Big Things Have Small Beginnings: Learn to Play the Great Game

by Wes Berry

I offer a word of caution here about some people in a supervisory role. There are managers who want to be surrounded by inadequate individuals. The worst ones will even try to chase away competent people because they are trying to protect their own turf.

At the same time, Rowan-type employees want a strong leader as their manager or supervisor. To be sure, that’s one of the reasons managers with strong leadership skills are always getting the job done. They attract and keep Rowan-type individuals in their department. Rowans don’t like working with people who are not competent. They get aggravated by it! They quit and go someplace else to work! And, quite frankly, who can blame them?

Personally, I only want people who are smarter than me working for me. Why? Because if they are not smarter than me, then I’m not gaining anything by involving them in my business.

Rowans, by their very nature, are always willing to take on more and more assignments. As much as that is certainly desirable on the surface, it can also raise a little yellow flag. You have to be cautious of burnout. To put it another way, you as a manager almost have to protect them from themselves.

For that reason, one of the things I always tell the people that are in these key positions is, unless I’m asking them specifically to respond right away, or that it’s urgent, I don’t expect them to even read any of my emails they receive after business hours. I always tell them that I’m just putting it at the top of your queue for when you get into work next.

You can’t put people in charge of supervising others in a project if, in fact, they themselves haven’t yet acquired the skills required for the completion of that project. They’ll very much want to meet the deadline you have set, but they’ll be significantly tethered if you haven’t given them the time to get up to speed on the skill requirements of the task. That seemingly minor omission can easily turn against the whole enterprise.