Get Out of the Way and Let the Best People Drive

Business leaders, especially CEO’s, are often reluctant to relinquish having a a direct involvement in all tasks for their business.  Rather than fall back on  micromanagement, the most successful and productive companies are ones where business leaders can allocate the right work to the right people.    

In order to find the right task for the right person, it’s important to identify 4 components of each individual team member’s abilities.   

*The four components to abilities are broken down as:  

• Unique abilities - those tasks which almost no one else in the company can do, and the employee truly excels
• Very good - tasks which are performed at a consistently high level
• Good - tasks which are performed at an acceptable level
• Not a strength - tasks that are not the most productive use of the employee’s time

(*loosely based on Dan Sullivan's approach)

Identifying where a employee excels and attempting to structure his or her responsibilities according to strengths is not only of benefit to the employee but to the whole organization.  Ideally, a 10%, 50-60%, 20%, 10% breakdown between the four quadrants promotes individual job satisfaction and ensures that tasks are allocated to the best internal resources.    

This exercise frees up the executive to make the biggest impact and increase  company productivity by allowing people to play to strengths and reach full potential.

“The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work.” 

- agha hasan abedi