Someone dropped the ball. Again.

At least that’s how it looks to you.

But is that really the case?

It might be, but your initial read may not be completely accurate. And your first reaction may not be the best approach.

Mike Payne, owner of Hill Manufacturing & Fabrication in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and host of the # Buy the Numbers podcast and I talked about this recently during our conversation on his show.

He described people on his team who will pick up every ball that’s dropped. He appreciates them, but he also sees the potential for burnout.

We also talked about how well-intentioned, highly motivated employees may be keeping a ball in the air that doesn’t need to be there.

I’ve been thinking about our discussion a lot since then and I came up with five ways a leader might interpret (or misinterpret) a situation that initially seems like a dropped ball situation.

1. The ball may be moving.

You may see little or no progress when, in reality, someone is working on it in a way you don’t see.

They’re gathering information. Talking with someone who understands the problem. Thinking through an approach before they commit the team to it.

You don’t see the activity you expected, so you assume nothing is happening.

But your perception of progress may not be fully informed.

As I wrote in “Does Leadership Count as Real Work?”, I tend to associate real work with immediate, tangible results.

The Working Genius model challenges that assumption. Asking good questions through Wonder and evaluating an approach through Discernment are work too.

Even when there’s nothing new to show you yet.

2. The ball may have been placed there intentionally.

Someone may have decided that, with everything else the team needs to accomplish, this project needs to wait.

They didn’t forget it.

They made an intentional decision.

And it may have been a good one.

Before you insist that they pick it up, find out why they put it down.

You may discover that they understand the priorities better than you realized. Or that you haven’t communicated those priorities as clearly as you thought.

Either way, there’s something to learn.

3. Picking it up yourself may not be best for the business.

I get it. Seeing something unfinished can drive you crazy.

You know how to fix it. You could have it taken care of before anyone else finishes discussing it.

But what happens to the work you should be doing while you’re taking care of this?

And what happens to the person who owns it?

You may interrupt their thinking or take away an opportunity for them to make a decision and follow through.

As I told Mike, someone may pick up the ball and run in the wrong direction. That’s not what your business needs. It’s activity, but it’s not progress toward your desired goals.

In some cases, the right person, given just a little more time, might bring you a much better answer than the quick idea someone else suggested.

That extra hour, or even another day, of mental processing may be highly valuable in the long run.

Sometimes your best act of leadership is to leave the ball lying on the floor.

Even when you really want to pick it up.

4. Calling your most reliable person may make things worse.

You know your guy or gal who will take care of it immediately.

They’re loyal. They respond when you ask for help. They’ll find a way to get it done.

But, as I’ve written before about overloading our most reliable people, their willingness to help doesn’t mean they have room for more work.

If you have a team member with the Working Genius pairing of Enablement and Tenacity, you need to be particularly careful.

Helping and finishing can be fulfilling work for them. That doesn’t mean they have unlimited capacity.

Before you call, ask yourself:

Does this need their attention now? What will they have to stop doing? Am I responding to a business need or to my own frustration?

5. Praising your firefighter may encourage the wrong work.

We appreciate the person who sees a problem and jumps in.

But did they check with the person responsible before they took over?

They may have restarted something that was intentionally paused. Or duplicated work already underway.

And the rescue may have pulled them away from work that would contribute far more to the business.

If we praise every visible rescue, what are we teaching our team about the work we value?

That takes us back to what we consider “real work.”

So what should you do?

Stay curious. Ask good questions with positive intent.

“What’s happening with this?”

“What led you to put this on hold?”

“What am I missing?”

Last week on LinkedIn, I shared something a former pastor used to tell me.

“Greg, you don’t have all the information.”

He was right.

Get more information before you command someone to fix the problem. Communicate in both directions. Explain your concern and listen to what they know.

Then take action at the right pace.

“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”

Or, as a former coworker used to tell me:

“Hurry but don’t rush.”

Agree on who owns the next step, when it needs to happen, and when someone should intervene.

You may need to pick up the ball immediately.

But first, I encourage you to find out whether that “dropped ball” was really dropped.

Helping you lead with kindness and confidence,

Greg

P.S. Unsure when to step in and when to let your team work through a problem? I invite you to schedule a Complimentary Clarity Coaching Session. I’d be glad to help you think through what’s happening and identify your next step.

My relaxing morning shower was quickly turning into a sprint to finish as the water became increasingly frigid.

So I knew what I was doing first thing that morning.

Replacing our hot water heater.

What I didn’t know at that point was what I would find myself doing every morning after that.

If you’ve spent any time in manufacturing, you’ll know exactly what I mean when you look at the picture below.

And even if you don’t have a manufacturing background, you can probably relate to the experience I had as I bought, unpacked, and installed my new hot water heater.

It was flashback after flashback all morning long.

For over 20 years I worked for a company that produced HVAC products. Air conditioners, furnaces, thermostats, that sort of thing. For residential and commercial buildings.

I got to be involved in almost every part of the process and I loved it.

