Adam Larson: 00:05

Welcome back to Count Me In. Today, we're sitting down with a special guest, Nicholas Kopp, the founder and CEO of Relayt, to tackle the challenge of unproductivity in the workplace. In a conversation rich with actionable advice, Nick sheds light on recognizing unproductive patterns, conducting effective operational audits, and embracing technology for efficiency. Tune in to discover Nick's strategies for streamlining your workflow and fostering a culture of productivity that resonates in any business setting. Don't miss this insightful episode that could transform your work life right here, right now, on Count Me In.

Adam Larson: 00:45

Well, Nick, I'm really excited to have you on the Count Me In podcast today. And we're going to be focusing a lot of different things. But one of the main things that as you and I were chatting about was unproductiveness, especially when you're starting a business, you're getting into business. And maybe we can start by talking about some common signs that indicate that your business is kind of stuck in an unproductive routine.

Nicolas Kopp: 01:04

Yeah. Great to be here. Excited to chat, Adam. So there's a few signs. Obviously, it depends a little bit on the size of your company and a team as well.

Nicolas Kopp: 01:12

One indicator that I always found helpful was purely measuring so by the very operational level, how many meetings are being held. And it's it's an obvious one, but it really efficient teams can actually run on fairly loose daily sort of interactions when basically, on an as needed basis. If there's too many meetings to coordinate things or I've been in organizations where we had meetings about meetings that have been had. That's always a bit of a sign that if things are running unproductively, there's obviously multiple reasons for that to happen. But that's one sort of big red flag that's also easy to spot basically on people's calendar.

Adam Larson: 01:49

Mhmm. It really is because, you know, you try to schedule a meeting with somebody, and you look in their whole day is schedule of things. You know, like, how do you get anything done, and how how do you get out of that rut?

Nicolas Kopp: 01:59

Yep. Exactly. And then it's funny also to see then, like, essentially productive or well ex like, highly functioning, well executing teams get things done very quickly. Right? That's one of the parameters.

Nicolas Kopp: 02:11

Obviously, the quality needs to be high too, but get done get things done very quickly. And it's just a simple sort of math. If something only can get resolved with a meeting 4 or 5 days down the line, you just, by nature, lost the whole week of of something could have gotten done within 24 hours, and that makes you 5 times slower

Adam Larson: 02:27

Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 02:27

By default. So, obviously, that's a simplistic example, but, it's it's really a tell tell sign, if there's just too many meetings at calendars.

Adam Larson: 02:34

For sure. So let's say somebody's listening to the beginning of this conversation. They're like, oh, wait. I have a lot of meetings. And and one thing that when you and I were talking about is something like a process audit.

Adam Larson: 02:44

And not a lot of times people hear the word audit, they think, oh, no. Taxes or or or things like that. But, you know, a process audit of your daily operations is something I've heard you mentioned before. Maybe we could talk a little bit about that.

Nicolas Kopp: 02:54

Yeah. And I've done this myself, and I've seen many of my colleagues and teammates have done this very successfully is simply audit where you're spending your time. And that can span either within sort of what you consider work hours or sometimes it's also interesting if you actually encompass, like, you know, on the topic of work life blending and, maybe not the traditional work life balance type of view on things, it's as as things blend, like, really audit your full day where you're including maybe how long you sleep. And then probably most interestingly, within the sort of these most productive work hours, take a look, obviously, where you're spending your meetings. That's very obvious because that's already in the calendar.

Nicolas Kopp: 03:28

And then what I see, for example, just very recently, one of my colleagues do is, she would go in in the calendar and add slots for every conversation she's had, for every action she's taken. Mhmm. Obviously, not as small as, like, I wrote an email or, like, a a Slack message, but, like, I spend 15 minutes talking about this topic because that person had a question. I spent 45 minutes reconciling a balance sheet item, like, because there were was a question by a customer or something I had to run to ground. So long story short, like, what what then happens, you basically have a week, for example, worth of blocks where you have it in meetings as well as where you spend your time, and you only need to do it, frankly, for 1 week, maybe 2, just to get a bit of a more representative data, but it's not that much effort.

