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Ideas to Use When Delegating

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The American industrialist Alfred P. Sloan once declared, “The most important thing I ever learned about management is that the work must be done by other men.”

A manager’s principal task is to get things done through other people. Therefore, delegation is one of the most important skills a manager can master.

In addition, being effective at delegation has benefits in many areas of life—enlisting a friend to repair a computer, or getting your kids to rearrange a bookshelf, for example.

Here are a few ideas for effective delegation.

  • Delegate every task that can be performed just as well by someone who is paid less than you are.
  • Pick people who can accept responsibility.
  • Match the person to the task.
  • Remember that the person performing the task may not do it as well as you do it.
  • Build employees’ confidence by assigning low-risk projects at first. By giving employees tasks that are right at the limit of their existing capability, or even just beyond, you can motivate them to develop their skills and knowledge.
  • Let employees put their own spin on the assignment. Learn to have faith in the ingenuity of your employees, and give much latitude in how they do things.
  • Delegate outcomes, not just tasks. Identify the precise problem and define exactly what you want your employee to do.
  • Confirm understanding. Don’t assume that your employee understands what we mean. Have the employee restate the outcome you’ve delegated in his own words.
  • Give a due date for the assignment.
  • Monitor what you delegate. Don’t meddle—an overly-engaged boss can create self-induced commotion. Effective managers delegate results when they can and interfere only when they must.
  • Learn to be patient. Expect employees to make wrong decisions. Spend time with them to learn why a decision was wrong and how to avoid it the next time, rather than reproach or assign blame.
  • Set the standards, but tell your employees what you’re willing to accept as tradeoffs of delegation. Offer to lend a hand wherever necessary. As Peter Drucker wrote in The Leader of the Future, “Effective leaders delegate, but they do not delegate the one thing that will set the standards. They do it.“

By learning to delegate effectively, you can create a work environment that is more time- and skills-efficient, foster creativity and opportunities for professional growth, and focus on the importance of managerial communication.

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Five Pitfalls of Coaching Success

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According to Coaching, Mentoring and Managing: Breakthrough Strategies to Solve Performance Problems and Build Winning Teams (1996) by William Hendricks, et al., some managers instinctively do things that thwart their team’s performance.

Examine if you’re guilty of one or more of the following.

  1. Do you tend to speak at your employees, not with them? Your style of instruction could be accompanied by the frequent use of phrases such as “I want” and “you should.”
  2. Do you tend to exaggerate situations or behavior? Your tendency to color an employee’s behavior using qualifiers such as “always,” “never,” and “everyone” could be dragging him down. Generalizations could crush the employee’s sense of self-esteem. If you want to create positive change, instill pride, not shame.
  3. Do you sometimes assume that your employee knows a problem and the solution? It’s possible that the employee may not recognize the problem. Skillfully use lines of questioning that can help the employee drill down into the details and reveal a higher-level issue.
  4. Do you often fail to follow up? If you don’t follow up on directions or performance expectations, you will inevitably find yourself reacting to unpleasant surprises.
  5. Do you not reward improved behavior? If you don’t reward positive changes in behavior, you will not expand behavioral adjustments to permanent performance improvement. Managerial feedback and coaching is all about reinforcing positive behaviors and encouraging corrections to damaging behavior.

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Think of a Customer’s Complaint as a Gift

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When managers become comfortable with the idea that complaints are gifts, they do not hesitate in responding to them.

'A Complaint Is a Gift' by Janelle Barlow (ISBN 1576755827) According to A Complaint Is a Gift: Recovering Customer Loyalty When Things Go Wrong, the idea of complaints as gifts must be reinforced at every staff meeting and training session. The company’s policies must be aligned to support this philosophy. A Complaint Is a Gift‘s authors, management consultants Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller, restate some fundamental techniques for handling complaints:

