Alright, let me tell you about my experience with this whole “Brady Leonard” situation. It’s one of those things you look back on and just kinda shake your head, you know?
The Brady Leonard Arrival
So, this guy, Brady Leonard, he came into our company. They brought him in as some kind of expert, supposed to shake things up, make us more efficient. That was the pitch, anyway. He had this whole system, this grand plan he’d cooked up. We all had to sit through these long meetings where he’d go on and on about it. Lots of fancy charts and buzzwords. I remember just trying to keep my eyes open through most of it.
Then, the “fun” part started: we actually had to try and use his ideas. He wanted us to change how we did, well, pretty much everything. From how we handled our daily tasks to how we reported progress. It was a massive shift, and honestly, nobody really got it at first. It felt like we were all just stumbling around in the dark.
Trying to Make Sense of It
My first step was just to get a handle on what Brady actually wanted. I spent a lot of time rereading his notes, his presentations. I even cornered him a few times after meetings to ask questions. Problem was, his answers were often as confusing as his initial plan. It was like he was speaking a different language sometimes.
So, I figured, okay, I gotta break this down. I took one small part of our usual work, something I knew inside and out. Then I tried to apply Brady’s new method to just that one thing. It was slow going. I’d try it one way, hit a wall. Try it another way, still not quite right. It felt like I was trying to force a square peg into a round hole, over and over.
I also started talking to my teammates a lot. “Hey, what do you make of this part?” or “How are you trying to do that other thing Brady mentioned?” We were all in the same boat, pretty much. Sharing our frustrations actually helped a bit. We realized we weren’t crazy; the plan itself was just… a lot.
The “Adapt and Overcome” Phase
What I ended up doing was this:
- I listed out all the core tasks we absolutely had to get done. No fancy stuff, just the essentials.
- Then, I looked at Brady’s system and picked out the bits that actually seemed usable, or at least not totally insane. Some of his ideas, if you squinted hard enough, had a tiny grain of sense to them.
- I started to create my own hybrid process. A little bit of the old way, a little bit of Brady’s new way, and a whole lot of common sense to glue it all together.
- I documented everything I was doing. Not for Brady, but for myself and my team. So we could have some kind of consistent approach, even if it wasn’t exactly what he’d envisioned.
It was a slog, man. Lots of late nights, lots of staring at my screen wondering what on earth I was supposed to do next. There were days I just wanted to throw my hands up. But we had to get the work done, right? So, we kept chipping away at it.
What Came Out of It
In the end, we didn’t really implement the “Brady Leonard” system as he designed it. Not even close. What we ended up with was something that worked for us. We took the few useful nuggets, adapted them, and quietly ignored the rest. Brady eventually moved on to his next gig, probably to confuse another bunch of people.
Looking back, the whole Brady Leonard episode taught me a few things. You gotta trust your gut and your team’s experience. Sometimes these outside “experts” don’t know your reality. And when things get chaotic, just breaking it down into the smallest possible steps and tackling them one by one is usually the best way to muddle through. It wasn’t pretty, but we got there. That’s my Brady Leonard story for you.