Nicolas Kopp: 04:08

And you have a very accurate picture of where you're spending time. And that sometimes can be quite jarring, actually, And from then on, again, once you have the data, you can we're all, like, sort of finance folks are all, like, data minded people, so we can all then make decisions on how to how to change for there.

Adam Larson: 04:22

Mhmm. So what what what would be what would be that first step? You you've done your audit. You look at it. You're like, okay.

Adam Larson: 04:27

I need less meetings. I need to do this. I need to do that. But what's that first step that you can take to kind of make that change? Because you may do the audit, and it may be good for a couple weeks, but it's probably easy to fall back into your old routines as well.

Nicolas Kopp: 04:38

A 100%. And it can also be while I I again, it's actually quite straightforward that the audit itself may already sound like, oh, that's that's a bit of work. It's quite easy to do if you do it, like, in real time after you've done something. So

Adam Larson: 04:49

Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 04:49

That's a good starting point. But then after you've done the analysis of where you're spending your time, the often default reaction or our rational selves would say, like, okay. Where is the highest ROI, basically, of of of where should I go, like, tackle a problem? And what I sometimes find that's obviously one way of doing it and probably the rational thing to do. We're all humans and sometimes connect not fully rationally.

Nicolas Kopp: 05:09

And what I'll actually like to do is, like, almost what is the smallest, not ROI, but the smallest investment on my side to start making changes.

Adam Larson: 05:16

Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 05:16

And where am I naturally drawn to? And that can be as simple as what is a good example. For example, for me so so, we I a lot of my job revolves around communication and messaging, and I do a lot of my emails or used to do a lot, like, just in throughout the day. And it's just like and you just get torn apart by, like, an email here and email there, and you're jumping back and forth. And that was a very easy change for me to make to maybe switch off my inbox or notifications for just 2 hours a day.

Nicolas Kopp: 05:43

And during that time, I could then do other things and kinda go get back to my emails and 2 hours later. Mhmm. So, and and the point of that example is, like, the action I had to take was actually only, like, search for my notification box and switch that off as an example. Maybe maybe not the highest ROI of all tasks I could be doing, but at least I'm making change. And so I wanna just encourage people to think over the mindset of, like, where is it easiest to start?

Nicolas Kopp: 06:06

Because little progress over time also compounds versus always going for the biggest ticket items.

Adam Larson: 06:11

That makes sense because a lot of times when you're doing some sort of an audit or you're looking you're looking at things, you always want to tackle the biggest one first because it seems like the lowest hanging fruit. But then in reality, it's a lot of other small items that become the big fruit and that impact you greater. But it's hard to see that when you're looking at everything.

Nicolas Kopp: 06:28

Yep. Exactly.

Adam Larson: 06:30

Now are there instances where you've been able to utilize technology or new technology to kind of help with your daily routine and help get things out there? Because a lot of times people see technologies, and they say it seems like a good idea, but actually implementing it is a whole another seems daunting at times.

Nicolas Kopp: 06:45

Yep. Sure. And there's like, we get bombarded by, like, new tools, new apps. And so for me and it depends a little bit on the role that I think people have and at their state, what what technology is really applicable. And maybe one thing so one thing that all of us do is email.

Nicolas Kopp: 07:01

And so harping on that point a little bit because communication is just a part, important part of all of our lives. So I am, I am not trying to. We we share common investors, but, like, I I don't have any special affiliation with that company. But I, I started using Superhuman, which is an email client Mhmm. On top of other email clients, and it's literally just a skin on top of whatever email client you use with better UX UI.

Nicolas Kopp: 07:24

And that helped me personally as as maybe a very specific tip. If you're probably sending more than 10 to 20 emails a day, it's which probably most of us do. And I should say maybe we say externally facing emails too. Like, if it's just internal, it's maybe a little different. It's a really helpful tool because it just the UX UI is just the cleanest I've seen over an email client.

Nicolas Kopp: 07:42

It's all shortcut enabled, and you can sift through your emails very quickly. And then the other thing and some folks like to organize their to do lists on actual pieces of paper to do lists or digital version of it. Mhmm. Some people like to organize to do lists with calendars, calendar blocks, and things like that. I'm in the camp of that last camp, which I think a fair few people fall into where I like my organize my to do list through email.