  1. Don’t get defensive. When managing complaints, managers can be their own worst enemies! Instead of taking complaints personally, managers should focus on the particulars of a problem. Then, complaints become less disruptive and constructive.
  2. Say “thank you” and explain why you appreciate the complaint. Say something about how hearing the complaint will allow you to better address the problem. You create a more powerful rapport with customers by saying “thank you” than apologizing.
  3. Apologize for the mistake and empathize when appropriate. Acknowledge the customers feelings You do not have to see eye to eye with the person to acknowledge how they are feeling. Saying “I can see you are upset,” or “I understand why this ordeal has been frustrating for you,” will go a long way toward diffusing any complainer’s anger.
  4. Listen for what the customer wants to happen next, because it’s often easy to accommodate requests, as long as they’re not totally unreasonable. Promise to do something about the problem immediately. Then do something to fix the situation.
  5. Ask for necessary information and correct the mistake promptly. Look at the problem from all perspectives and ask the customer to explain his or her expectations and the reality of what he/she experienced. Ask what it will take to meet their needs or to satisfy them. Rapid responses disclose you are serious about service recovery and customer service.
  6. Check customer satisfaction. Call your customers back to find out if they are satisfied with what you did for them.
  7. Initiate changes to prevent future mistakes, make the complaint known throughout the organization so this kind of problem can be prevented. Fix the system without rushing to blame staff or policies.

Idea for Impact: Managers who ask for complaints will find that customers express their concerns more openly and objectively. Inviting complaints reduces the likelihood a customer will be upset or emotional. It is a way to nip problems in the bud and solve problems before they can aggravate.

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20 Reasons People Don’t Change

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If you have trouble getting people to change, perhaps one—or more—of the following reasons are to blame:

  1. They don’t want to change … they find reassurance in the status quo
  2. Their environment is holding them back
  3. They’ve tried to change in the past, failed, and have given up
  4. Your coaching / feedback is garbled … the benefits of change are unclear
  5. They don’t react well to criticism
  6. They’re suspicious of your motives (i.e. fear of manipulation)
  7. They see little incentive to change
  8. They don’t know how to change
  9. They have no role models
  10. There’s no support (or resources) for change
  11. Change threatens their self-image
  12. They can’t tell what’s really important
  13. They don’t feel courageous enough … i.e. they fear failure
  14. They don’t feel enough pain yet
  15. They’re overconfident or arrogant
  16. They fear their weaknesses will be exposed
  17. They’re too lazy and undisciplined
  18. Change requires giving up something they presently value
  19. They resist change that’s imposed from outside … i.e. they’re not intrinsically motivated for change
  20. Change undermines their self-confidence

Idea for Impact: Temper your expectations of others. Old habits die hard. Even Einstein’s doctor couldn’t get the great physicist to quit smoking despite his deteriorating health.

Be realistic about changing others’ hearts and minds. If you can learn to accept them for who they are and let go of your conceptions of their perfection, your relationships become more richer.

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  5. We’re All Trying to Control Others

Bad Customers Are Bad for Your Business

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Herb Kelleher: “Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you.”

Southwest Airlines is a paragon of superlative customer service. Southwest’s happy and engaged employees routinely go out of their way to delight their customers. In spite of such remarkable devotion to customer satisfaction, there have been times when Southwest had to decide that some customers were just wrong for their business.

In the very entertaining and enlightening Nuts!: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, authors Kevin and Jackie Freiberg narrate how Southwest had to let go of a customer who couldn’t be less satisfied with her travel experience. This customer relations-story is best appreciated in light of the fun-loving and gregarious nature of Southwest’s legendary founder and ex-Chairman/CEO Herb Kelleher.

'Nuts- Southwest Airlines' by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg (ISBN 0767901843) A woman who frequently flew on Southwest, was constantly disappointed with every aspect of the company’s operation. In fact, she became known as the “Pen Pal” because after every flight she wrote in with a complaint.

She didn’t like the fact that the company didn’t assign seats; she didn’t like the absence of a first-class section; she didn’t like not having a meal in flight; she didn’t like Southwest’s boarding procedure; she didn’t like the flight attendants’ sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere.

Her last letter, reciting a litany of complaints, momentarily stumped Southwest’s customer relations people. They bumped it up to Herb’s desk, with a note: ‘This one’s yours.’

In sixty seconds, Kelleher wrote back and said, ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’

Bad Customers: Wrong for Your Business, Wrong for Your Employees

Customers are the lifeblood of any business. Customer satisfaction begets loyalty, and loyalty begets revenues and profits. Businesses can therefore never place too much emphasis on their customers.

However, with slogans like “the customer is always right,” many businesses fall into the trap—and the slippery slope—of trying to satisfy every customer’s every wish.

Although your business may need all its customers—even the irksome ones—the reality is that some customers can actually be bad for your business. You can’t sustainably run a business without trying to satisfy every customer—particularly those cranky, annoying, or unreasonable ones.

