Hey Reader,
Last week I wrote about my ten days off the grid. What I didn't tell you is the reason I could go at all, and that reason is why this week's email exists.
My Operations Manager, Kendra, kept everything running while I was gone. She handled things I didn't know needed handling, and she did them better than I could have done them myself. That's why I could be fully present out there, and it's the same reason I can be fully present with clients when we're in the room together.
That's what the right person in the right seat gives you. The work doesn't just get done. The right work gets done exceptionally well, often better than if you'd done it yourself.
We reach for excuses before definitions.
When a seat on your team isn't working, it's easy to justify it. I've done it myself. The person is still growing into the role. Good talent is hard to find. And what if you can't find someone as good as the person you already have?
That last one is scarcity talking. I hear it in nearly every leadership team I work with. Every one of those reasons traces back to a question you haven't answered yet: what does great look like in this role?
The answer is entirely yours to write, and you can write it this week.
A week into the war, great fit in one sentence.
Sunday morning, December 14, 1941, one week after Pearl Harbor. George Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, briefed a 51-year-old officer most of the country had never heard of. Then he asked one question that Dwight Eisenhower later recorded in Crusade in Europe: "What should be our general line of action?"
Eisenhower asked for a few hours and came back with the hard part first. The Philippines couldn't be saved in time, so do everything possible anyway, and start building Australia as the base. Marshall agreed.
Not long after, Marshall told Eisenhower what the job actually required. The department was full of able men who analyzed their problems well, then brought every one of them to Marshall for the final answer. As Eisenhower later recalled it, Marshall put it this way: "I must have assistants who will solve their own problems and tell me later what they have done."
That's a definition of great, and it fits into one sentence what anyone in the seat could measure themselves against. Marshall didn't settle for able. He named exceptional and said it out loud.
You can probably describe the person in your seat in great detail. The harder work is describing the person the seat needs.
Defining great isn't the ceiling.
It's the floor. Once you've written it down, go hire to it, because the extra dollars you spend for the best person are pennies next to what the wrong person in the seat costs you.
And if you have that definition and your people aren't meeting it yet, you don't have to replace anyone tomorrow. You raise the bar, set the expectation, coach and train, and give them a real shot at stepping up to it. You owe your people that, you owe your company that, and you owe yourself that, too.
Try this before Friday: pick one role on your team and write down what great looks like by answering three questions.
- How would the ideal person in this seat behave?
- What results could they create if they were here today?
- What is it costing you not to have that person right now?
If you can't answer the first two in a sentence each, the person in the seat isn't your problem yet. Your definition is.
dusty
P.S. If you're the person in the seat who handles what nobody knew needed handling, thank you. Your work makes a material difference.
P.P.S. This is the work we do in Vision to Victory. Raise your bar, and your team rises as well. Cohort 5 starts October 20, and only a few seats are left. If you're interested, reply with your phone number and the best time to reach you this week. I'll call, and we'll see together whether it's a good fit.