Nicolas Kopp: 08:01

Mhmm. So, basically, I have tasks as emails, basically, and, Superhuman is an excellent app. If you think like that, if your task list is essentially your inbox, it makes it really effective. And it I don't know. It's hard for me to quantify, but I can't go back to Gmail and and the old clients after having used that tool.

Nicolas Kopp: 08:17

So that's one very specific one. I can talk about more if that's interesting, but I'm sharing that.

Adam Larson: 08:21

Yeah, that that is really interesting because it's a practical application. I people may not have heard of that before. I haven't heard of it before. But it's something I'm probably I already Googled while you're talking about it because I wanna look at I wanna read about it later. But it's things like that that I don't think everybody's aware that there are that new technology can is just another tool to help you do your job better.

Nicolas Kopp: 08:40

Yep.

Adam Larson: 08:41

And I think we get overwhelmed by technology because it might be new, it might be foreign, and you're you're not sure exactly what it looks like. But it's taking that risk of saying, hey, I'm gonna try this and see if it can be a better tool for me. But it's hard.

Nicolas Kopp: 08:52

Yep. It is definitely hard. And there's there's and the risk is like, it's also had like, for me personally, I'm I'm not sure how other folks feel. But for me personally, it's very much, it's, the learning curve. That's a little daunting.

Adam Larson: 09:04

Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 09:05

Because as simple as the tools are, there's always a are, there's always a little bit there's a process change that comes with it. Like, you used to do something like a 100 times a day a certain way, and then now you do it you need to do it differently. Mhmm. And then you kinda don't know if it pays off or you need to undo all the work that you've done. So I've personally even though I run a a software company and and should theoretically be at the force forefront of all technology out there all the time, I've been pretty selective in terms of tools that I implement that Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 09:29

Have been socially vetted. And then when I do, I go all in on them and and really try to make Yeah. The the most use of them. And that's sort of yeah. I'm not necessarily jumping on every shiny new object.

Nicolas Kopp: 09:38

I usually am probably in the mid curve of of of adoption, of all users out there.

Adam Larson: 09:43

Yeah. Well, and sometimes you want other people to use it first and work at all the kinks before you try it as well.

Nicolas Kopp: 09:48

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Adam Larson: 09:49

But it you know, you're a leader of a or of a of a technology company, and you're doing all these things to you're creating a culture to, you know, have a productive day. How do you share that with your the people under you to make sure that you're creating that culture within your organization? Because not everybody thinks the same way. Not everybody processes things the same way. So how do you create help that culture?

Nicolas Kopp: 10:07

Yeah. Great question. So I so we try internally, we try to have again, obvious statement that everybody would say, but we really try to minimize meetings. But I think the way we do it slightly differently, we're really aggressive at it. So if you look at people's calendars, there's always external meetings.

Nicolas Kopp: 10:23

So with customer meetings, prospect meetings, partner meetings. So that part is a little harder to control, but even there, you can bulk it up into slots so you they doesn't get shot up across. And then internal meetings, I'm super proud that we run extremely lean. So we have in the teams, usually, they have one touch point per day.

Adam Larson: 10:40

Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 10:40

So we're very tightly aligned in that sense, but a touch point is like timebox to, like, 10 minutes. Sometimes it goes to 12, but it's literally we're we're doing minutes. We're not doing, like, blocks of, like, you know, half an hour of, like, so forth. Like, it's literally timebox to minutes. So everybody has the second to, like, for I don't know.

Nicolas Kopp: 10:58

That's 30, 45 seconds of speaking time Mhmm. For 1 person in a specific team to align on certain things and, like, share out what they're doing. So we're we have that common touch point, and then the rest of the day consists of, in terms of internal meeting, usually ad hoc meetings and Huddl's Mhmm. And, like, quick type of things. And so what that brings in terms of culture into the team, everybody has a fair bit of freedom to create their own work rhythm style of, like, how they get stuff done, and they're not, like, blocked by, like, corporate or or or, like, team culture and structure of, like, certain, like, meetings or ways of doing things.

Nicolas Kopp: 11:32

And that in itself enables everybody else to kind of pursue their own paths a little bit because I do appreciate everybody slightly different.

