As you probably know, I am a bit of a sports nut. I love my soccer, swimming and sailing!… and lot’s of armchair sports too! Being a soccer and sailing coach too, is probably a good thing because I too can learn so much from how sports teams are structured, play and perform.
One of the keys to a great sports team is finding great players and putting them in the position they are best at. Would you recruit a superstar cricket bowler to bat? Or a fullback to play centre forward? Same goes for business …
So, are you really playing your best position? Are you investing 80% or more of your day, EVERY day doing the tasks you are best at, most passionate about, enjoy the most and can return the best ROI to your team and your business … ? Are you delegating the rest (remember our weekly tip 2 weeks ago… )
If you are the best at sales, then work out a way to keep doing sales. If you are not good at sales, find someone who is great at it to do it for you. Partner up with someone, hire someone, outsource it … Don’t claim to own every task.
Yes, it is best if we can do it all, but where do we get the greatest return?
Here’s the traditional view: “Let’s spend more time training people at the things they are weakest at and that way we can get the biggest improvement …”
Well, maybe, but maybe not …
Ten or so years ago, Tiger Woods was the 64th ranked player on the PGA tour for Sand Saves. That means he got out of the bunker and got par less often than 63 other payers on the tour – not good. Traditional training would say to train Tiger more on sand saves …
That’s not what his coach did. He was #1 on drive distance and greens in regulation, so his coach went to work on those skills, getting him better at an area he was already great at. As a result, he’s now more than 120th in sand saves (which means he got worse), but he’s won nine majors in the process.
You be the judge, but how often do you think I am doing the bookwork, or administration, or even marketing and sales? Less than 20% of the time. I do what I am best at …
So, work out for yourself what you are best at, take a look at your organisation chart (if you don’t have one – get one) and work out which position/positions you need to be in and which ones you don’t.
Sometimes it’s not what you start doing that makes you a success, it’s what you STOP …Some business owners are their own worst enemy – don’t let that be you.
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