Why Another Podcast

“Face for radio.” That’s what I was told. Which, of course, I took as encouragement. So here we are, pushing record on a five-minute podcast that will occasionally run nine. The premise is simple: on the walk from the car to the office, pick one real problem, say something useful (or at least funny), and get on with the day.

Why five minutes in a world of marathon episodes? Because constraints sharpen thinking. Also because my mom promised to listen as long as we had at least three other listeners. Ambitions are high; expectations are…properly managed.

The idea behind this whole thing started when I grabbed a domain: Process Debt. Folks lit up when they heard it. They know the feeling—doing things that make no sense because “that’s how we’ve always done it.” Corporate folks feel it. Consultants live it. Finance, ops, product, projects: different zip codes, same traffic. We get wrapped around the axle and call it progress.

Here’s the hook: we talk a lot about tech debt. Make a messy decision early, kick the can, pay interest forever. But tech debt is just one species. Process debt shows up everywhere—how we hire, meet, decide, hand off work, and even how we rest. In my 50s, I can see it in my runs, my sleep, my diet, my relationships. Easy now, hard later. Or hard now, easier later. Either way, you pay.

Case in point from my own training. I bought the watch. The strap. The apps. All the metrics. Then Google calmly told me: “Lose ten pounds, drop two minutes in the 5K.” Ouch. Gear is nice, but gravity is undefeated. Businesses fall for the same trick. We buy dashboards, add KPIs, and wire in another “premium” integration. Meanwhile, the obvious fix—fewer handoffs, tighter rituals, clearer ownership—sits there like a dusty treadmill.

So here’s the turn: work only scales if it’s discoverable and transferable. If I can’t find it, I can’t use it. If I can’t transfer it, I can’t multiply it. That’s why dev teams get paid—code ships, spreads, compounds. But in most orgs, the highest-value knowledge is trapped in a brain, a chat thread, or a “quick call.” Then we wonder why the machine stalls when one person’s out sick.

What does that look like in practice?

• Make the work discoverable. Decisions live where people look (not in DM purgatory). Name things. Tag things. Put the “why” next to the “what.”

• Make the work transferable. Turn heroics into habits. If a step only lives with one person, that’s not process—that’s luck.

• Shift from tools to rituals. Tools help, but rituals change outcomes. Think prescriptive → ritual → report: write down the steps, do them the same way for a while, review what happened. Tweak. Repeat.

• Trade metrics for momentum. Yes, measure. But prioritize the moves that obviously reduce friction: fewer approvals, clearer definitions of “done,” standard handoffs. Lose the organizational “weight” before you buy a fancier “watch.”

We’ll keep this tight, imperfect, and real. Some episodes will sing, some will stumble; all will aim to convert wheel-spinning into forward motion. If nothing else, we’ll give you language for the itch you already feel at work—and a nudge toward one small fix this week.

Process Debt Truth: Most teams don’t need more dashboards; they need their work to be easy to find and effortless to pass along.