I’m so glad 2008 is over. It was a difficult and stressful year—perhaps the most difficult of my short 10-year professional career. “Never again,” I’ve been telling myself in hopes of avoiding a repeat year. So I’m going to be dedicating a few posts over the next few days (or weeks) discussing some of the important things that really hit home during my difficult year. Obviously, I’m no management guru or anything and a lot of what I’m going to talk about aren’t new concepts or breakthroughs. These are topics that became startling clear to me based on real incidents and situations. These are lessons I’m going to stick in my backpocket and carry with me for the rest of my career. Here we go.
Lesson 1: Work With the Best
I know that’s a tired cliché, but it is your absolute best chance to succeed and it stuck with me as a meme for 2008. Surround yourself with the best possible people for the job. Sure, there are really great managers who can turn mediocre or below average talent into a phenomenally productive and efficient team. But truth be told, I’m not a great manager. In fact, I’m a really crappy manager.
In order to be effective at almost anything, you must know your limitations. Sometimes your weakest skill can become your strongest asset if you use it to your advantage. For instance, I know I can’t manage more than four people. I’ve learned that over the years, so when I have the opportunity to control the size of my team, I take advantage of my weakness and use it to trim my team to a small, smart and manageable group of people.
What criteria do I use when selecting my team?
First and most importantly, I immediately disqualify people who have a history of causing unnecessary drama, regardless of talent. I can mentor and improve talent, but I cannot fix personalities. Drama and office politics are poisonous and are best avoided up front.
Secondly, I look at work ethic. I want hard-working, dedicated and loyal people working with me. Much of my time is spent in theory, so I don’t need a team full of hands-off-sit-and-theorize-all-day kind of people. I need fearless roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-dirty kind of people. Those are the people who get things done. I want to surround myself with people who will go to battle with me when necessary. And by battle I mean dedication to solving problems, no matter how long it takes. Last year I spent quite a few late nights and 24+ hour days (which, ironically, is also a lesson learned) with my teammates to get things done.
Thirdly, I want problem solvers. Troubleshooting is a skill and those who do it best typically also have the expertise I need to get new things done. I’ve seen teams waste months coming up with workarounds for problems—or worse, just living with the problem—that I was able to solve once I took the simple steps to understand the problem.
Finally, get rid of employees you cannot trust. They will rip apart your team or organization from the inside out and tarnish your reputation as a manager or leader. You cannot have people undermining your authority by running around to other business units and corroborating behind your back to push their personal agendas. Sometimes these people think they have the best of intentions, but they don’t. They think they are martyrs or revolutionaries trying to save the company by trying to eliminate people or prove points. They are nothing but trouble. Get rid of them and spare your team, yourself and the organization. Fortunately, this was not a problem with a member of my team, but one of my peers in my department. Ugh.