What I enjoyed most was being involved in cross-functional teams. I started as a member of these teams when I was in Design Engineering and then had the privilege of leading these teams.

We did everything from small cost-reduction projects to major new platform designs.

Sometimes we were at the front end of the process gathering Voice of the Customer data or writing product specifications.

Sometimes we were at the end of the process dealing with an issue a technician or a homeowner was experiencing.

Whatever we were doing, we were working together as a team.

People were involved.

And that meant we had to communicate.

We had a lot of conflict. It wasn’t always healthy, but most of the time it was.

The conflict came because every person in the conversation had a different perspective. We had different goals.

The design engineer was trying to meet the often-conflicting targets for performance, efficiency, quality, cost, ergonomics, assembly, serviceability, and a myriad of other factors.

Manufacturing engineers were managing their tooling budget.

Procurement had their own goals related to suppliers.

Safety made sure everyone involved was cared for.

Sales needed to be able to sell what we built.

Marketing wanted it to look good.

And we all had the shared goal of meeting the project schedule.

Needless to say, working together as a team was challenging.

And, most of the time, it was a lot of fun.

A hot water heater isn’t exactly the same as an HVAC product, but they’ve got a lot in common.

Sheet metal, screws, paint, controls, stickers, installation instructions, packaging, etc.

And the ability to safely burn gas to produce heat without blowing up my house.

This amazing feat is something that I still appreciate.

Talk about something that’s not easy to do!

Some would say it’s only slightly harder than leading a cross-functional team.

Based on my experience, I agree.

So I was extremely impressed with my hot water heater replacement experience.

Because I know just how much effort was involved in getting this product designed, built, and delivered to the hardware store in my tiny hometown in southeast Kansas.

My appreciation started the minute I saw James pushing it on a dolly through the store to my truck parked out front.

The outside of the cardboard box was covered with stickers and printing.

I knew that every label, image, and word printed on the outside of the box had been designed, discussed, debated, and decided upon.

The instructions to the forklift operator were there for a reason.

The features that were highlighted were intentional.

And I’m sure the packaging itself had been through countless revisions to ensure the hot water heater had no damage when I opened it a few minutes later in my home.

That design also had to have the lowest material cost possible.

Don’t forget that it needed to be the exact right size to fully pack out the trailer it was shipped in.

While also being easy for workers on the line to quickly assemble without having any ergonomic problems from doing their job hundreds of times every shift.

I was already impressed and I hadn’t even left Main Street.

My admiration for the cross-functional team continued when I opened up the box.

“Read This First!” was the first thing I saw on a sticker on the foam protecting the hot water heater control module.

So, I did.

The instructions explained exactly how to light the pilot light.

How many phone calls did someone in Service have to get before they suggested this improvement?

Was this added material and labor cost quickly embraced by the full team or did it take months of analysis to prove the value?

I could go on and on about the things I noticed and was curious about because I’ve been in the room leading these types of conversations.

When you experience the benefits as an installer or a homeowner, you might not realize that what seems obvious wasn’t always so clear.

Every product feature that made its way to the final product required a group of individuals to work together.

A team of individuals representing different departments and aspects of the business had to engage in healthy conflict to make the best decision with the information they had.

They had to work together and communicate clearly.

Based on my experience in situations like these, the teams that trust each other the most communicate the best.

And the teams that trust each other the most and communicate the best deliver the best results.

If you want to build trust within your team so you can communicate better and deliver better results, I’d love to help you.

That’s what I do for my clients today.

I’m no longer leading cross-functional teams designing and building HVAC products, but it would be a privilege to apply what I learned doing that to help you solve the challenges you’re facing in your business.

And speaking of challenges, here’s what I told you I’m now struggling with every day.

As I said, if you have a manufacturing background, you’ll know exactly what I’m going through.

Scroll down to the picture of my hot water heater after I installed it in our bathroom.

Zoom in and take a close look at the screws that attach the top of the water heater to the side.

Look at the one in front.

Where I can’t not see it.

Right at eye level where it greets me every morning.

Can you see how it’s about an eighth of an inch lower than the other screws?

Do you have the same questions I do?

Was it designed this way? (I doubt it.)

How was the fixture designed and how could it be improved to maintain alignment?

Why can’t I just forget about this because I know it doesn’t affect the functionality or integrity of the unit?

Who on the manufacturer’s cross-functional team has also noticed this and is reminding themselves that this minor alignment issue isn’t a big deal?

I’m thankful for the insights I’ve gained from a couple of decades of experience in cross-functional teams in manufacturing, but there are times when I wish I could just not think about things like this…

Helping you lead with kindness and confidence,

Greg

P.S. The next ​Leadership Clarity Accelerator​ cohort begins this Thursday, October 8! As I write this, I have one spot open. By the time you read this, I expect it will be sold out like the one in August. It’s a small group where I facilitate conversations to help leaders like you stop doing work their team is ready to own. It’s all about reclaiming your time and developing your people (including you!). If you’d like to join or send someone from your team, reach out in case there’s still room. If there’s not, I’d be happy to get you or your teammate on the waiting list for the next one in 2027.