Be wary of customers that fall into these categories:

  • Customers who require high maintenance but cannot be charged more
  • Customers whose demand for price destroys your profitability
  • Customers who want a lot more (better product, better service, better schedule) but are tightfisted
  • Customers who require supplementary services or products (especially those that are not part of your business’s core competencies) and tailored solutions that you don’t provide and can’t profitably offer to the rest of your customer base
  • Customers who don’t subscribe into the future vision of your business or your industry, which they’ll need to strategically commit to as some point in the future
  • Customers who tend to be aggressive and hostile, and disrespectful to your employees, regardless of how well they serve the customers

Strategic Customer Management Involves Being Tough Minded with Some Customers

Considering your long-term business goals, sifting through who should and who shouldn’t be your customers is an important element of strategic leadership.

With every product or service you offer, focus on who you want your customer to be, what expectations they have of you, and what you can profitably provide to them. Once you have figured that out, customers who don’t fit well need to be managed judiciously and decisively.

Without strategic customer management, you run a risk of disrupting your ability to converge around the needs of your principal customer base.

Remember the notion of opportunity cost—every ‘no’ is a ‘yes’ to something important.

Idea for Impact: Let Go of Some of Your Troublesome Customers

Sometimes, it may be better to lose certain customers by turning them down than to dilute your ability to serve other valuable customers profitably. Stop trying to delight every customer. Take a hard look at the past, current, and future of every customer and prioritize whom you can going to serve better and more successfully.

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Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm on the Art of Love and Unselfish Understanding

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To Listen is to Love

Erich Fromm (1900–80) was a famous German psychoanalyst, philosopher and social critic. His best-selling work, The Art of Loving (1956,) has been translated into more than fifty languages and has sold more than thirty million copies. Fromm argues that one of the deepest human desires is wholeness and unity. Consequently, humans seek to overcome their persistent sense of separateness by finding love, that profound experience of belonging and unity that still makes allowances for individual identity and expression.

According to The Art of Loving, one’s character orientation and social outlook depend greatly on one’s ability to experience meaningful loving relationships with others. The principal responsibility in practicing the art of loving is overcoming one’s narcissism, which Fromm argues is tantamount to cultivating objective reality and embracing the spirit of generosity—doing cosmic good, in other words:

Society must be organized in such a way that man’s social, loving nature is not separated from his social existence, but becomes one with it. If it is true, as I have tried to show, that love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence, then any society which excludes, relatively, the development of love, must in the long run perish of its own contradiction with the basic necessities of human nature.

The Art of Therapy is the Art of Listening

'The Art of Listening' by Erich Fromm (ISBN 0826406548) For Fromm, the first duty of love is paying attention to others—to listen and to understand. His less-popular, but equally noteworthy The Art of Listening (1994) explores listening as an act of love. Based on the imperfectly-edited transcript of a 1974 colloquium on psychoanalysis, The Art of Listening presents Fromm’s therapeutic method of dealing with the emotional distresses of people through listening.

Psychotherapists endeavor to listen non-judgmentally, understand keenly, and frame questions that will assist their patients work out whatever they should do to change their lives. Exploring this nature of communication between the therapist and his patient, Fromm explains that the therapist must offer himself as a thoughtful individual specifically trained in the art of listening. Fromm identifies listening as “an art like the understanding of poetry” and offers six guiding principles for mastering the art of selfless understanding:

  1. The basic rule for practicing this art is the complete concentration of the listener.
  2. Nothing of importance must be on his mind, he must be optimally free from anxiety as well as from greed.
  3. He must possess a freely-working imagination which is sufficiently concrete to be expressed in words.
  4. He must be endowed with a capacity for empathy with another person and strong enough to feel the experience of the other as if it were his own.
  5. The condition for such empathy is a crucial facet of the capacity for love. To understand another means to love him—not in the erotic sense but in the sense of reaching out to him and of overcoming the fear of losing oneself.
  6. Understanding and loving are inseparable. If they are separate, it is a cerebral process and the door to essential understanding remains closed.

Even though The Art of Listening focuses on becoming a better shrink through listening, there’s much in this excellent book by way of techniques, dynamics, and mindsets that make for the most favorable listening relationships in life, as in therapy.

