Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
What's going on, my friends?
Welcome back to the Ryan League Podcast, where we love to keep things short and sweet for you each and every week. We always want each episode to just add value to your life, leadership, relationships, and today is no exception. Today's episode is entitled Removing Irritant. removing irritants. There is a leadership principle that I think is so simple.
You're going to think to yourself, Ryan, everybody knows this, right? It feels like it's common sense. Here's what I've learned. Common sense is not all that common. And that leadership principle that we're going to talk about today does not require a rebrand. It does not require a capital campaign or a consultant. It requires a high level of awareness and a high level of
of you just being willing to care about really, really small things. And it's about removing irritants.
Chapter 2: How does Dr. Nido Qubein's leadership principle focus on removing irritants?
I learned it from a guy by the name of Dr. Nito Quibain. He is the president of High Point University, and he leads with this mantra of removing irritants. And it just might be one of the most practical leadership frameworks I've seen in action in a very, very long time.
And just to give you context for what's happening in the higher education space, data will tell you that when you begin to look at private nonprofit colleges in the United States, they're either closing their doors or hanging on by a thread. In fact, I went to a small Christian college.
And when I look up even the teams in colleges that I played against in college, I want to say last time I checked, there was 13 of them that no longer exist. Like they've completely shut down their doors. However, High Point University, ironically, has a waiting list of thousands. And the culture is absolutely remarkable.
I had an opportunity to visit their campus last year and was thoroughly impressed. And really, not just impressed with the campus, I was really impressed with Dr. Nito Cobain's leadership and had the opportunity with a small group of people to spend some time with him. And he just started sharing some stories about this consistent commitment to removing irritants.
He even told us a story about how it came to his attention that students kept leaving the campus on the weekend to go to an arcade. So he thought, well, let's build them one. Yeah, that's an inconvenience for them to have to leave the campus and figure out ways to get over there and catch rides. He goes, well, what if they could just go downstairs?
What if they could just walk out of their dorm room and have fun here? He removed and nears him. He also tells a story where he was standing in his office and his office overlooks the campus. And he saw a student going from one building to another. Now there was a sidewalk where they would kind of walk around the hill and go over to the next building.
But he noticed that students kept walking over the hill to get to the next building because it was the most natural path to get there. Until the next day, Dr. Cobain had pavers. Yeah, he had a construction crew out there making a way, paving a way to make it easier for students to get from one building to another. What's he doing? He's removing irritants.
He's asking the question, what's the most annoying thing that parents have to deal with? What's the most annoying thing that students have to deal with? And how can we remove those irritants? My friends, it's not a flashy idea. It's not a marketing campaign. What it is, is it's paying attention to friction and eliminating it. And most leaders, most people I would add, are wired to add.
Yeah, come up with more stuff, add more programming, more oversight, more initiatives, more structure. But I believe growth is often less about addition and more about subtraction. It's about asking a simple question. What is the most annoying thing that our people deal with every day and how can we remove it? And here's what you and I both know. Every single organization has irritants.
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Chapter 3: What examples illustrate the impact of removing irritants in higher education?
And when you call Nike, here's what happens. They say, thanks for calling. To make sure we're always on our game, we record our calls. One of our athletes will be right with you. What did you just say? One of your athletes will be right with me? Is LeBron coming on the call? Like, I'm not annoyed. I'm inspired. What is about to happen?
Somebody in that organization is asking the question, hey, man, what's up? What's annoying to people? And how can we make it better? How can we remove an irritant for these people? I mean, the reality is it doesn't matter what the friction is in your organization. It's going to compound in some way, shape, or form. But so does relief. Relief also compounds.
Yeah, when an irritant is removed, guess what happens? People talk about it. Think about this even in your own personal life. Most of the stress that you have doesn't come from one giant catastrophic event. It comes from what? Small, reoccurring annoyances. Lost keys, a bill you forgot to pay. the login that never works. I can't remember my passwords to save my life.
It's even, even when the password saves, like this password no longer, you're like, but I saved it. And how come it's not like, it's just, it's like, what's happening? Clutter that slowly takes over your desk. None of it's dramatic, but a low key just drains energy. So I think this idea of removing irritant, while it's not glamorous, I do think it's transformational.
I mean, you just, I mean, obviously you think about your job. Just what would it look like for you to just shorten meetings and give people their time back? Like how many meetings have we had that were 60 minutes that could have been 20? How many three-hour meetings have we had that could have been an email? Like, remove the irritant.
I mean, you just think about approval processes and what we would call corporate red tape. Like, what if you just remove the irritant and made the approval process just a little more simple? I mean, going back to your personal life, I mean, you just think about removing irritants there, like, If it's lost keys, what if you just picked a place, created a space for those precious keys?
Or you set up auto pay for your bills so you're not consistently surprised. Oh, wait, what? That bill's due? It's like, no, it's due every month. Or you might be annoyed getting ready to go to the gym, might struggle to go to the gym at all. But what if you just, I don't know, prepped your gym bag before bed? So the morning's a little bit smoother. Or maybe you meal prep on the weekend.
So weeknights are just a little less chaotic. I think sometimes, especially when you think about like your romantic relationships. You know, one of the most loving things you can do is remove a small reoccurring frustration. Like sometimes the best gift you can give somebody you love is even like a little bit of a better system.
Like as a leader, you know, you start thinking about, man, how am I going to remove irritants from my people? Like sometimes it's not even giving them a bigger bonus. It's just giving them a better system. Like what I love about this removing irritants idea is that like irritants communicate something. Like students leaving a campus. Well, that communicates desire.
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