Here’s ​what Josh Engelbrecht shared on LinkedIn​ about his experience in LCA. Trayco Ross also ​shared this post​ about what he appreciated about being in LCA.

A leader in my Leadership Clarity Accelerator recently told me her team had done Working Genius a couple of years ago.

They learned their Working Geniuses and their Working Frustrations. They spent hours reviewing what the results meant. They got a presentation on the basics of the model.

Then, as she put it, the message was essentially, “Okay, good luck.”

You may know that feeling.

I know I’ve had similar experiences throughout my career.

You and your team are given a useful assessment or framework. People recognize themselves in the results. The conversation is interesting. Then everyone goes back to their jobs, and work looks pretty much the same.

Nothing really changes.

That’s happened to me more times than I can remember.

So what this leader in our LCA cohort said next has really stuck with me.

She explained to our group that talking through how Working Genius shows up in their day-to-day work had been more valuable to her than the hours spent learning the model. She told us it was finally “clicking now.”

That’s what an intentional, facilitated conversation can do.

An assessment gives people language. A team map helps them see patterns. But a facilitated conversation gives them room to ask things like,

What does this explain on our team?

Where is this happening in our business?

What could we try doing differently this week?

Discussing questions like these can bring about real change.

When a group of leaders is fully focused and engaged in a discussion, they spark thoughts for each other and they challenge one another.

They don’t feel rushed to get to a solution immediately or to have the exact right answer.

Good questions often lead to better questions.

And those questions lead to insightful discoveries and meaningful actions.

Bad meetings can become productive and effective.

Tasks can be strategically reassigned to new owners who are a better fit for the work.

Managers can provide better support for someone on their team whose work has become draining.

You can do this with Working Genius or any other framework your team uses. Here are three ways to help the learning stick:

1. Start with real work. Bring a current project, a recurring meeting, or a task that keeps landing on the same person. Ask the team what the framework helps them notice about it. An actual situation gives everyone something to work through together. And it allows the team to focus on the tasks, not the individuals, so people are less likely to get defensive.

2. Make room for different experiences. Ask each person where the work gives them energy and where it takes energy away. Listen without treating anyone’s answer as a problem to fix. People are more likely to speak honestly when they feel understood and respected.

3. Try one change, then talk about what happened. Adjust one responsibility, change who participates in one part of a project, or run one meeting differently. Come back to it the following week. What improved? What still feels difficult? What did you learn about each other?

The goal isn’t for everyone to become a technical expert on every minute detail about the framework or the model. It’s for the team to understand one another well enough to communicate more clearly and get better work done together.

Because the ultimate goal of using any framework or model is the same as for your business: to deliver results.

I’m going to add one more recommendation to these three tips.

Have someone outside of your team facilitate your discussions.

Of course, you can do this yourself or have someone on your team do it.

If you’re using the Working Genius model, you may even have a Certified Working Genius Facilitator on your team or you may be certified yourself.

So why shouldn’t one of you be the facilitator?

There are several reasons, but these are the ones I’ve seen cause the biggest problems.

1. Someone on the team has a stake in the conversation. That doesn’t mean they can’t lead it well. But it can be hard to ask questions without bringing your own assumptions, frustrations, or preferred solutions into the discussion. An outside facilitator can notice patterns and ask questions that someone inside the team might miss.
2. Facilitating is a job of its own. Someone needs to watch the time, invite quieter people into the conversation, and keep any one person from dominating it. If you’re doing all that, you can’t give your full attention to what you’re learning about your team.
3. People respond differently when their leader holds the agenda. Even when you genuinely want honest input, team members may hesitate to challenge an idea or say something they think you won’t want to hear. When someone else facilitates, you can put down the agenda, listen, and participate in the discussion. That can make it easier for others to share their perspectives, too.

That may sound like a big sales pitch for you to hire me to do a Working Genius session with your team. So you can say not only that you’ve done Working Genius but that you’ve done something with it in your business.

And I suppose in some ways it is.

That’s what I do in the Leadership Clarity Accelerator sessions. And I’ll do the same thing for you and your team when you have me do a Leadership Team Clarity Intensive session.

But the facilitator doesn’t have to be me. It can be someone from a different department within your company. Or a person you know from another business.

You’ve got options for finding a facilitator to guide your conversations to produce the results you’re looking for.

Whether you’re using the Working Genius framework or something else, don’t let it simply be head knowledge.

Find a way to make it click with your team.

That takes more than looking at a report. It takes an intentional conversation with a facilitator who can make sure it sticks.

If you’d like me to help you in this way, reply and let me know. I’d consider it a privilege to serve you and your team.

Helping you lead with kindness and confidence,

Greg

P.S. The next Leadership Clarity Accelerator cohort begins October 8. It’s a small group where I facilitate conversations to help leaders like you stop doing work their team is ready to own. It’s all about reclaiming your time and developing your people (including you!). I’ve only got a few spots left at this point, so let me know this week if you’re interested.

