Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goalajving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellovaledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven point eighty one. Today's episode is called
Speaker 2: Tools Employees hate using and every workplace has them. That
Speaker 2: software program everyone complains about, the reporting system that takes
Speaker 2: six clicks to complete one task. The scheduling app that crashes,
Speaker 2: the customer relationship management platform that requires employees to enter
Speaker 2: the same information three different times. The equipment that works
Speaker 2: only when you hold it a certain way. Leadership often
Speaker 2: looks at these things as operational inconveniences, and employees experience
Speaker 2: them very differently. To an employee, a bad tool is
Speaker 2: something they wrestle with dozens of times every day. It
Speaker 2: slowly chips away at motivation, It creates frustration. It wastes
Speaker 2: energy that could have been spent serving customers, solving problems,
Speaker 2: or even helping teammates. And here's the mistake many leaders
Speaker 2: make when employees complain about a tool. Leaders here complaining.
Speaker 2: What employees are actually saying is something much bigger. They're saying,
Speaker 2: you're making my job harder than it needs to be.
Speaker 2: Think about that for a second. Leadership exists to remove barriers,
Speaker 2: not accidentally create them. One of the biggest disconnects between
Speaker 2: executives and frontline employees is exc exposure. The farther you
Speaker 2: move up in leadership, the less time you spend using
Speaker 2: the tools your employees rely on every hour, and eventually
Speaker 2: you stop seeing the friction. You approve software because it
Speaker 2: saves money. You approve policies because they make reporting easier.
Speaker 2: You purchase equipment because it looked impressive during the demonstration.
Speaker 2: Six months later, your employees are living with those decisions
Speaker 2: every single shift. And here's something that I've learned in EMS.
Speaker 2: If you hand a paramedic equipment that is difficult to
Speaker 2: operate during an emergency, that frustration doesn't appear during the emergency.
Speaker 2: It begins during training. Every awkward button, every confusing menu,
Speaker 2: every unnecessary step, Those frustrations accumulate long before someone calls
Speaker 2: nine to one one. The same thing happens inside every organization.
Speaker 2: Technology should remove work, it should not become the work.
Speaker 2: And I've watched organizations spend millions of dollars implementing software
Speaker 2: that nobody wanted. Training sessions become damage control. Employees create
Speaker 2: unofficial shortcuts, sticky notes appear on computer monitors explaining the workarounds,
Speaker 2: and veteran employees spend half their day teaching new employees
Speaker 2: how to trick the software into working correctly. That's not efficiency,
Speaker 2: that's organizational survival. And here's an exercise. Every leader should try.
Speaker 2: Spend one full day doing your employees' jobs exactly the
Speaker 2: way they do them. No executive shortcuts, no administrator permissions.
Speaker 2: Use the same software, fill out the same forms, use
Speaker 2: the same equipment, answer the same phone, and you'll discover
Speaker 2: things no survey will ever reveal. You may find that
Speaker 2: a process you believe took five minutes actually takes twenty.
Speaker 2: You may discover employees have invented their own systems because
Speaker 2: yours don't work. And you may realize that your highest
Speaker 2: performers are not more productive because they're smarter, they're more
Speaker 2: productive because they figured out how to navigate broken systems.
Speaker 2: That's a leadership problem. And one question I love asking
Speaker 2: employees is this, if you could eliminate one piece of equipment,
Speaker 2: one form, one software program, or one process tomorrow morning,
Speaker 2: what would it be. Pay attention to how quickly they
Speaker 2: answer that question. Many people don't hesitate. They've been carrying
Speaker 2: that frustration for months, sometimes even years. And here's where
Speaker 2: leadership earns credibility. Don't defend the tool. Investigate the problem.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the tool isn't broken, the training is. Times the
Speaker 2: software isn't bad, the workflow around it is. Sometimes nobody
Speaker 2: has challenged the process in ten years because everyone assumed
Speaker 2: that's simply how it's done. Leadership isn't about protecting yesterday's decisions.
Speaker 2: It's about improving tomorrow's experience. And there is another hidden cost.
Speaker 2: Bad tools increase turnover. People rarely quit because of software alone.
Speaker 2: They quit because every day feels unnecessarily difficult. Imagine driving
Speaker 2: a car with square tires. Eventually you stop complaining. You
Speaker 2: simply just become exhausted. The same thing happens at work.
Speaker 2: Every inefficient process quietly drains enthusiasm, and eventually people stop
Speaker 2: suggesting improvements, they stop raising concerns, they stop believing anything
Speaker 2: will change, and then they leave. And leaders often ask,
Speaker 2: why didn't anyone tell me? They did? They mentioned it
Speaker 2: during meetings, they joked about it in the break room.
Speaker 2: They rolled their eyes every time the system froze. Those
Speaker 2: weren't jokes, Those were warning signs. One of the smartest
Speaker 2: investments any leader can make isn't another motivational speaker. It
Speaker 2: isn't another team building exercise. It isn't another inspirational poster.
Speaker 2: It's just making work easier. Remove one unnecessary click, Simplify
Speaker 2: one approval process, replace one outdated piece of equipment, eliminate
Speaker 2: one pointless report. Small leadership improvements compound every single day.
Speaker 2: That's leadership, because every minute you give back to your
Speaker 2: employees becomes time they can invest somewhere that actually matters.
Speaker 2: The goal isn't flashy technology. The goal is invisible technology.
Speaker 2: The best tools should disappear into the work people stop
Speaker 2: talking about them because they're focused on serving customers, caring
Speaker 2: for patients, building products, or helping teammates. That's exactly where
Speaker 2: their attention belongs. So here's today's leadership challenge. Walk through
Speaker 2: your organization this week and ask one simple question, what
Speaker 2: tool do you hate using the most? And then stay
Speaker 2: quiet listen carefully. You may discover that fixing one frustrating
Speaker 2: tool improves morale more than ten motivational speeches ever could
Speaker 2: that's leadership, that's influence, and that's how great organizations quietly
Speaker 2: become great places to work. So before we wrap up
Speaker 2: for today, I want you to just remember this. Employees
Speaker 2: don't judge leadership only by this beaches you give or
Speaker 2: the vision that you share. They judge leadership by the
Speaker 2: experience you create. Every single day. Every frustrating system, every
Speaker 2: outdated process, and every unnecessary obstacle sends a message. Make
Speaker 2: sure your messages were making your job easier, not harder.
Speaker 2: This has been the seven minute Leadership Podcast, and I
Speaker 2: thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.