The second newsletter I wrote - just a couple of months ago, though it feels like a lifetime - was about the $10 Trillion Shadow Budget. I think I’ve gotten a better grip on my voice since then - and on my math as well.
Still a good piece if you want a primer on the actual global cost of disengagement and how this relates to the lived experiences of your team day to day. But, I actually want to take a beat here to transparently talk about how I kind of missed the mark when I first launched the “Misalignment Calculator” in that article.
I won’t detail all my backend algorithmic math, but I started by asking leaders to provide just three pieces of information:
Their team size
Their level
Their spin factor (or how much time was being wasted per week)
Some quick calculations on the backend and I could estimate for you the total cost per year and the hours of capacity being lost. An excellent start for a business case to actually dive in and fix these misalignment issues.
But when I test drove this with one leader they dropped a bit of a bomb on me: “how on earth do I estimate my spin factor?”
Great question. And I immediately had to rethink the tool. If you sneak over the Lab’s home on knickmeyer.net you can get a sneak preview of where I landed. But stay tuned for next week. I’m gonna go deep on how I came up with the newer version and share details about how the algorithm works. I promise the math won’t be too scary.
Stay cool out there,
Ray
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This week’s cat photo. Because we can all use a little warmth in our lives right?
Archie in action.