Here’s what Josh Engelbrecht shared on LinkedIn about his experience in LCA.

P.P.S. I had the privilege of being on The New Flat Rate podcast with Danielle Putnam and Natalie Koop and our conversation recently went live. If you’re in the HVAC industry, you likely know Danielle. If you don’t, connect with her on LinkedIn here and tell her I sent you.

You can watch our conversation on YouTube here.

The Leadership Blind Spot That Keeps Great Teams Stuck with Greg Harrod

If you prefer, you can listen to the whole episode here.

I’m sure you know how this phrase ends.

“Don’t bring me problems…”

You’ve heard it more times than you can remember and may even say it to your own team members.

“Don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions.”

This is a great message for your people to hear.

But there’s a subtle danger that can bite you if you lean into it too hard.

That’s what several highly experienced, thoughtful leaders and I realized as we dug into this during our live working session on Friday.

If you’ve joined us on one of these calls, you know that we always start with a specific topic and use real-life scenarios we’re dealing with in our businesses to guide our conversations.

We always go deep as we explore the nuances that we often miss when we’re thinking through a challenge by ourselves.

That’s what happened again Friday.

We started with the topic What Should I Stop Doing for My Team?

My friend and former co-worker, Scott Dunaway, agreed to be in the spotlight to share his experience in this area.

Before I go on, I encourage you to click here and connect with Scott on LinkedIn so you can get to know him and start learning from each other. He’s an outstanding leader, Certified Working Genius Facilitator, US Marine, and a humble guy who wants to keep improving.

That was evident as Scott explained what he had learned about himself recently. Here’s how he put it.

“As I transitioned out of individual contributor and back into being a supervisor, I’ve been working on not falling into the trap of being a ‘rescuer.’ I am the leader in this scenario that needs to stop doing work so that my people can grow!”

Applying our shared belief that “the best leaders are the most self-aware leaders,” Scott recognized the rough edges of his Working Geniuses (Discernment and Tenacity) and used that knowledge to lead his team in a way that helped them to do more work on their own without being overly dependent on him.

We looked at his Working Genius profile and a team map and that’s what led us to start discussing the phrase “Don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions.”

For some people you lead, the challenge of that phrase will bring out the best in them.

Once you say it to them, they’ll never again come to you with a problem unless they have multiple solutions ready for you to consider.

They’re going to show you that they’ve thought through it and aren’t just expecting you to solve every struggle for them.

You’ve trained them to know that when they bring you a problem, you’re going to ask them something like, “What do you think we should do about it?”

So they’ve got a long list of ideas that they naturally came up with and they’re ready to impress you by demonstrating their natural ability to innovate (likely because they have the Working Genius of Invention).

That’s the positive side of having a reputation as a leader who doesn’t want to hear a problem unless it’s presented with possible solutions.

But do you see the downside?

Here are some perspectives from the leaders on Friday’s call to help you see what too many leaders miss.

What if you have a person on your team who’s gifted at spotting problems long before anyone else but they’re not so good at coming up with ideas by themselves?

This might mean they have the Working Genius Pairing of Wonder and Discernment and one of their Working Frustrations might be Invention.

They’re amazing at working with another person to evaluate and analyze potential solutions but they’re downright awful when it comes to quickly generating ideas to address the important problems they discover.

And, on top of that, they’re a slow processor so they need time to evaluate and consider solutions before they’re comfortable recommending them. Some might even consider them to be “wishy-washy.”

How do you maximize their contribution to the team?

Is it by expecting them to do what they’re not naturally wired to do?

Like quickly providing a viable solution to every problem they see.

How does only putting the spotlight on the other team members who bring problems and solutions impact them?

Does it bring out all they have to offer and allow them to recognize that they too contribute to the overall performance of the team and the business?

We all know you can’t fix a problem until you are aware of it. It’s a two-step process.

But too often we only reward and recognize team members who are built to do the second stage, fixing.

We tend to undervalue the skill of recognizing problems before they’re blatantly obvious.

Might this pattern unintentionally cause our team members who add the most value during this first stage to feel like they’re not all that important to the team?

Worse yet, could you unknowingly be replaying an all-too-familiar soundtrack in their mind that reminds them of the words they’ve heard all their lives?

“You’re too critical.”

“You’re such a downer.”

“You never have any good ideas to share.”

“You’re just trying to shoot holes in all our good ideas.”

“Why can’t you be like your big sister and come up with a solution?”

With this history, they feel like the way their mind works isn’t a blessing. It’s a curse.

When they’ve got that message echoing in their head all day and feel the additional pressure to not come to you with an issue unless they can give you a resolution, there’s no way they’re going to contribute to their fullest potential.

Thankfully, our small group of leaders recognized this danger we could have missed as leaders working independently.

And we shared our insights and perspectives.

We talked about the negative results that come when our team members hesitate to tell us about a problem immediately.

Early awareness of issues is something every leader wants and needs.

You want to know if there’s a threat to your business as early as possible. Even if no one has any ideas on how to mitigate that risk yet.