Adam Larson: 11:38

Yeah. I like that. You know, because you can't think that everybody fits in the same box. You know, like, a lot of the complain about traditional Western, you know, education is is everybody has to sit it the the the the classroom looks exactly the same it did 60, 70 years ago, and there's not any any evolution there. And so I'm a big proponent of everybody kinda thinks differently.

Adam Larson: 11:56

So I think it's a really great that you're you're allowing people that space saying, hey. This is what we're doing, but you have that space to kind of figure out your own way in it.

Nicolas Kopp: 12:03

Yep. Exactly. And, and all the communication kind of then around that Mhmm. Happens ad hoc and on people's own schedules. And, you know, 2 people may collaborate.

Nicolas Kopp: 12:10

The way they collaborate is different than with other 2 people. So that just gives them enough freedom and space to to go Mhmm. Live that that own style.

Adam Larson: 12:17

Yeah. And I wonder how would you apply that in, like, a more traditional corporate, you know. So sometimes there's more freedom in certain office areas. Everybody's sitting in cubicles. It's harder to kind of have that atmosphere.

Adam Larson: 12:27

What advice would you give somebody who's in that kind of, you know, cubicle kind of space and they're trying to trying to create a different culture? How what what advice would you give to them?

Nicolas Kopp: 12:35

Yeah. It is a good question. So I do think there is a so culture does come from the top slash, like, by the company often. So as much as I I I'm I'm gonna get to smaller tips shortly. But as Of course.

Nicolas Kopp: 12:49

If you really feel hamstrung by sort of your surroundings, I I'm not encouraging people to to to I guess, sir, I am. But, like, and, like, I think it it's very much a fundamental question of that you can already sauce out anything through a process, frankly, of how people operate and work. So Mhmm. There's a bit of, like, I think be realistic in terms of if you like the job for other reasons, be realistic in terms of how much change you can affect if it's really dictated by sort of the web. And I've been in these organizations where you just have people around you and this is the way things get done.

Nicolas Kopp: 13:14

It's really hard to change as an individual. Mhmm. Then if you kinda click one level down into the circle of what you can influence because that's we should always focus on. But for more drastic actions, I usually try to create, I guess, on the same mantra in these situations where I was in where maybe corporate culture was not quite aligned with how I used to operate and didn't quite have that freedom to to make the changes and improvements that I wanted to do, I just carved out within what I really could influence. Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 13:37

So maybe I'm a manager of a team. I may have 5 to 10 layers above me, but, like, I can still within a team of maybe 3 or 4 people that I have. I can create a certain culture, like, various people are not watching you non stop. Like, so you can kinda create within the guardrails of the company certain either rituals as a team that you can also figure out together. If you have like minded people, maybe hire people like you that don't wanna work in similar fashions.

Nicolas Kopp: 13:58

So just I guess within that subgroup or thing that you can influence, work with individuals around you. And if we talk about hard, like, cubicle space or physical office space, that's a little harder, frankly, to do. You can, I used to always make sure my no matter how sterile or, like, that my surrounding was, like, I always try to make it somewhat a little homely with my own I wouldn't bring pictures, but, like, I'd like just my own, like, things that I liked? The things were arranged, like, a silly thing, but I used to I think by now, you can actually do that. Maybe there's apps for that, but you can change your background colors in the on I'm a Windows user.

Nicolas Kopp: 14:32

I'm the finest person. I guess I can still say that even though it probably makes you feel a little outdated. But, like, sort of as a Windows user, you can change your background colors of your machine. Mhmm. So it it's better for, like, late night work and so forth when you or when you do Excel modeling, things like that.

Nicolas Kopp: 14:45

So there is things also within even if you can't control the hard physical surroundings, you can at least make on your machine, make yourself as comfortable as screen positions and everything else

Adam Larson: 14:53

Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 14:54

So you can kind of do your best work and and feel as as much as home as you can.

Adam Larson: 14:58

I like that. I like that. When one of my first jobs, I had a a colleague who sat across from me, and we would bounce a bouncy ball in between calls to to people just to pass the time. You know, you can't have that thing. You see, you find those ways to connect with people and to make it more homely.

Adam Larson: 15:12

Like you said, it makes you more comfortable.

