhero. You're super smart. You're super fast. And so inevitably, I would load them up with responsibility. To the point where they were doing the roles of multiple people, really, at the end of the day is what it was. And, you know, you— I didn't, and I don't think leaders do this maliciously. They just do it because they want to win, and they're not cognizant of us humans need to be load balanced the same way computers are built. You know, they're increasingly computer architects.

Al ElliottMm-hmm.

Garrett Delphhave figured out you have to load balance your resources internally, otherwise computers crash. And so, they build mechanisms to support these computers to take on max load. And how do they do it? They distribute and load balance resources internally based on demand. And so, what the Quad-Core Management Framework does is it takes what leaders often do, stack a bunch of responsibilities onto one person that should be 2 or 3 roles. Quad-core management separates them into strategy, maintain and support, process building, and project management. Separates them, gives them their own lane, and then helps leaders understand the power of the focus and efficiency and speed that gives them when they distribute this pressure and demand off of You know, one person to multiple people. And that has been a game changer in the businesses that I consult. It's almost kind of like magic, but it's such a simple thing if you think about it, like it really is. But it sure didn't occur to me for a good 15 years of me growing businesses until one day that the light turned on.

Al ElliottOne of the things you talk about on your website is operational chaos and I really like the term, but I'm wondering, you've run quite a few businesses. I'm guessing that you've broken a lot of things in your time as you grew. So what does chaos look like and what's the sort of impact it might have on a growing business?

Garrett DelphHere are the examples of chaos I've seen that I think are harmful. Chaos is disorder. It's disorganization. And so that means you have missing And/or gaps and/or the absence of structure, of rails. You have missing and/or absent guidelines, instructions for how to do things. And where this becomes, in my opinion, and what I've seen, you know, in the business domains, where this becomes really painful and harmful to the business is when you have throughout the org, vertically, horizontally, you have recurring activities from bespoke roles and titles. And these are essentially, think of an assembly line in an auto manufacturing business where you have the same people or bots doing the same thing over and over again. And imagine if there were not bespoke instructions that tell those specific roles how to do these recurring tasks over and over. What you end up with is varied mileage in both speed and quality and efficiency, because everybody's doing their own interpretation of this recurring activity over and over again. And that causes just a bunch of backfires to the business, you know, waste, slow to market.

Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.

Garrett DelphSlow innovation cycles, missed innovation cycles, high stress, low happiness, confusion. You know, these are all the things that come as a result of not having order in a business, which when you don't have order, you have chaos. My photography business definitely experienced chaos when we began to grow studios and add photographers. Especially when we got into digital media. That wasn't where I began to experience, I'd say, chaotic pain. It was the next generation business called Shoot.Edit, which was the first digital media lab to the world because it was 100% cloud and we had resources all over the world. And I would say it was Then that we began, I began to experience real chaos. Here, maybe here's a good example of the first time this really hit hard. We launched the business within 2 weeks. We had a, you know, a line of people waiting to get in. There was about 400 people long. So we knew we had started a business that had high demand. And in order to make all of these customers happy, One of our value promises, by the way, Al, was we'll make your images match the style that you want. And I thought the perfect way to do that was just to put our customers in touch with their editors. Like, what better way to, you know, help solve a customer's problem? Have them go straight to the source. And what this— and so what would happen is The customers would call in, talk to their editor, and say, make my images really pop. And, uh, and, and also I want you to, uh, you know, also keep them on the dark and moody side. And so me not knowing any better, I was like, this is great. And so editors would respond and say, great, I can make it dark and moody for you. And they would go back and edit the images. And this is how all of our editors would treat these conversations. And what I didn't know is you cannot measure adjectives. You can't measure dark and moody. You can't measure pop. If you lined up 100 of our editors and said, make the image you have in front of you dark and moody, you'd get 100 different responses. And so, we had no control whatsoever around the same requests that were coming in by customers over and over again. You can imagine the backlash we received from All of our customers and their frustration because we were delivering varied outcomes and varied products depending on what editor was assigned to the same customer. It was a train wreck. It actually almost took us out in the first year because we didn't have control in the engine room about how all of these critical moving parts in the engine worked. in synchronicity with, with the rest of the engine. So the way we fixed it is rather than asking photographers what they wanted, we flipped the script and built styles, about 10 of them, and said, you choose the one that matches your style best. And internally, we had already architected governance and recipes and formulas to hit those styles perfectly. That's how we solved it.

