“We have a deal with the bank. We don’t cash checks, and they don’t make pizzas.”
– A sign in Shakey’s Pizza in Fond du Lac, WI (c. 1970), courtesy of my friend, Jim DeJong
It’s a pretty simple concept. It’s less about what we can do and pretty much all about what we should do.
Do what you do. Let others do what they do. Where there are intersections, know, rely on and trust one another to do. Where we’re the leader, add “expect,” but then get out of the way, or get better talent!
You can run a sawmill without knowing how to operate the saw. You can run a hospital without knowing how to replace a knee. You can run a bank without knowing how to operate the check sorter. One of my closest friends oversees a multi-national, multi-billion dollar business — and he’s never worked a day on the floor of the plant, and he’s never sold a single thing that they sell.
He asks great questions, though, and he’s a strategic ace — so he plays to his strengths and hires people who augment them. He is wildly successful, widely respected and generally admired, even by those who work every day on the floor of the plants.
It’s not just a professional, work-a-day concept either. It plays at home. I can do my own taxes, but I don’t, and it saves me many times what I spend on the professional help. I can plan a vacation, but my wife is so extraordinarily good at it that it would be really stupid for me to take that over.
So it sorta comes down to this, if we want to make a big difference. It’s less about what we can do and pretty much all about what we should do.
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