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When you as their leader or manager clearly articulate the seat (including roles, responsibilities, expectations, and measurables) and present that opportunity, you have created an opening. One of two things will happen as a result: Either they will step up and take charge, or they never will.
“Get it” simply means that they truly understand their role, the culture, the systems, the pace, and how the job comes together.
Find someone who does want it, and the difference will be immediately apparent.
Capacity means having the time as well as the mental, physical, and emotional capacity to do a job
This is the Peter Principle at its finest, where people are elevated to a level of incompetence.
You can have one name in two seats, just not two names in one seat.
When the amount of work requires more than 100 percent to do the job well, say 120 percent, something has to give. This person needs to delegate and elevate the extra 20 percent because he or she is holding the organization back and hitting the ceiling.
When your direct report walks into your office with a problem, he or she is trying to leave his or her monkey with you. At the end of the day, after multiple people have walked into your office with their problems and left them with you, you end up with 20 monkeys
If someone walks in with a monkey, he or she needs to walk out with it. If he or she can’t or won’t, you’ve hired the wrong person.
You must do a little pruning from time to time for the organization to flourish. Merely hoping that poorly fitting people will make it, sending them to a seminar, or giving them a pep talk is like overwatering the plant. It isn’t going to solve the problem. Once you do the necessary pruning, your organization will be revitalized.
Other employees thanked him for making the tough decision. He experienced all that pain for a year, when in hindsight he could have experienced only 36 hours of pain, probably for both parties.
If you want to grow, you have to understand that not everyone is going to be able to keep up and remain in the same seat forever. 2. Keeping people around just because you like them is destructive. You’re doing a disservice to the company, to everyone in it, and to the person. People must add value.
Please ask these three questions with your leadership team: 1. Is this the right structure to get us to the next level? 2. Are all of the right people in the right seats? 3. Does everyone have enough time to do the job well?
or in what direction, and I don’t know how much fuel we have left. The good news is that we’re making great time!” Does that sound at all familiar? That’s how most entrepreneurs run their organizations. They’re flying blind with no data to let them gauge where they are, where they are going, or if they are heading in the right direction. But they always remain optimistic.
help you formulate and manage your data to let you take the pulse of your business consistently and accurately so that you can then take effective action. You will no longer be managing assumptions, subjective opinions, emotions, and egos.
In addition, you will reach the point where everyone in your organization has a number, a meaningful, manageable measurable. This will give them clear direction and increase productivity.
According to an old business maxim, anything that is measured and watched is improved.
most organizations don’t have a Scorecard. They lack activity-based numbers to review on a regular basis. They might rely on a P&L (profit and loss statement) to tell them the score, but by then it’s too late to make corrections. A profit and loss statement is a trailing indicator. Its data comes after the fact, and you can’t change the past. With a Scorecard, however, you can change the future.
Rudolph Giuliani says in a chapter aptly titled “Everyone’s Accountable, All of the Time”
Giuliani says it enabled local precinct commanders to see patterns and trends, and then to react and deploy officers where necessary. In the past, the NYPD had merely tracked the number of arrests and the response times to 911 calls, but these are trailing indicators. By the time these numbers were received, quarterly or even annually, the pattern of crime would have changed.
thus gain the ability to prevent crime rather than just report it.
In my first business, I was able to manage the entire company using 14 numbers. How many numbers you need to track depends on the type of business you have.
What are all of the numbers that must be on that piece of paper?
who is accountable for each of the numbers. Only one person is ultimately accountable for each,
Decide and fill in what the expected goal is for the week in each category.
Your leadership team will become more proactive at solving problems because you’ll have hard data that not only points out current problems but also predicts future ones.
In order to solve a problem, you must know the source
What gets measured gets done.
Accountability begins with clear expectations,
Wrong people in the wrong seats usually resist measurables. Right people in the right seats love clarity. Knowing the numbers they need to hit, they enjoy being part of a culture where all are held accountable.
esprit de corps
What gets watched improves.
end-result based number that shows up after it’s too late to change it.
you’re creating a transparent organization where there is nowhere to hide. Your company is open and honest. Any obstacles that stand in the way of achieving your vision will be apparent. Your job is to now remove these barriers and solve the issues holding you back.
the discipline to face and solve your organization’s issues as they arise. When the vision is clear, the people are in place, and you’re managing data, you will inevitably find out what’s holding you back.
Successful companies solve their issues. They don’t let them linger for weeks, months, and years at a time. Problems are like mushrooms: When it’s dark and rainy, they multiply. Under bright light, they diminish. In an organization where there is nowhere to hide, the problems are easily illuminated.
Napoleon Bonaparte said, “Nothing is more difficult and therefore more precious than to be able to decide.”
Your ability to succeed is in direct proportion to your ability to solve your problems.
several hundred millionaires revealed that every one of them had the habit of reaching decisions promptly and changing them slowly.
“It is less important what you decide than it is that you decide.” More is lost by indecision than by wrong decisions.
You should not be solving departmental issues. These will typically be more strategic in nature. If it can be solved at a departmental level, push it down. Leadership issues include things as diverse as company Rocks being off track, a bad number in the Scorecard, key employee issues, major client difficulties, and process- and system-related problems.
In addition, when you take them in order of priority, a few issues will fall off the list because they turn out to be symptoms of the real issue you solved.
Clearly identify the real issue, because the stated problem is rarely the real one. The underlying issue is always a few layers down. Most of the time, the stated problem is a symptom of the real issue, so you must find the root of the matter.
there are three types of issues. One is a true problem that has to be solved. The second is information that needs to be communicated and agreed to by the team. The third is an idea or opportunity that needs feedback, brainstorming, insight, and/or a green light from the team.
You should have healthy conflict and let the best solution come to light, even if it causes you some pain.
If the tangent is a real issue, but not relevant to the current one being discussed, put it on the Issues List and get to it in order of priority.
one of the owners finally stepped up as the integrator and started to make the tough decisions.
You must have strong will, have firm resolve, and be willing to make the tough decision.
millionaires made decisions quickly and changed them slowly. Remember, it’s less important what you decide than it is that you decide
You cannot solve an issue involving multiple people without all the parties present. If the issue at hand involves more than the people in the room, schedule a time when everyone can attend.