Al ElliottI can see how that would have solved the customer problem, as in they weren't getting what they expected to get.

Garrett DelphRight.

Al ElliottTell me about the creative side of that then, because are you not then just saying that a creative, an editor, can only do one of 10 things? And does that affect like their engagement in the work?

Garrett DelphYeah, that's a great, great question, Al, because that was a period in time where we'd spent a ton of money and time and resources building up a very large fleet of editors. And they had all been on-ramped to have creative freedom. Again, I would go back to the assembly line in a manufacturing plant for automobiles. At the end of the day, if the business output has stringent requirements on quality, you don't have the luxury of a business to say, oh, but the people on the floor need to be able to have the freedom to put on lug nuts and assemble the carburetor and put on the hood however they want because this is art. And that was the decision I had to make. Like, do I want to value a creative mindset and kill the business, or do I need to treat this business like an assembly line in a manufacturing plant to make sure the business delivers its promise to the customer? And that was the choice that I decided to make. I— and it was the right one. But the sacrifice was for those doing that work. All of the creativity really is ripped out. And that was challenging for a lot of people. We lost some really lovely people, but I get it. They were like, hey, I didn't sign up to basically be a cake maker where I have to follow the same recipe every time. I want more freedom in what I do. And I get it. So we were like, we hugged it out and let a fair amount of people go.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Garrett DelphBy their choice. And then we just focused on our superpower, and that really became a superpower because we finally understood what it took to deliver at scale and also make the customers happy.

Al ElliottTell me then, when you deal with clients who have got a similar kind of problem where there's a mismatch between either customer expectation and delivery or potentially employee, what their job title is and what you now need to make it, Does that mean then that clients have to make difficult decisions about who they're going to satisfy, or is there any kind of like middle ground?

Garrett DelphWell, that's a great question, Al. And I think it's unique to every business. You know, like sometimes culture is more important to a business than success. Like I see that right now. We have a large construction firm just up the coast here that we're working with. And they have a ton of waste internally and bloat and redundancy in their human resources. And it's devastatingly harmful to their gross profit, which is why they hired me. They're right. And yet now they're faced with a dilemma. They've been so proud of their culture. And they had some really great lucrative years in growth and, and scale, but their margin, their gross margin shrunk by about 18%. And so they're like, they're faced with a challenge. Do we keep all of these people that have been in our culture? And continue to lose money as a business, or should we be fiduciarily responsible, protect, sort of like what you do on the airplane? If the masks fall down, you put your mask on first as a parent so that you can take care of your kiddos. That is a dilemma this founder has to face. We're losing gasoline. That's what they're facing. And they need to make some decisions. Do we keep everybody happy or do we do some restructuring or reorganizing to make that engine room lean and eliminate the bloat and the waste? And that's not a decision I can make. I mean, if it were my business, you know, I think I know what I would do. Actually, I know what I would do. But it's a personal decision and it's not an easy one.

Al ElliottYeah.

Garrett DelphWhen you face those scenarios.

Al ElliottYou said you know what you would do.

Garrett DelphWell, I do know what I would do, and that is I would reorganize and I would restructure to be lean and maximize the gross profits and create the efficiency that almost guarantee the preservation of the business so that it can continue to do what it was designed to do. And that is grow, increase in revenue, increase in profit. And the alternative to that is crash the plane because you don't want to hurt feelings. If your goal as a founder, as a CEO, is to ensure first and foremost that the business survives and then make really good, healthy cultural decisions that uplift and support that, I think that's a great play.

Leanne ElliottAfter this very short break, we ask Garrett a tough question: is optimisation and streamlining bad for workplace culture? Don't go anywhere. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?

Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.

Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode, and 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking.

