Image By 天曉得。 Flickr
The New M.B.A.
Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, wanted to take a vacation.
He needed a replacement bell ringer but the only one who showed up at the top of the bell tower was a man without any hands.
“How can you expect to ring those heavy bells?” Asked Quasimodo.
“Easy” said the armless man “watch!” He ran full force at the bells smashing into them with his head and the bells swung back and forth.
“I don’t believe it” said Quasimodo “how long can you keep that up?”
“No problem” said the man “I’ll do it again, watch!”
And once more he ran full tilt into the bells, except that the bells were swinging out as he got there.
He missed the bells and fell twenty stories to his death.
Quasimodo painfully rushed down the winding stairs.
When he got to the street, a crowd had gathered around the smashed body.
A policeman asked “Does anybody know him?”
“I don’t know who he is” answered the Hunchback “but his face rings a bell.”
Learning To Let Go
I’ve studied management at University, worked in several management roles and also run my own business but I’ve always had the challenge of letting go of responsibility fearing that if I get someone to do something that they may not do a good enough job or that it may end up costing me too much money, so I’ve resisted for a long time but recently I’ve realised that in order to really make progress personally and professionally I need to figure out how to delegate and outsource properly.
So recently I’ve started reading Timothy Ferriss’ “The 4-Hour Work Week”. The 4-Hour Work Week introduces us to the concept of M.B.A. – Management By Absence, creating a business that we can step away from and remove oursleves out of, at least, the day to day operations. Another concept that Timothy introduces is the idea that most people don’t necessarily want to be millionaires but what they do want is the millionaire lifestyle – someone who earns $200,000 per year but has to work 80 hours per week is not necessarily better off than someone who makes $20,000 per year but only works a few hours a week, what really matters most is quality of life.
Some Common Issues And Their Possible Solutions
A scorpion asks a frog for help crossing a river.
Intimidated by the scorpion’s prominent stinger, the frog objects.
“Don’t be scared” the scorpion says “if something happens to you, I’ll drown.”
Moved by this logic, the frog puts the scorpion on his back and wades into the river.
Half way across, the scorpion stings the frog.
The dying frog croaks “How could you… You know you’ll drown?”
“It’s my nature” grasps the sinking scorpion.
Issue 1: Don’t base strategy on trying to change people – I’ve been involved in a few projects over the years where the key to success was based on changing the way in which people behave and the result has always been bad, you should never try to change people but instead figure out a way to work with and compliment their current work practices. The most successful technologies are the ones that are automated and work with you instead of making you change the way in which you behave.
Solution 1: Recruit superstars, people who already have the motivation and willingness to take action. Don’t rely solely on a resume because there are many people who can put together a great resume and who come across well during an interview but are not actually any good at doing the work. Give the applicants a task to do at the very beginning of the interview process. There will be four types of people – those who don’t do the task, those who complain, those who do the task poorly and those who do the task well – hire the ones who do the task well.
“To effectively communicate, we must realise that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.” – Anthony Robbins.
Issue 2: The majority of communication problems occur due to a difference in opinion, people only see what they want to see, so you can’t trust that someone else will look at an issue in the same way that you do. Everyone brings their own experience and history to a situation and that may differ greatly from yours.
Solution 2: Don’t just send someone a task and ask them to confirm whether or not they will do it or understand but instead ask them for a summary of the task that way you will know exactly what their perspective is, by summarising the task they are telling you exactly what they understand the task is about.
“Parkison’s Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for it’s completion.”
Issue 3: If you give people lots of time to do something they will likely slack off and wait until the very last minute to do it. Give people too much to do and they get overwhelmed, give people too little to do and they slack off. Trying to keep people motivated and productive can be quite difficult.
Solution 3: Implement 3 day deadlines, even if you have a project that is going to take 100 days to complete be sure to break it up into managable chunks. A 3 day deadline will keep them busy but not overwhelmed.
Hire People Who Are Better Than You Are
“Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it… Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.” – David Ogilvy.
The next day another man showed up, also without hands.
“That was my brother you saw yesterday” he said to Quasimodo.
“I’m better than he was.”
Again he rang the bells with his face but on the second attempt he also missed and fell to his death.
“Who’s this guy?” Asked the policeman.
“I don’t know” said Quasimodo “but he’s a dead ringer for his brother.”
Things won’t always go well but if you get started now in 5-10 years you will wake up and be surrounded by people who are competent, motivated and like minded. If you don’t then you will always be struggling to cope with your workload and working much harder than you really should be!
Timothy Ferriss’ “The 4-Hour Work Week” is a very interesting and practical book with lots of examples and resources to help you put these principles into practice, if you’re looking to take things to the next level and have a business that works for you instead of a business that you have to work for then I strongly recommended that you check it out!
One Comment
adelaide dj hire
on 20th Jan, 10 12:01am
this is a test, i have turned off the simple captcha plugin!