We had a lot of folks from manufacturing on the call Friday so our minds naturally went to the shop floor.

We shared examples in which we would never expect team members to stay quiet about a problem until they could bring a solution.

Do you want your employee to tell you about a safety issue immediately?

Do you want them to let their coworker’s life remain in danger until they can present a viable solution?

Do you want the person on the production line to keep building hundreds of units that will have to be reworked because of the quality problem they notice but don’t know how to fix?

Of course you don’t.

You know that there are situations in which the advice to not bring you a problem unless you have a solution doesn’t make sense.

And there are times when it does.

You know that.

The key is having enough self-awareness as a leader to recognize the power of the words, and being thoughtful and intentional with what you say so you’re not misunderstood and cause unintended negative consequences.

When you understand how you can help every person on your team contribute the most, even those who are wired differently than you are, you can adjust how you show up and communicate.

This makes you a better leader for the people under your care.

Just like Scott is doing.

When your self-awareness and your awareness of others grow, so does your effectiveness as a leader. Your people will develop and your business will grow.

Those of us who were on the call Friday experienced this personal growth as we challenged and encouraged each other.

These discussions all start with one topic to get our thoughts flowing.

I’m making plans for our next live working session and I’d like your help if you’re willing.

Which of these topics would you find most valuable?

• Why Isn’t Delegation Working on My Team?
• How Do I know Who’s Ready for More Responsibility?
• How Do I Hold People Accountable Without Micromanaging?
• How Can I Use Working Genius to Make My Team More Effective?

Or if you have an idea that’s not on the list, I’d love to hear it too.

If there’s a problem you’ve identified and are working through, you’re welcome to share it with me by replying to this email. I read every one.

And don’t feel any pressure to bring me a solution along with your problem.

Problem solving involves two steps.

And the first is just as valuable as the second.

Helping you lead with kindness and confidence,

Greg

P.S. I still have a few spots open for the Leadership Clarity Accelerator program that starts October 8.

It’s for leaders who:

• Work as a part of a team
• Have a formal or informal leadership role (with or without direct reports)
• Want to stop doing work their team is ready to own so they can reclaim their time

Would this help you or someone you know?

If you think it might, grab some time on my calendar so we can talk more about it.

​https://gregharrod.com/schedule​

Here’s what Trayco Ross shared on LinkedIn about his experience in LCA.

If he hadn’t passed away a year ago today, I would have thought it was my dad who said these words to me recently.

“I have a high tolerance for pain and I will work through anything. And I can go for really long periods of time without getting burnt out. I feel it, but I don’t let it affect me. I don’t let it hold me back.”

But it wasn’t my dad I was talking with. It was a CEO and good friend of mine who hired me to do a Working Genius session with him and his COO, who followed with a similar comment.

“We have an entire team who’s like that, so he’s not alone. I’d raise my hand and say the same thing.”

These two guys weren’t boasting. They were simply explaining how they’d been trained.

Both C-suite leaders had previous careers in the military.

And, not surprisingly, they both shared the Working Genius of Tenacity.

People with the Genius of Tenacity are task-oriented and love to take things across the finish line. They don’t stop until all the boxes are checked and the job is done.

This is how both these leaders were wired and their training reinforced their natural tendencies.

My dad didn’t take the Working Genius assessment before he passed so I’ll never know his Working Genius pairing.

But, based on what I know of my dad and what everyone who talks about him says, he was one of, if not the, hardest working men they ever knew.

So, I naturally thought of him when I heard these two guys talk about their grit and determination.

I offered my perspective that what is true of those in the military is often true of business owners.

When you’re the only person in your business, you’ve got to do everything. You don’t bother asking who’s the right person for a specific task or how to “put the right people in the right seats on the bus.”

When you’re the only person on the bus, the question is irrelevant!

You do what needs to be done. And you do it with tenacity to survive. Much like those who serve our country must do when they have no other choice.

My dad wasn’t in the military, but he was the only employee in his business for quite a while.

And, without fail, he did whatever had to be done.

I admired and respected him for that, and my work ethic was shaped by his example.

But he taught me another lesson in his final days.

That’s what caused me to say this to my clients.

“That works until it doesn’t.”

I explained that the idea that leaders and their teams should see what needs to be done and just go do it is okay in the short term. But it’s not sustainable in the long term.

Because you can take this approach.

Until you can’t.

The words of a country song by that title were fuzzy in mind during this conversation, but the message of the lyrics was crystal clear.

We’re all finite.

The tasks we can do with ease in our youth will someday be challenging or even impossible with our aging bodies.

The clear mental processing that comes naturally for so much of our lives will at best be replaced by slower thinking. And, at worst, by confusion and disconnect from the reality of the world around us.

My dad was an outlier in many ways.

When doctors were asking about his mobility at age 81 using questions about being able to walk across the living room, I would explain to them that his struggles were not in the house.

They were in his business when he was still climbing out of his truck, onto the trailer, and into his backhoe.