Al ElliottAnd you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s—

Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.

Garrett DelphWe've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.

Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes. It'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?

Garrett DelphIt can.

Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?

Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.

Leanne ElliottBut come back.

Al ElliottYeah, come back.

Garrett DelphDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this, so come back.

Al ElliottI'll cut that out.

Leanne ElliottKeep that in. Welcome back. We have all heard stories of how streamlining operations meant either redundancies or perhaps worse, high workloads for the same pay. I'll ask Garrett about this in a little game I like to call Devil's Avocado.

Al ElliottI'm wondering if I can play, as my wife likes to call it, Devil's Avocado for a second and say, you talk about waste a lot. You talk about streamlining. You talk about just getting the company back on even keel using systematization. But streamlining people, is that not just squeezing out the most work for the least pay?

Garrett DelphNo, emphatically no. Streamlining, I think actually a good, you know, a good resurrection of the term we talked about earlier, is really about load balancing resources for strength and maximize speed without causing speed wobbles, without overloading. You know, if, if our computer is designed to use 8 gigs of RAM, then, you know, those 8 gigs should be used efficiently, but not in a way that overheats the computer, right? So the idea in streamlining is not to overload people, it's to do the exact opposite, is to give them less than pressure, less demand than they can handle so that in everything they do, they feel strong and healthy. And when you feel strong and healthy, you have some cultural benefits and some human benefits. Your happiness goes up, your stress goes down. You know, one thing I've learned over the years that I hope I'll be able to pass along to other entrepreneurs is Keep in mind, when you pay people, if your operational culture is such that you overload them and overwork them, but you do it in exchange for pay, first of all, you're harming your own business. But second of all, you're paying them to take that stress home into their personal life. And I think that is a bad thing. I think that's a bad human thing. And I think it's really bad for business. And so going back to the question about streamlining, streamlining is to actually restore health and bring strength, not just to maximize profits and get the most out of people as you can.

Al ElliottI have written down here 2 words, P3 and relay. Is this related in any way or have I misunderstood what's going on with those 2 things?

Garrett DelphYeah. They're part of our Fast Solutions Playbook. And so P3 stands for 3 words that I believe are core to every business. It's an agnostic term that any domain in any business likely face, maybe with the exception of Tesla, because I think they're 100% bots now. But P3 stands for people, process, and performance. And so, in all businesses, typically you have people that you have to hire to advance your business. And those people typically have some sort of process or processes they need to follow to move the business forward. And then those processes ultimately culminate in a performance bucket in varying degrees. And that performance creates the outcome for the business. So that is P3. And the idea is you attack those in sequential order in the beginning, where you set a foundation of caring for people. And I do mean that in the most standard definition of the term caring. So you want to demonstrate to the people when you hire them, Hey, we've built a business here that actually cares for you, supports you, respects you in a whole host of different ways. You'll get an employee handbook that will manage your expectations about what employment here is and looks like, about what your vacation pay does and how you apply for a leave. And all of these different things will give— if you're a leader in the business, meaning you're in charge of teams or people, We have a leadership playbook, and you're going to see how we make decisions around here and how that affects how you lead and what you manage. We, as a business, we care for you because we've built a career path for you. And so, when you join the company, you'll be able to see the kind of trajectory you could create and/or earn through these milestones. that we've demonstrated to you. We have a succession plan, right? So when people leave, which they will, we've built a method by which when somebody has to step into a role that just departed, they're not going to be left high and dry, which actually parlays into Relay, by the way. So there's like 18 of these caring for people milestones that we have. And when we work with businesses, you can kind of just We can pick and choose, or we can pull them all down and work on them all. But once you care for the people, then what you do is you set them up for success by architecting varying degrees of process, which supports kind of what we talked about earlier in the show when we started. And you give those very clear instructions and guidelines and rails so people are set up to succeed. And again, I want to disclaim, by the way, that we have a decision-making matrix that we use. And, you know, at the top of that matrix typically is strategy, and that's where you have the most autonomy and decision-making freedom. Often up there you are free of process because you get paid to think in more, you know, flexible terms. And then the lower down the org chart you go to the, you know, classic technician status is where A lot of rules and guidelines are critical path for output. And then ultimately, once you have all these rails in place, now you're set up for success. And now that success has to be managed or that performance has to be managed. And so, we build frameworks around managing that performance and creating accountability structures to ensure that what you planned for with the people And what you built for them to do actually gets carried out in a qualitative manner and can be objectively measured. We know there's the law of entropy where everything that is orderly wants to go and move towards disorder. This is very classic in business. And so I teach our founders and CEOs always, you have to be mindful of this principle. It will happen, which is why we need to architect accountability structure so it doesn't happen to you.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Garrett DelphAnd then you don't have to deal with all the fallout and the pain. And going back to what we talked about earlier, Al, this stuff is, you know, if you think about it, it's, it's pretty straightforward. Like, it really is straightforward. But most businesses are so close to their insides, and they're so focused on revenue and getting sales and moving fast that It's normal. We and they forget about these basic principles that hold the business together.