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Dear Hoarder, Learn to Let Go

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I recently happened upon A&E channel’s reality TV program Hoarders, now in its ninth season. Hoarders shows appalling footage of homes jammed floor-to-ceiling with bewildering amounts of mess. With help from therapists, professional organizers, and “extreme cleaning specialists,” hoarders featured on the show learn to pare down their stacks and clean up their homes and offices.

Hoarding: Harmless Collecting v/s Serious Disorder

Hoarding ranges from mild to severe. Compulsive hoarding is the unwarranted and excessive accumulation of things as well as the unwillingness and the inability to dispose of them. Hoarders believe that their collections will be needed or will have value in the future.

Beyond normal collecting behaviors and hobbies, hoarders amass vast quantities of possessions that fill up and disrupt functional areas of their homes and offices. They stack stuff everywhere—attics, basements, desks, countertops, garages, bathtubs, stairways, cupboards, and nearly all other surfaces they can no longer be used for their intended purposes. When there’s no more room indoors, hoarders expand their clutter into yards and vehicles, and even get storage rentals. They frequently shift items from one hoard to another, without shedding anything.

Hoarders often fail to recognize it as a problem, making treating their hoarding a challenge.

Understanding Hoarders: The Psychology of Hoarding

Hoarders usually have an extreme attachment to their possessions, and oppose letting others borrow—even touch—their possessions. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the definitive catalog of mental disorders used by American mental health professionals, calls “the inability to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value” a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD.)

Hoarding behavior typically has physical, emotional, social, financial, and legal hurtful consequences. Hoarders have trouble making decisions. They often suffer from chronic procrastination, and have considerable difficulties getting things done.

Hoarding usually accompanies varying levels of anxiety. Hoarding both eases anxiety and produces it. Hoarders feel emotionally secure when surrounded by the things they collect. The more they hoard, the more shielded they feel from the outside world and the more they become isolated from their family and friends. But, sure enough, they feel ever more alarmed at the prospect of having to discard or clean out their hoarded stuff.

Alleviating Hoarding: Reducing the Chronic Stress from Clutter

'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' by Marie Kondo (ISBN 1607747308) If you’re a hoarder, take small steps to tidy up. If you feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of your possessions and the decluttering task that lies ahead, remember to take small steps (try my “10-Minute Dash” technique to overcome procrastination and get a task going.) Under the supervision of a trusted companion, tackle one small area at a time. But, psychiatrists recommend, don’t let someone else (a friend, domestic help, or organizing professional) clean for you—long-lasting behavioral changes necessitate talking through the process as you make decisions. Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo’s bestselling self-help book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, suggests that you should appraise (“touch”) each of your belongings one at a time to determine whether they “spark joy”—if they don’t, thank the belongings for their service and get rid of them. Sort items to one of a very few categories—“trash,” “donate,” “sell”, and “must keep.” If you haven’t used something in a year, toss it out assuming that you’re unlikely to find it useful in the near future. Idea for Impact: Reducing clutter and getting organized takes time, patience, and courage. If necessary, find a cognitive behavior therapist that specializes in treating hoarding disorders to delve into why you feel compelled to hoard and learn how to discard and organize your possessions.

If you have a hoarder in your life, don’t be embarrassed, sad, or angry with the hoarding habits of a loved one. Don’t force the hoarder to change—your loved one may change for a short time, but unless there is a compelling reason for change, she will go back to her natural state. To be effective in the long run, resist the urge to clean up for her. If the underlying behavioral patterns aren’t remedied, the hoarder will likely replenish the clutter or even intensify the hoarding behavior to make up for the loss. Even if the hoarder doesn’t realize the chaos she’s imposing on her family, friends, pets, and neighbors, try to help her or get help for her. Nevertheless, understand that you can control only your efforts—not the results—despite doing your best. Idea for Impact: Avoid enabling your loved one’s hoarding behavior. Offer to help her if she needs it, but expect change to be a long and slow process. Temper your expectations—changing this problematic behavior is her journey and her battle to fight. If all else fails, seek help from a cognitive behavior therapist that specializes in helping families and friends of hoarders.

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Never Criticize Little, Trivial Faults

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Lessons from the Renowned People Skills of Steel Tycoons Charles M Schwab and Andrew Carnegie

The American steel magnate Charles M Schwab (1862–1939,) was a protege of the steel baron-turned-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919.) During the course of a long and successful career, Schwab built his Bethlehem Steel Corporation into America’s second largest steel producer and one of the world’s most prominent businesses.

