Rule 5: Be Who You Are, not what you do

Ground Rules – Rule 5

Your Strength Is Who You Are, But Be Careful of Your Own Expertise
Don’t Search for Nails, Find People Who Need A Hammer
Be Careful of The Expertise of Others, But Make Sure You Regularly Bring in Outside Knowledge
Own Your Brand

Shaping who you are

Here is a novel thought: You can always gain skills through training and hiring additional talent, but the foundation of who you should remain constant.

Your brand is your culture, tenets, rules, and knowledge. That should shape not only how you bring your strength to a solution but what skills and abilities you choose to highlight.

As an example, the American Red Cross are about hot chocolate and blankets in time of need. That is who they are. They also happen to be a phenomenal distributed logistics company, but that is merely how they achieve their mission of brining compassion and relief to times of disaster.

Rule 5 Balance.png

How you choose to solve problems should mesh with who you are more than what you do. Skills, budget, resources, and technology can all be acquired. Your culture, tenets, rules, and knowledge are how you look at a problem.

Leveraging Others

Your time is a finite asset. I would argue that your time is a non-replenishable capital that you should protect and invest carefully.

Can someone else do portions of what you do? If so, outsource what you know best. This may seem counterintuitive but outsourcing what you know best allows you to pay a fair value for what you receive. Many think you should outsource what you know best because you can “check up on it” easier. Again, I refer to the finite asset of your time. If you are hiring a professional to do something, why would you then double invest by spending your own time overseeing the work.

When I am approached by a new manager or someone who wants to manage others, I ask them, “How long can you hold your breath and cover your ears?” At first you receive a puzzled look. Then you explain that managing and leading others is a test of your ability to delegate a task to someone else and then trust that they will complete it “Good Enough.” The better you control the investment of your time, removing yourself from the critical path, the more opportunity you create for others to grow.

But be humble and know when to ask for help. When a task is beyond your ability, weigh the cost of learning and mastering that skill against paying someone else to complete the task. What is the likelihood that the task will arise again? What is the shelf life of the solution?

What is your brand?

What are you passionate about?
Who is your competition and how do they sell themselves?
If you were your competition, how would you sell against you?

Chances are, you have some pretty strong answers to the above questions. Chances are that if you asked a colleague, they would have slightly different answers. If you asked a competitor about you, they would have different answers yet.

The Mission and Vision of your organization should be written down. How you measure your impact on achieving the Vision should be guiding measures for your organization. Failing to document this will lead to a considerable amount of wasted effort, confusion, and mistrust in your ranks.

What is your Mission?

I bet that simple question has caused arguments in your organization. I am not talking about what the actual mission is, but what the difference between a mission and vision are. For me, I look at the definitions this way:

Vision – What does done look like? What is the perfect world?
Mission – How do you help accomplish this world? What makes you unique and different?

If you want, you can print out the above two sentences, laminate it, and affix it to the wall of the conference room. If you make it look nice enough, you will have people think that these definitions must be set in stone. Worst case, you end the argument before it starts.

Heads down work versus Heads up value

One last thing to help you with your brand, is your value the heads-down work you can accomplish or the heads-up value that you can bring.

Heads-down work is what is accomplished based upon the task assigned. Consider this the deliverables called out in the work product being produced.
Heads-up value is the advice, understanding, and context by which you execute the heads-down work.

Most organizations pay a premium price for the heads-up partner. Also, most organizations look to pay commodity pricing for the heads-down work.

Putting it all together

I have found that driving change must start by understanding who you are. If you do not invest the time into driving and documenting what you stand for, you are likely going to spend significant time and money chasing many flights of fancy.

This will also help you decide which problems you should tackle, which solutions better align with your cultural norms, how to prioritize the work you take on, and how each resource rallies in support of the key initiatives in your organization. And remember, keep the 5 Rules mindset and it will reinforce who you are.

Talk in terms of the impact, not the solution
Seriously consider doing nothing, that is always the starting state
Be careful about taking too small a step, the end state needs to be perceived as reachable
Evaluate what others have done in the face of this problem