He was tenacious and tough and just kept going.

Until he couldn’t.

The time came for him, like it will for all of us, when our minds and our bodies will not be capable of doing all we want to do.

Even those who are wired with Tenacity and have developed the mental and physical toughness to persevere through the most challenging circumstances have limits.

We all do.

Even my dad.

And that didn’t mean he was weak or that he was a quitter.

It meant he was human.

He was an incredible man, a wonderful dad, an outstanding husband, and one of the hardest working business owners I’ve ever known.

His days of being able to do whatever needed to be done came to an end last year.

I don’t know when, but mine will too.

And so will yours.

This week I won’t add any leadership insights or make suggestions on how you might consider applying what I’ve shared about my conversation with these two leaders and about my dad.

I won’t recommend that you consider how you’re investing your limited time, energy, and strength and make any corrections based on what you value.

I’ll leave that for you to decide.

You can do that on own.

Until you can’t.

Helping you lead with kindness and confidence,

Greg

P.S. I had the privilege of recording a podcast episode with my dad several years back. If you’re interested, you can listen to it here.

P.P.S. This Friday I’m hosting another live small-group working session focused on the topic, What Should I Stop Doing for My Team. We’ll use real situations from participants to think through the work leaders may need to stop doing so their people have room to take on more responsibility.If you’d like me to be in this invite-only event, just reply to this email and I’ll get you added.

Last week I wrote about how growing up in a blue-collar family shaped my view of “real work.”

I learned to associate work with tangible results.

When you fix or build something, you can point to what you accomplished.

That work ethic helped me build my career.

But it also made it easy for me to undervalue leadership work that doesn’t produce an immediate, visible result.

If you missed last week’s newsletter, you can read it here: Does Leadership Count as Real Work? – Greg Harrod

I promised there was another side to this issue.

And I had that in mind as I was talking with Danielle Putnam, CEO of The New Flat Rate.

A couple of weeks ago a few of the leaders in my Leadership Clarity Accelerator cohort and I were talking about how we grew up.

Their perspectives were fascinating to me and I think you’ll find what they had to say interesting too.

We discovered that the very thing that helped us build our successful careers could very well be holding us back as leaders.

I suspect you’re going to want to put some thought into this too.

Here’s how the conversation went.

It started with a statement that went something like this:

“I’m used to being a doer. But as I advance in my career, I realize I need to do less and lead more.”

Pause and think about that statement for a minute because there are a lot of different ways to look at it and I don’t want you to be overly influenced by our views.

Here are a few questions to prompt your thinking:

• Does that sound like something you would say?
• Have you built your business and your career by doing?
• Do you feel like your current position requires you to lead more than do?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you would have fit right in.

You know how to work hard because that’s how you were raised.

And your hard work got you to where you are today.

That was the case for every one of us in our small group.

All of us also grew up in blue-collar homes.

My folks owned a blacksmith and welding shop that they bought in 1970, the year I was born. My brother still runs our family business, which is now focused on oil field work.

It’s going to be 104 F degrees today and he’s going to be out in the heat working hard.

There’s no question he’s doing real work.

My mom grew up on a farm, so she was working every day and that’s still the case.

She’s a doer for sure.

Thankfully, my folks instilled a strong work ethic in me too.

The other leaders I was talking with had similar stories.

“My dad’s a general contractor.”

“Mom was a press operator.”

“Dad’s a carpenter.”

Every one of us saw our parents working hard when we were kids. They were always doing.

We’re proud of them and we want to be like them. We want to work hard too.

But here’s the rub.

The things we do as leaders don’t always seem like what we naturally think of as work.

The results of how we invest our time aren’t always easy to observe and measure.

That’s what emerged as our conversation grew from this early statement.

“I need to do less and lead more.”

This begs the uncomfortable question:

“Is leading not doing?”

Which quickly caused us start asking ourselves even more discouraging questions like, “Does this mean I’m not working when I’m leading people?”

While we knew intellectually that this wasn’t true, it somehow hit a nerve with every one of us.

And I suspect our shared blue-collar backgrounds had something to do with why questions like these began to surface.

Why do we sometimes feel lazy if we aren’t physically exerting ourselves in our job?

What’s behind our tendency to sometimes take the more difficult approach to solve a problem instead of the quick, easy path because it feels like we’re cheating somehow?

Maybe that sounds completely weird to you. I get that because honestly, it’s a little hard for me to admit that I feel that way because it doesn’t make logical sense.

Or maybe you feel that way at times too.

Do you feel guilty about your work if you’re enjoying it?

Does work have to be hard to be valuable?

I’ve been thinking a lot about questions like these since I had this conversation with my cohort and it’s caused me to think a lot about the term “real work.”

What do I believe “real work” is anyway?

Through a combination of my blue-collar background, Christian worldview, and all the reinforcement I’ve internalized over the decades, I tend to (incorrectly) believe that doing real work means performing tasks that produce an immediate, tangible result.

When you’re doing real work, you see real results.

And the more effort is required, the more valuable the work is.

