SADmin

There's a concept from Buddhist psychology Peter Weiss uses with every client: the two arrows. The first arrow is anything that hits you — an email, a request, bad news. The reaction is automatic. You can't stop it. The second arrow is your choice. What you do with the reaction. Whether you fire back, say yes to something you shouldn't, or spiral — that's on you. Most people don't know there are two arrows. They just take both hits and move on.

When the news went 24 hours, it stopped being news and became entertainment — because you can't fill that much airtime with signal. Something similar has happened inside our organizations. We have more dashboards, more real-time data, and more reporting than ever. And somehow, fewer clear answers. This episode is about why.

Most automation doesn’t fail because the tools are bad. It fails because companies automate before they understand the business objective—and before they do the boring, foundational work that makes automation possible. The fastest wins aren’t usually robots. They’re often the obvious fixes the frontline has been asking for all along.

When Six Sigma meets slide decks, the math stops working. Manufacturing aims for three defects per million; knowledge work hides a million invisible defects behind one perfect presentation. In this episode of Process Debt, Chris and Toby unpack why “good enough” varies by context, how to decide which processes need rigor, and how novelty and personality often disguise systemic inconsistency. Not every task needs five sigma, but every team needs to know where precision actuall

Organizations rarely die from one bad system. They bleed from dozens of forgotten ones. Define the job, assign an owner, and ship one Fix-It Friday win every week until the zombies starve.

When management becomes a PowerPoint competition, clarity loses. In this episode, Chris explores how constant presentation changes, shifting formats, and “pretty deck syndrome” create invisible process debt, the kind that burns time, erodes focus, and kills adoption. The solution? Standardize before you strategize.

New year, same inbox hydra. Admin isn’t the villain, it’s admin without an outcome. This year, turn (S)ADministrative work into rituals with receipts: shorter meetings, clear owners, faster drafts, and decisions that actually move work forward. If it doesn’t change a decision, it’s just process debt.

Elon vs. bureaucracy: we unpack Musk’s 5-step playbook, remove dumb process, delete steps, simplify, accelerate, automate, and why it collides with U.S. government.