Nicolas Kopp: 15:14

Yep. Yep. Now that's amazing. Actually, that and that that trick is a thought too is, like, you're not, like, chained by your desk. Right?

Nicolas Kopp: 15:19

You go outside. I used to go with my colleagues. We used to go out for walks around the building. We had our little routes or, like, I don't know. Is it the coffee shop you like nearby, or or something?

Nicolas Kopp: 15:27

That's always fun too. Just you kind of break out a little bit

Adam Larson: 15:29

Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 15:30

Of that daily routine.

Adam Larson: 15:31

Yeah. I like that. And I think all of those things that we've been talking about, kind of going back to what we started with saying that unproductive routine, If you're doing those little things and those little changes, it kinda helps break you out of the the routine that you were there in. And if you're happier, if you feel more comfortable, that helps the productivity as well.

Nicolas Kopp: 15:47

A A 100%. A 100%.

Adam Larson: 15:49

So within your organization, you know, you're a technology company. What are some more practical solutions that people can do to kind of get out of monotony and and move forward? And and and having practical application and hearing your your how you use it is always helpful.

Nicolas Kopp: 16:02

Yeah. So we talked a little bit about how we just give people a lot of space to actually kinda do work as much as on their own terms as much as possible. We in terms of how we operate, yes, we're a hybrid company. So we have offices, or sort of like local headquarters, but also work, very much, remotely, for some individuals. And so in terms of tooling, it's we use like many tech companies, we use, what we'll call Slack that sort of has become like almost a water cooler type situation.

Nicolas Kopp: 16:30

Okay. And I've seen it as companies go to really large scales. It's it's too much, basically. So I think there there is some optimum at which you pass it. But, like, probably until maybe 500 to a 1000 people, it can really be helpful where you have different channels on different topics and people basically exchange thoughts there, and so forth.

Nicolas Kopp: 16:46

So that's something that's basically became our sort of mini town square, basically, of of Relay. So that's a that that's an important one, to just stay closely aligned on things. And then another one and as part of that, actually, is all I should mention is we have a team culture, and that's maybe folks can implement that in their teams as well or even as they're working is it's very much written, a culture of written communication. And the writing itself and there's many studies on on this and and and no PowerPoint decks at Amazon and stuff like so I I don't wanna necessarily take it that direction. It's more like very practically short term.

Nicolas Kopp: 17:17

If people can clearly articulate their thoughts in a few bullet points, we usually have don't write novels or essays. It's very bullet pointed and, like, to the point, but fully formed thoughts. That usually helps us to make them in in communication on meetings and stuff a lot more efficient. So that goes a little bit in line with Slack. There's a lot of decisions that actually happen for us on Slack.

Nicolas Kopp: 17:35

Mhmm. And people are just forced to write their concise thoughts. And if it's not clear, then people ask and and and and so forth. So that's one very practical one. So forcing people a little bit from that verbal diarrhea of, like, just meetings to discuss things to actually, like, what is my question?

Nicolas Kopp: 17:48

What do I need from these 3 people to go do my work Mhmm. Is great. And and one one little litmus test there that I liked that I had from one of my previous teams, He was one of my mentors. He said, like, the shorter your response to a message can be, basically, the higher quality that initial message was. So if you get a Slack message or email Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 18:06

And ideally, you can just respond with like and ideally then someone suggests a solution, a either we do a, b, or c. If the response to that can just be literally one letter a, that was a good question by that person initially that asked it. So Mhmm. It's obviously not as black and white always, but, like, we try to be really so it's really easy for your audience to answer is usually a good sign of a well thought out message, that you send.

Adam Larson: 18:26

Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 18:26

So that's one thing. And then the other thing that has really helped us is, we record all our meetings. Okay. Obviously, 1 on 1 meetings, we don't. Even these to an extent if it's, like, not sensitive or, like, a a more sort of people related topics.

Nicolas Kopp: 18:38

But all sales calls, all customer success calls, all internal, like, discussions on technical architecture and everything else is recorded. And then that helps people stay on top of things, so not everybody needs to be at all meetings to get the information. And very interestingly, for me, personally, for example, I can all watch all these calls on 1.75 or 2 x, which literally reduces 30 minute meeting into 15 minutes.