I even get bonus points if it’s physically painful.

For example, if I sweat all day building fence for the sheep and can see what I’ve created when I’m done, I’ve done work.

If my hands have blisters and my back aches the next day, I’ve clearly done real work.

My need for a giant bottle of Advil is further proof.

When I’m behind the keyboard in a room that’s exactly the temperature I want, I sometimes question whether I’m doing any work at all. Let alone real work.

And, if I’ve enjoyed what I’ve done all day, I’m really tempted to think I’ve somehow cheated the system.

Have I done any work at all on days that have been fun for me?

The Six Types of Working Genius framework that I trust and use with my clients challenges how I would instinctually answer that question.

And that’s what was driving my LCA group to think more deeply as leaders.

The Working Genius model explains that every project requires all six types of tasks:

Wonder

Identifying the need for improvement or change.

Seeing opportunities, gaps, possibilities, and questions.

Asking, “What needs to change?”

Invention

Generating ideas and solutions.

Creating innovations, approaches, and strategies.

Asking, “What could we do?”

Discernment

Evaluating the viability of ideas.

Assessing and judging what will work best.

Asking, “Will it work?”

Galvanizing

Creating movement and action.

Motivating and inspiring people and building momentum.

Asking, “Who’s coming with us?”

Enablement

Providing support and assistance.

Knowing how to best help others move the work forward.

Asking, “How can I help?”

Tenacity

Driving completion and following through.

Ensuring all the boxes are checked and the work gets done.

Asking, “Did we finish?”

The data that supports this framework shows that each person has two of these types of work as their Working Geniuses.

When they’re doing these kinds of tasks, they’re energized and fulfilled.

They’re doing the work they’re wired to do and they enjoy it.

If that’s true (and it is), what does that say about how we as leaders should view “real work”?

I’ve spent my professional career in manufacturing and the drive to deliver tangible, measurable results has always been the focus.

That’s critically important for obvious reasons, but it comes with some risks.

Here’s an example.

Have you ever heard a business leader make some version of this statement:

“Thank you for your kind words about my leadership, but the folks out on the production line deserve the credit. They’re the ones doing the real work.”

I trust that the intention of the leader who says this is good, but she may cause some unintended consequences.

Do you see any potential problems with this kind of statement?

I’m wondering how this makes every employee in the company who’s not out on the production line feel.

Do they interpret this as a message that they aren’t doing real work or get the impression that they aren’t doing the work that this leader values the most?

Does this trigger them to go back to working at a more tactical level than they should so they can point to immediate, more easily observable results to justify their value to themselves and their leaders?

These are very real possibilities, especially if the leaders in the organization aren’t shop workers, but their parents were.

If you’re the first generation to work behind a keyboard instead of a press or a lathe, it can be easy to discount the value of the work you do.

And if your Working Genius pairing reveals that you’re wired to do your best work at the beginning of a project where results are less tangible, it’s even easier to feel like you have nothing to add to the business.

You may be telling yourself that all you do is ask questions (Wonder) and come up with ideas (Invention).

But you’re not very good at pushing work across the finish line (Tenacity).

In other words, other people do the real work that needs to be done. You don’t.

Or, you may feel like you “just” lead people who actually do the work.

You’re good at helping others be successful (Enablement) and are an outstanding sounding board (Discernment) in the background.

But you don’t actually DO anything.

If that hits home for you, I’d like to bring you a word of encouragement.

I strongly encourage you not to overlook the value you bring to a team.

Every job is a six-letter job.

W, I, D, G, E, and T are all needed for every endeavor.

And you’re built in such a way that you contribute the most to your business through two of those.

If your Working Genius pairing doesn’t look like what you’ve always considered to be real work, don’t let that discourage you.

And, if that describes someone on your team, take some time today to remind them that you need and appreciate them.

They need to know that what they do is important, especially if they’re not doing the blue-collar work they grew up around.

There’s also a flip side to this topic.

We’ll talk about that next week.

Helping you lead with clarity and confidence,

Greg

P.S. If you’d like to engage in open, honest conversations like this one with like-minded leaders in a relaxed, judgement-free setting, I invite you to consider joining my Leadership Clarity Accelerator small-group coaching cohort that starts on September 17. There are only 5 spots open, and the current cohort sold out. I’d be happy to get on a call and tell you more about it.

Last week I told you about how my experience raising sheep at Pemberley Farm is challenging my perspectives on leading people.

I shared these three photos.

And these leadership questions

• Can I identify and remove obstacles between my employees and the resources they need to be successful?
• Are some of my team members blocking others from getting what they need?
• Do I fully understand why my team members are doing what they’re doing?

If you missed last week’s article, you can read it here. One of the main takeaways was an encouragement to stay curious and open-minded. Talk with your people so you can learn all you can about them and from them.

I ended by explaining that we all have biases that shape how we think and act, and I told you that this would raise another question.

Here it is:

Are we letting appearance influence how we treat the people on our team?

As you consider this question, take a moment to look at another picture I took of the sheep at the water tank.