Don’t be “bothered with the finicky little things that trouble so many people.”

Charles M Schwab started his career as a laborer in Andrew Carnegie’s Edgar Thomson Steel Works. Thanks to his exceptional ability to cozy up to people and facilitate congenial working relationships, Schwab rapidly rose up the ranks of the Carnegie steel empire.

By the age of 19, Schwab was assistant manager of the steel factory. When an accident killed the factory superintendent in 1887, Andrew Carnegie appointed the 25-year-old Schwab as the manager of the Thomson Works. At 35, Schwab became president of the Carnegie Steel Company at an annual compensation exceeding $1 million (worth $30 million today.)

In an essay titled “My 20,000 Partners” in the 19-Dec-1916 issue of The American Magazine, Schwab shared a management lesson he learned from his mentor Andrew Carnegie:

Mr. Carnegie’s personality would enthuse anybody who worked for him. He had the broad views of a really big man. He was not bothered with the finicky little things that trouble so many people. When he made me manager, Mr. Carnegie said, “Now, boy, you will see a good many things which you mustn’t notice. Don’t blame your men for little, trivial faults. If you do you will dishearten them.“

When I want to find fault with my men I say nothing when I go through their departments. If I were satisfied I would praise them. My silence hurts them more than anything else in the world, and it doesn’t give offense. It makes them think and work harder. Many men fail because they do not see the importance of being kind and courteous to the men under them. Kindness to everybody always pays for itself. And, besides, it is a pleasure to be kind. I have seen men lose important positions, or their reputations—which are more important than any position—by little careless discourtesies to men whom they did not think it was worthwhile to be kind to.

“Be hearty in approbation and lavish in your praise”

Schwab’s excellent people skills and management methods are extolled in How to Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie’s masterful guidebook on people skills. Dale Carnegie quotes Schwab:

I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people, the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement.

There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize any-one. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise. …

I have yet to find the person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.

Idea for Impact: People who cannot tolerate others’ shortcomings are at a marked disadvantage in life.

'How to Win Friends & Influence People' by Dale Carnegie (ISBN 0671027034) The older you’ll get, the more you’ll appreciate the wisdom of enduring the negative emotions— skepticism, disapproval, anger, contempt, and hostility—that stem from others’ behaviors.

One of the keys to effective interpersonal skills is to know when and how to give feedback. Commend whenever you can, criticize when you absolutely must.

Remember, criticism can swiftly erode away positive feelings. Don’t nit-pick. Don’t get caught up in trivial peculiarities.

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  4. Giving Feedback and Depersonalizing It: Summary of Kim Scott’s ‘Radical Candor’
  5. Fire Fast—It’s Heartless to Hang on to Bad Employees

How to Conquer Cynicism at Your Workplace

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Enthusiasm rubs off on others

A few weeks ago, I met a friend at Chick-fil-A. When it was my turn to order, I told the woman taking our orders that I am vegetarian and couldn’t eat much of the offerings on her menu. The woman asked me, “How about a milkshake? I make the best strawberry milkshake!” I could not misjudge her sincerity and pride. It’s not often that one is asked anything like that at any service-business, let alone at a fast food chain restaurant.

In a world of work that’s so rampant with cynicism, there’s nothing more refreshing than encountering employees who are engaged, cheerful, and take pride in what they do.

In the same vein, in The HP Way (see my summary & review), author David Packard and co-founder recalls an engaged worker at Hewlett-Packard:

I recall the time, many years ago, when I was walking around a machine shop, accompanied by the shop’s manager. We stopped briefly to watch a machinist making a polished plastic mold die. He had spent a long time polishing it and was taking a final cut at it. Without thinking, I reached down and wiped it with my finger. The machinist said, “Get your finger off my die!” The manager quickly asked him, “Do you know who this is?” To which the machinist replied, “I don’t care!” He was right and I told him so. He had an important job and was proud of his work.

How to conquer cynicism and negativity in a workplace

Cynicism is an upshot of distrust in the workplace. Cynics have misgivings about their managers’ and leaders’ motives. Cynics are further aggravated by the comparatively lofty salaries commanded by corporate leaders. The once-presumed social contract between employers and employees has dissolved, and cynics believe that given the chance, their employers will exploit their contributions.