Al ElliottSo you mentioned something about Tesla before and you made a joke about, oh, well, it wouldn't work because they're bots. But then I am curious, is there maybe a type of business or an industry where this stuff won't work?

Garrett DelphYes. 2-part answer. Number one, whoever's at the head who handle or handles procurement and is responsible for greenlighting the engagement, they must acknowledge that they have pain that is harming the business and they want to do something about it. So I always like to disclose that, you know. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, not vice versa. Next, at least for what I do, people need to be the primary resource that fuels your business of success. Even in the wake of our future of AI and robotics, I tend to be an optimist, and I tend to think that Just like the Industrial Revolution, which freaked people out then, we're not going to have jobs anymore. I think we're just going to see a revolution of how people do work. I'm sure there are going to be businesses or business domains that are so automated, they're a 2-person business doing hundreds of millions in revenue because they have figured out how to architect their AI agents internally, and they have 1,000 of them. And they're all working in harmony because you had a couple of founders that were so freaking smart, they understood how to build these agents out, right? But I think that's probably a long ways away in terms of that being a standard thing, if ever. So I would go back to, if you have a business where hiring great people is part of your mission, And then setting those people up for success because you need them to achieve your vision in business, then these principles apply.

Leanne ElliottBusinesses often misunderstand culture and treat it as completely separate from operations, but in reality, they are deeply intertwined. A strong culture really does depend on how operations empowers people to thrive, and it does that by aligning processes and strategies with the needs of the team. The good news is though that there's actually only 7 things you can do as a business leader to build an amazing workplace culture where your people and your business thrive, and they're related to the 7 Rs in our RX7 model. If you want to hear more about that, go to oblong.com and it's all there. Um, but we tend to talk about the sexy ones, and not just us, I think other practitioners are guilty of this as well. We talk about things like reason, about how having a clear vision and values that resonate with your people is really important. We talk a lot about recognition, awesome benefits that support financial, psychological well-being, health, career development, all that type of stuff. Or resilience— what can we do to build that individual and collective strength? But the truth is, there are actually a couple that are really, really important and are often overlooked, and they're role and resources. So really quickly, roles are about giving your people clarity. Clearly defined responsibilities and an understanding of how they contribute to your mission are so important. Without this, chaos creeps in. And Garrett provided a brilliant example of this by focusing roles on specific tasks rather than expecting people to juggle multiple, often conflicting responsibilities, businesses can empower employees to work with greater focus and efficiency. And this attention to focus rather than attention splitting demonstrates how a clearly defined role directly impacts morale and productivity. Resources, on the other hand, is about providing your people with the tools, training, and manageable workload— workloads that they need to succeed. So Garrett's example of load balancing illustrates this beautifully. When you spread the workload effectively, employees employees can focus, thrive, and contribute meaningfully. It's not about squeezing every ounce of productivity out of your team. It's about creating an environment where they have the capacity and support to do their best work. The takeaway is really clear here: operations isn't just about systems and efficiency. It's about empowering your people. And when you get role and resources right, you create a foundation for positive engagement, high morale, and stronger business performance. So yeah, your culture audit or your employee engagement survey results should be feeding directly into your operational strategy. It is all part of the same ecosystem.