Adam Larson: 19:00

Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 19:00

And you can still absorb the content usually unless people speak very fast at these rates, and you can always go back and so forth. But it literally reduces meeting time in half, and you have more or less the same social context and how people interacted and everything.

Adam Larson: 19:11

Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 19:11

So that's something that's helped me just watching these calls on on Twix. Yeah. Whatever. I want wanna know something.

Adam Larson: 19:17

It's interesting as I'm hearing you talk about that because I've been part of different cultures where it's like, you have meetings about the meeting, and then you have another meeting about the meeting, and it just feels like a constant waste of time. And when you're switching from that to kind of more efficient things, like, I don't use Slack, but I've logged into Slack and for, like, this for a learning thing that I was connected with. And the amount of messages coming at the same time, I could see how overwhelming that can be. Yep. You know, how do you go from, you know, meeting meetings about meetings about meetings to efficient Slack?

Adam Larson: 19:45

Like, how do you bridge that gap? Maybe we can talk a little about bridging that gap because not everybody can go all the way to Slack or not everybody can be as efficient as we were just talking about. Yep. But, you know, what are some ways to kind of bridge those bridge those 2 together?

Nicolas Kopp: 19:56

And it's a great question, and I think you're absolutely right. At some point, this sort of, like, efficient organization, quote unquote, keeps in the other direction. It's all messages, all signals, and you don't know what actually Yeah. Is noise. So think through what is actually best here.

Nicolas Kopp: 20:10

So on the one hand side, I think one needs to just kinda remember if they're transitioning themselves or Mhmm. Anybody else or their team through that process is we're all humans at the end of the day, and humans have certain preferences. And and the way we operate is just again, it it's diverse in in a good way. And so I think as people transition or implement certain new again, implementing Slack may be a little harder because it's a messaging tool for the whole company. Of course.

Nicolas Kopp: 20:32

But, like, if you're if you just wanna start recording your videos in your team, like, it's maybe a low hanging fruit one, It is really I think you start with certain examples. You let people know that, okay. We wanna try this out. And ideally, you frame it. If you're the manager of the team, you you frame it even in like, okay.

Nicolas Kopp: 20:46

I've been thinking about okay. It's a new year 24. I've been thinking about how to how to make us all run a bit more efficiently and whatever the objectives are of the company or the individuals to tie it back to that. Mhmm. Then subtext of that is, as a first thought, I was thinking of introducing that we record some of our videos so people can watch and not everybody needs to attend every meeting.

Nicolas Kopp: 21:04

I've been selecting, don't know, these 3 type of meetings that would lend itself most to this. And let's try it there and see how it works. That's sort of the framing I would put on where people, a, you give people the reason as to again, we're all human. We kinda wanna know kinda why certain things are happening and in what context is are things going on. So they can also subscribe to that and help further that sort of narrative and initiative.

Nicolas Kopp: 21:23

But, also, they feel very much bought into the journey and realize it's a test, and then you can basically raise your hand. I would literally when we change something in our own internal process, I would literally then survey people either on the spot, like, literally put people on the spot. So it's it's really becomes a team effort. Mhmm. Or then we can send anonymized surveys afterwards to really that people feel like this is a test.

Nicolas Kopp: 21:41

I'm part of that test. I can contribute, help shape it, and usually the results then get 20% better with everybody's input. And then it but it the process has also helped further the buy in into the process. So and not just rip out the process fully and just bulldoze it in on the other side and and change it. So Yeah.

Nicolas Kopp: 21:54

It's really, I guess, a long winded way of saying is, like, steady, slow progress with maximum buy in and and genuine buy in. Like, you actually wanna hear from your team or you wanna work with your colleagues so that transition goes smoothly, is is critical, so that that human element of it.

Adam Larson: 22:07

Mhmm. No. I I think that's really great advice because you can't you can't just say, okay. We're not doing this to we're not doing this today anymore. We're switching to this.

Adam Larson: 22:15

And then people are like, wait. What? You need a transition time.

Nicolas Kopp: 22:18

Yeah. Exactly. And give give them a feeling that they have a say in it, too. I think that's really important.

Adam Larson: 22:24

Yeah. Because sometimes I notice, like, I'll be invited to a meeting or I'll see somebody else in a meeting, and they may say one thing the whole meeting because their input was needed toward the end. And so going to the what you were saying Yep. You could have recorded that meeting

Nicolas Kopp: 22:35

Yep.