The damage of cynicism is evident in lower levels of commitment, distrust, blame, criticism, politicking, divisiveness, pessimism, negativity, and sarcasm. Moreover, cynicism worsens with employees’ age and tenure.

Here’s how to conquer cynicism:

  • Firstly, don’t be cynical yourself. If you display even a hint of pessimism, you’re likely to feed into your team’s cynicism, especially if you’re a manager.
  • Try to love—at least show some passion—what you do and whom you work with. Passion for your work brings a remarkable sense of meaning and attracts opportunities for growth.
  • Recognize that people bring their entire selves to their jobs; they don’t turn off their hearts and souls when they come to work. Today’s demanding and competitive workplace requires of employees not only stamina to work exceptionally hard but also their hearts-and-minds’ commitment to bring creativity and insight to their efforts.
  • Care for people and understand what drives them. Money is not as powerful a motivator for most people than when they truly don’t have enough of it. Beyond a threshold, people are more motivated at work by the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to a cause, and get recognition for their achievements.
  • Encourage two-way flow of information, identify and change stress-provoking work patterns, clarify their roles, convey clear and concise objectives, coach and give regular feedback.

Idea for Impact: Employees who are engaged are more productive. Determine what makes your employees most engaged in their work. Ask what parts of their jobs they like the best and what you could do to decrease their job pressures. Engage them by tapping into their natural talents and strengths.

Wondering what to read next?

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  4. How to … Lead Without Driving Everyone Mad
  5. Don’t One-up Others’ Ideas

David Ogilvy on Russian Nesting Dolls and Building a Company of Giants

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In the Company of Giants

Ogilvy & Mather founder and creative genius David Ogilvy (1911–1999) designed some of the world’s most successful and iconic marketing campaigns, including the legendary Man in the Hathaway Shirt advertisement.

Ogilvy left a rich legacy of ideas in his books. Confessions of an Advertising Man and Ogilvy on Advertising describe how he approached his creative life and aimed for greatness rather than settling for second best.

David Ogilvy on Hiring Smart

'Ogilvy on Advertising' by David Ogilvy (ISBN 039472903X) In the preface of an Ogilvy & Mather recruiting brochure, Ogilvy explained the high creative standards and attitudes he expected of his employees:

We are looking for gentlemen with ideas in their heads and fire in their bellies. If you join Ogilvy & Mather, we shall teach you everything we know about advertising. We shall pay you well, and do our damnedest to make you succeed. If you show promise, we shall load responsibility on you—fast. Life in our agency can be very exciting. You will never be bored. It’s tough, but it’s fun.

Ogilvy directed his recruiters to seek out highflyers, “Hot creative people don’t come around looking for jobs; they have to be rooted out like truffles by trained pigs. Do our trained pigs do any rooting? I don’t think so.”

Recruiting brilliant people is a kind of brilliance in itself

In his bestselling Ogilvy on Advertising, Ogilvy described how recruiting smart people was the key to transforming his advertising agency into a global advertising, marketing and public relations giant. He wrote,

When someone is made the head of an office in the Ogilvy & Mather chain, I send him a Matrioshka doll from Gorky. If he has the curiosity to open it, and keep opening it until he comes to the inside of the smallest doll, he finds this message:

“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”

Entrepreneurship guru Guy Kawasaki echoed the importance of hiring smarter people and recalled in Reality Check that, when he worked at Apple in 1984, “In the Macintosh Division, we had a saying, ‘A players hire A players; B players hire C players’—meaning that great people hire great people. On the other hand, mediocre people hire candidates who are not as good as they are, so they can feel superior to them. If you start down this slippery slope, you’ll soon end up with Z players; this is called the Bozo Explosion.”

The best managers hire employees with superior intellect—and revel in it

Managers are typically judged not on their personal output but on how well they’ve hired, coached, and motivated their people—individually and collectively.

A wise manager hires employees who are smarter, more creative, and more talented than the manager is. The new employees’ talents will improve the entire team’s performance and reputation—even the manager’s.

In contrast, a mediocre manager feels threatened by underlings who seem more intelligent than the manager is. Mediocre managers tend to hire down—they fear that a superior employee could make the manager look inferior and perhaps hold back their career progress.

Idea for Impact: People make or break businesses; so hire people who are smarter than you are.

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