Al ElliottWell said, Leanne. Well said. Bravo. Definitely go and check out the RX7 model. It's the only, only 7 foundations that you're going to need to build an amazing workplace culture. Now, Garrett is basically my brother from another mother. We both love tech, we both love building brands, and we both love talking all things geek. So of course, no conversation between nerds is complete without asking about AI. I started by quizzing Garrett on the speed of change and how this can make things even more chaotic. Then we go on to talk about AI and automated AI agents. This is something I'm convinced will mainstream in 2025. We'll be talking more about that in our predictions episode towards Christmas. Could this result in huge job losses?

Leanne ElliottWell, let's rejoin the interview and see how Garrett handles these tough questions.

Al ElliottSo I read an article that where, where you think your dad said you should change your thinking every 5 years. I think you started the article off with, and I'm wondering now if we should be starting changing it every 6 months or something. Give me your thoughts on the AI agentic. Give me your thoughts. Tell me everything.

Garrett DelphWell, first of all, Al, dude, I really appreciate you bringing up my father's quote. I just love him. He was so inspirational to me. And yet, simultaneously, I'm reminded about what got us here won't get us there. And I actually think you're right. He was saying, plan to change your thinking every 5 years, but these days that has accelerated. And I'm with you. I think perhaps being in a constant state of mindfulness about how quickly things are changing. And when I say constant, I am suggesting maybe it's not every 6 months, maybe it's constantly.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Garrett DelphYou know, it's just part of the weekly, monthly rhythm. I was just listening to an interview by, by Elon, and he had forecasted that things were going to change at a 100x rate every year. He rescinded that and said, no, I think it's going to be more of a 10x.

Al ElliottHmm.

Garrett DelphBut even at 10x, that sort of exponential change, I don't even know how you keep up with that. But I think the best we could do is be mindful of it every day.

Al ElliottYeah, I think we had Moore's Law, didn't we, back in the '80s and '90s? I think we need to have a Delph's Law now, which will be something like, it changes every 30 days. Well, let's go back to this idea of AI. You've mentioned quite a few times the idea waste, which first of all is interesting to me as an entrepreneur because not many entrepreneurs think about waste. They think about how they can create something from nothing. But secondly, AI seems like the perfect solution to waste because for a fixed fee, you can get an agent to perform a task. Is this where we are going? You said it might not be for a while, but what's your thoughts?

Garrett DelphWaste or bloat is the result of doing something inefficiently, incorrectly, or having resources available that should be used, but they're not used at all. Will AI eliminate waste? Yes, if it's architected correctly. That said, garbage in, garbage out is what we know from software development. So if you have developers that are keen on efficiency and they're keen on the scope of work requirements for developing solutions with AI agents, then they will be hyper-efficient and they will win. I believe that, assuming they have product-market fit. But just the same, If developers, which are probably hired by and/or are the founders of an opportunity, if they are the classic entrepreneur and they're not obsessed with being lean and guarding their business from inefficiency and therefore focused on efficiency, then they'll fall into the same trap even with AI agents. They'll get sloppy. They'll look for shortcuts. They'll overlook the engine room of success like we talked about. And they'll just try to deliver something good enough and get it to market. And I think so, going back to, I think it's the human mindset that is the challenge here, not the tool. And when I say tool, that can be a process, that can be an AI agent, that can be a resource.

Al ElliottYeah.

Garrett DelphSo, I think it just goes back to, again, the human mindset and how we address or do not address efficiency.

Leanne ElliottClearly, Garrett has walked the walk, and through his company Clarity, he's helped countless organizations to reduce noise and create streamlined organizations. And if you've listened this far, you probably want that for your own organization. So, what's Garrett's advice for getting started?

Al ElliottWhat advice would you give someone who's listened to this entire thing and they want to implement all the things you've talked about?