This is Martin, our Babydoll lamb, again.

I introduced you to him last week by pointing out that Georgiana and several of the other Valais Blacknose ewes were blocking his access to the big water tank, a critical resource he needed on this sweltering day.

And here’s another photo of Georgie.

Heads up. This week’s newsletter is going to be a little different than you’re used to.

I’m still going to share my thoughts on developing your people so your business can grow. But you’re also going to see a bunch of pictures of our sheep.

Because apparently, I can’t watch these creatures without thinking about leadership lessons I want to share with you.

I’ll start with the back story.

Last week I was standing in our pasture making sure our sheep had water because it was like 104 or 105F.

That was the real temperature. I don’t know what the “feels like” temperature was but I didn’t need a jacket. It was not chilly.

And when it’s that hot, one of the most valuable resources for a sheep is water.

So I ran down there in the middle of the day between meetings to top off their water tank.

Here’s what I saw.

That’s Jane and Charlotte in the back. Georgiana, the queen bee of the flock, is facing the camera. And Kitty’s lying down in the front.

It takes a while for the water that’s scalding hot because it’s been baking in the 300 feet of hose strung across the pasture between the hydrant and the tank to cool off.

So I had some time to think.

I started comparing the sheep scene in front of me to our work environments.

That water tank reminded me of various resources that are valuable to the people on our teams.

High-visibility projects, meaningful work assignments, career-building relationships, and opportunities to be in the spotlight came to mind.

The employees entrusted to our care need these things to thrive and flourish.

Similarly, this water tank was exactly what these four big, wooly Valais Blacknose ewes needed.

Based on this picture, you might assume that Kiersten and I had provided for our sheep and they were well cared for.

I’m confident you make every effort to do the same for your team members. You’ve likely given them the resources they need to be successful in their work.

A reasonable assumption is that all is well, right?

Our sheep are good. Your people are good.

All is well, right?

I can’t speak for you, but that wasn’t the case for our sheep.

These four ladies were just fine. But we didn’t have just four VBNs in this pasture.

We had eleven other sheep in there too.

Including Martin.

The little guy in the back.

For much of my career, I was rewarded for being good at work I wasn’t really built to do.

But it took me a long time to realize this.

I was an engineer and a project manager. And I was good at details.

I could take a complicated project, organize it, keep track of everything that needed to happen, and drive it all the way to completion.

So people kept giving me more opportunities to do exactly that.

It made perfect sense.

If Greg is good at getting complicated projects across the finish line, give the next complicated project to Greg.

There’s just one problem.

Being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the work you should keep doing.

I didn’t fully understand this until much later in my career.

The work that energized me most wasn’t managing all those details. It was leading teams, coaching people, and helping them develop.

I’ve realized since then how easy it is for leaders to make the same mistake with our best people.

We find the person we can count on.

When a customer has a problem, we give it to Susan because Susan will take care of it.

When a project gets into trouble, we call Carlos because Carlos will get it back on track.

When something absolutely has to get done by Friday, we know exactly who to ask.

And because they’re good at it, we keep giving them more.

Eventually, we’ve built their job around what they’ve proven they can do.

But have we ever stopped to ask if that’s what they want?

That’s one reason I encourage leaders to create an Individual Development Plan with each person on their team.

It starts with questions about the person’s career interests, goals, and aspirations. Then we look at the strengths they can leverage, where they need to develop, and the experiences that will help them get there.

Notice I said experiences.

Development doesn’t have to mean sending them to a class.

Sometimes the best development opportunity is simply giving someone a chance to do something they haven’t done before.

I talked about an example of this recently with Michael Morrison on his Small Business Pivots podcast.

Years ago, I worked with a young engineer who started with us as an intern.

I didn’t hand him a major leadership responsibility and hope for the best.

I gave him opportunities to present his work.

Then opportunities to take on more responsibility.

Eventually, I put him in charge of a group of interns. He could assign their work and lead them, while I retained responsibility for things like their performance reviews.

It gave him a chance to lead without putting him, the interns, or the business at unnecessary risk.

And it gave me a chance to see what he could do.

Over time, those opportunities got bigger. And so did his impact on our business.

He became one of the top leaders in our business unit.

That’s what developing people can look like.

Not simply giving your reliable people more.

Giving them opportunities that help them grow.

So think about the person on your team you trust the most.

What work do you automatically send their way because you know they’ll handle it?

Then ask yourself a different question:

Is that work helping them become who they want to become?

If you don’t know the answer, that might be a great conversation to have this week.

Michael and I talked about this and quite a bit more during our conversation on Small Business Pivots.

You can listen to ​my conversation with Michael Morrison on Apple Podcasts​ or on whatever platform you prefer.

Or you can ​watch us on YouTube

Helping you lead with clarity and confidence,

Greg

P.S. If you want to get better at developing the people on your team, I’d love to share what I’ve learned. I’ve dedicated time on my calendar to help leaders just like you through a complimentary coaching call. Grab a time using this scheduling link and let’s talk.