Adam Larson: 22:36

And then say, hey, so and so. We had this meeting. You know, take a look at this recording. Here's the question we have for you. Yep.

Adam Larson: 22:41

And they can watch the meeting to get context and get you back a question, you know, half hour later or whatever after they've had a chance to review it. Yep. But it finding more efficient ways to connect with people and not necessarily having to make them come to every single meeting.

Nicolas Kopp: 22:53

Yep. A 100%. That that's so impactful. And it really adds up. So if you do the math on no matter how big your team size is, like, if you just add up these half an hour blocks, like, by default, our meetings are all half an hours.

Nicolas Kopp: 23:03

Like, if you think about even that is crazy, I think you could actually do maybe a default 15 minute meeting and then go up from there. Mhmm. But, like, a a lot of calendars by default schedule half an hour meeting. Some of them are even an hour. If you just multiply the amount of people and cost for an individual meeting Mhmm.

Nicolas Kopp: 23:16

It's it it racks up quickly, and it's really actually nice to see if you start being more efficient. You literally save days

Adam Larson: 23:22

Yeah.

Nicolas Kopp: 23:22

Of days of of of individual, people's time.

Adam Larson: 23:24

I mean, one thing I started doing in Outlook, I put my default to 25 minutes. Yep. And there's never an hour, and it's like and my hour meetings are 50 minutes. So I'm like, if we can't get this done in 50 minutes That's awesome. We can't do that.

Adam Larson: 23:35

But it it gives people first of all, you need breaks between meetings. You can't just go from meeting to meeting to meeting. But also, it's like, you don't want to give that feeling of, hey, you're gonna be here for a whole half hour, and then you have another meeting starting at the next next hour. It's terrible. You know, you gotta give those the balance.

Adam Larson: 23:49

And I it for me, it's helped me mentally just saying, oh, I have a small break between this meeting.

Nicolas Kopp: 23:53

Yep. 100%. 100%.

Adam Larson: 23:55

So, you know, as we wrap up the conversation, you know, I want people to walk away from this conversation with some what are some tangible things that they can take away? And, you know, they've listened to everything that you said. They've you've shared your experience.

Nicolas Kopp: 24:04

But what are some tangible things that they can walk away

Adam Larson: 24:04

from this conversation saying, hey, I can work on this today? Yeah. Tangible things they can walk away from this conversation saying, hey. I can work on this today.

Nicolas Kopp: 24:09

Yeah. Great question. I'd say there's 2 things that we can maybe leave leave the audience with. Number 1, try to really you can do all the counter audits and, like, the the rational analysis of, like, what needs to change and why and where the biggest impact is, but be a little bit led by your heart and gut as well and sort of go with path of least resistance in a good way, like, of, like, just the where do I have the most passion to make a change? What is maybe easiest for me to make a change now versus a change tomorrow?

Nicolas Kopp: 24:34

And really be, like, somewhat irrational to making rational changes at times just to get started and get in the habit. I think that's one very tangible things where, again, progress small progress today is better than slightly bigger progress tomorrow. Mhmm. In finance term, think about the discount value basically over your actions, to to today's time. And then the second thing that I wanna just emphasize is we talk about technology as this, like again, it's gonna help us.

Nicolas Kopp: 24:58

AI is obviously a huge buzzword, these days as well, and there's very tangible improvements that are coming out of that area of of technological development. And, again, there's a lot of tools out there, a lot of apps that get thrown at us. Just let's not forget the human psychology and human nature and all these changes. And, again Mhmm. Help people through these changes.

Nicolas Kopp: 25:15

Be aware of everything at the end of the day is driven by human sort of wants, needs, incentives, whatever it may be. So I think that part is really, really important as people implement certain, like, technological tools or think about certain change, like, that human process. If you factor that human psychology in, you'll be a lot more successful, achieving these goals of technological transformation.

Adam Larson: 25:35

Well, Nick, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We really appreciate you sharing your knowledge with our audience today.

Nicolas Kopp: 25:39

Thank you, Adam. Thanks for having me.

Announcer: 25:43

This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org