Garrett DelphI would encourage maybe 2 high-level points. One is an agreed-upon approach to business that I learned from Andrew Carnegie and also from Berkshire Hathaway, and that is control your costs. Probably the best insurance you can make in your business from guarding your profits and getting into, you know, getting into the red. So establish cost controls, your, your business and your people, and you will thank yourself for it. The second is measure what you expect. So if you don't have the ability to measure the things you're trying to produce to ensure you produce what what the customer wants to pay you for, then you cannot manage it. You cannot manage it. And so, you know, just be mindful, you cannot manage what you cannot measure. So it behooves you to set up infrastructure in your business to measure all of your outcomes so that you can guarantee the results you promised.

Leanne ElliottThere you have it, a masterclass on operations. And hopefully now you understand why operations is a fundamental part of building an amazing workplace culture. It's not just about boring, boring processes. So, yeah, let's, uh, let's all give the COOs a round of applause, the operations directors who are working hard. Um, we salute you. And if you do need some help, uh, I highly recommend that you follow Garrett. Here is how to find him.

Garrett DelphI'm on LinkedIn, by the way. So, um, uh, all the, you know, recurring content that's being published there. Uh, and then on our site, if you go to clarityops.co, We have a, actually, I think a really great place to check out a downloadable PDF is our approach to discovery. And if anybody goes and downloads that, they can kind of see when we go into a business and do an audit and evaluate things that are missing or broken or being harmful or creating harm to the business and the people. It's a little checklist we go through, and people can take a look at that and just go like, what? So, what are you going to look at? What are you looking to help us with?

Leanne ElliottThat is us done for today, and I'm going to put Al to bed with a lamb sip. If you are sitting there thinking, damn, that was good, then first, thank you. Very kind of you. And also correct. It was pretty good today, actually. Second, remember, every Thursday we bring you another brilliant human with real stories about building amazing But if you're already missing us, then don't fret.

Al ElliottYou can join us next Tuesday for your weekly fix of workplace news, those spicy hot takes from our expert panel. They're getting spicier by the week. And of course, our famous world-famous— I still can't say it. I'll be saying it properly next week. Our world-famous weekly workplace surgery, where I put your deliciously messy questions to Leanne. She loves it, really.

Leanne ElliottI do. Until then, make sure you have subscribed to the show on whatever platform you get your podcasts. And if you really want to support us, consider posting on LinkedIn about how much you enjoyed this episode and how awesome Garrett is. Also check out the show notes, and my email address is in there along with loads of other stuff. Feel free to send me questions. I personally answer every single one eventually.

Al ElliottAnd if you do want your question to be read out and answered on the show, then use the subject Workplace Surgery or something like that, and we'll know that I can put it to Leanne over the next few weeks in the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery. Yes, I got it right!

Leanne ElliottHooray! Well done, love!

Al ElliottThank you very much. So listeners, keep being amazing, keep working at your culture. I promise you, you've got this.

Leanne ElliottThe little baby meme.

Al ElliottThe baby meme, which you can't— which doesn't work on audio. Anyway, say goodbye, Leanne.

Leanne ElliottGoodbye, Leanne.

Al ElliottBye-bye. And that means we are sitting down with someone who's been there, done that, and actually knows what they're talking about.

Leanne ElliottHey, that did sound like I wasn't talking about you.

Al ElliottI didn't mean that. I meant the Like, as opposed to some podcasts out there.

Leanne ElliottI was doing it, I had such an itchy nose, and I was like, don't twitch, don't twitch. I think that would be my version of torture, like a little feather.

Al ElliottAnyway, I think mine would be having my toenails ripped out with a pair of pliers.

Leanne ElliottCarry on.

Al ElliottFair.

Leanne ElliottIf you've listened this far, you've probably— you probably— if you have, fair dues. I'm bored of the sound of my own voice at this point.

Al ElliottFucking on fire today, aren't you?

Leanne ElliottReally?

Al ElliottI think probably because I'm comparing you with how you were the last time.

Leanne ElliottOh my God, I listened back to it and I wanted to cry for myself.

Al ElliottI know.

Leanne ElliottIt was painful.

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