Imagine a neurosurgeon cleaning out bedpans in the hospital ward, a general fighting in the trenches on the front lines of a war, or a football coach putting his boots on and helping his players out during a match. Each of these examples just doesn’t feel right for a variety of reasons.
The neurosurgeon saves lives with his skill. His hands are better deployed on a scalpel than on a chamber pot. The general is prized for his strategic mind and his ability to outwit his opposite number through how he deploys his troops and munitions on the battlefield. He can’t do this if he’s in harm’s way and spraying bullets at the enemy. The football coach’s job is to assemble a squad that is capable of playing according to his tactical approach and setting them up for success through providing a good environment and the proper training routines. If he winds up on the football field there’s a very good chance that he hasn’t been successful in any of this.
Similar to the football coach if you wind up doing other people’s work you’re probably guilty of hiring the wrong people, and not providing the level of training and preparation required.
The early part of my career was in financial services. My first boss was relaxed and was never flustered. He took his time to train new recruits well. He seemed to run the department by working his way through a number of daily reports. It looked easy – which it wasn’t – but he seemed to be under less pressure than his peers. He was in the office by 8am and was gone by 5pm on the dot. It was a good environment to work in and I learned heaps.
Later on I worked for a control freak who suffocated all of us through excessive attention and bullying. She needed her hands across everything because she felt that no one was able to operate to her standards. She was also a skinflint who didn’t invest in training. There was a particularly high turnover in her department. One day she disappeared without explanation. The leadership obviously sensed that something was wrong.
There’s nothing more comforting for a leader than having a team who are able to “take care of things” and carry out what they are asked. Having a team of competent and proactive managers reporting to you means that you can focus on what’s really important.
If your people are always looking for guidance and you are doing their work for them, it means that you haven’t trained them properly. In a remarkable interview with the Sunday Times in 2021, Jim Gavin, the former Dublin Gaelic football coach gave an insight into his approach which can be summarised by the following quote:
“In the last minute, or seven minutes into overtime, you’re a man down, a point down, and the five-in-a-row is on the line, they will default to the level you’ve trained them… If I’m roaring and shouting at a player to get into position on the field, that’s a reflection of how poorly they’ve been trained.”[1]
In 2019 Gavin’s team actually were a man and a point down, seven minutes into overtime when they scored a point in the last minute and forced the All-Ireland Final to a replay. They won the match the following week and cemented their legacy as the first team to win five All-Ireland Football Championships in a row. In his seven years at the helm Gavin was an inscrutable presence on the side line. He never lost his cool. His players were so well prepared that they always “took care of business” for him.
The only time Jim Gavin spent in the weeds was when he was a player – he was a member of the Dublin team that won the All-Ireland Football Final in 1995. Once he retired he never returned to them.
What happens now?
I coach SME leaders on how to build and grow high-performing businesses. If you’re stuck in the weeds and unable to escape let’s have a chat.
[1] The Sunday Times (28th November 2021)
