Are you overwhelmed? Obviously: everyone working for you is an idiot!
You have to control and supervise everything. You have to do it if anything is not done. You have to notice if something goes down. You have to spot if they do something else than they should.
It’s obvious then, everyone is an idiot!
Why?
There is that professor at the university who comes in and rattles all the dope. You have no idea what he said, your eyes went all glazy… you start thinking you haven’t slept enough or that weekend party…
Okay, but he came in, he said it. He is the hotshot. And you on the other hand don’t understand.
Why? Because you’re stupid! … or at least that’s what you think and that’s what you’re told.
How do people learn? Through mimicry (copying someone else’s behaviour).
So then if you want to be a hotshot you want yourself a position you have to be like and act like that professor who is very smart but whom you don’t understand at all.
Fast-forward today.
Meeting. Everyone is smart. Everyone is a ‘university professor’.
Everyone tells his own academic gobbledygook speech.
And for the others it would be embarrassing to admit not comprehending what he is talking about as that would degrade any of them to ‘stupid students’, so they just nod along!
Meeting concluded. Tasks and responsibilities delegated … one wonders though how much is it clear what has to be done in this circle of ‘academicians’?
At best it’s dim. Good luck with compliance!
One time in 2015 when I was in Florida a friend called me that there is a local company with a fire to put out. 800 employees and the entire IT team busts out. Abruptly.
I put the fire out. I dug them out of the hole.
But how?
As a first step I had 6 tasks to solve. Three of them I didn’t understand at all and the other three only partially.
Everyone knew that I’m the hotshot, supersmart, super expensive, super duper developer.
But if I’m so super duper shouldn’t I have known everything instantly… read minds and absorb information through thin air?
In my experience if I don’t understand what to do I can’t do it.
Yeah, okay, but if I dare to ask I’ll totally roast myself and my super duper position is gone alright!
When I started talking to employees to clear up what has to be done some of them were actually staring questioningly as to why I ask so much. I can clearly remember round eyes. The uncomprehending, suspicious gazes when I had asked for the 5th time – although paraphrased – the same question.
I’d interrogated them… just as detective Columbo I was asking stupid questions. I kept asking until I understood what I needed to.
So I was done for! I made a complete fool out of myself! My position as a genius is doomed!
Can you, however, imagine the stares I got when I had two hours later showed up with the solution asking them to check if it works for them? “But how?” – said Melissa. – “The IT crew failed to solve that in a week and a half… and you pop up with it after just 2 hours!? I don’t believe that!”
It doesn’t matter how much of a genius you are. If you don’t deliver you are a nobody. Good for nothing drawing a salary while wasting your client’s time just because you’re too proud to be bothering anyone to precisely, precisely, precisely understand what is needed!
How could you build a house if you don’t even know how many bedrooms are needed? You can’t!
If position is all that matters understanding will fall behind.
Real position is not attained by acting like a university professor or the prime minister. Real position is gained by things delivered and satisfied clients (even if that client is your boss).
How many ‘university professors’ do you have in your team? The ones who ‘know’ how to do it … but then is it somehow never ready or is it just messed up? Conflicts, missed deadlines, overwhelm.
As a leader you can not become complacent when somebody says “I understand”. Because his ‘understanding’ is redundant … if in the end he delivers something else.
Complete understanding provides precise compliance, and even fast compliance!
Overwhelm? Doesn’t exist… if everyone understands and does his job!
