Stop Directing Traffic
I generally do the dishes and clean the kitchen before going to bed at night. My wife is an amazing cook, and as evidenced by my few feeble attempts to cover cooking duties for her, my best contributions are to chop vegetables and clean up after the meal. I also secretly enjoy this as personal time to put on a podcast and think. Music is okay, but I enjoy getting lost in ideas. There is nothing like long-form interviews of interesting people to take me deep into my thoughts.
On one such occasion, during an extremely long interview, Ryan Holiday tells the story about Dov Charney's rise and fall as the creator of American Apparel. It's a fascinating tale of a creative but undisciplined mind running a multimillion-dollar company. On the one hand, Dov was a genius; his marketing and business strategy created astronomical growth. But on the other hand, he had no boundaries and no clear picture of his role in the company. He tried to run everything at all times.
This kind of micromanaging was perfectly exemplified in the following story. At one point, Ryan, who was Dov's head of marketing, looked out his window and saw Dov directing traffic in the parking lot of the main office. Something had bothered Dov, and he decided to roll up his sleeves and fix it. On the one hand, I am tempted to honor this kind of attitude in a leader. Nothing is below them; they are even willing to direct traffic if it makes the company successful. The problem is that directing traffic was not making the company successful. To spin that plate, he had to let others crash to the ground. For a multimillion-dollar company with over 26 locations, the plates that would fall were much more significant than a small traffic issue. So significant that Dov was forced out by the board, and the company ultimately went bankrupt a few years later.
There were lots of things discussed between Jocko and Ryan during the over 4-hour conversation, but the story of Dov bounced around in my head as I clicked off the light and drifted off to sleep. How could a man with so little discipline make it so far? I wasn't surprised that the thing came crumbling down. I was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.
I awoke the next day, went through my morning routine, and went about my work. A Slack message appeared in a channel that caught my attention. "Oh, this is interesting," I thought, "maybe I can help this person." So I dived in to help out. I enjoy being helpful and I like being perceived as helpful. I also like the satisfaction of solving a problem. That is part of the reason I became a programmer. Now that I don't write code, this scratches that specific itch.
About 15 minutes into the investigation of this problem, my mind zoomed out to a virtual office building. I was looking out the window and saw myself down in the parking lot helping people navigate around some new construction and park their cars. It was as if my own subconscious was accusing me. My own mind took over, and a window into my own shortcomings as a leader was opened up. I took my hands off the keyboard and almost said audibly to myself, "I am directing traffic."
It was like a hundred small things all of a sudden made sense. I rarely have an "ah-ha" moment that is so clear. It happened three more times that day. All of a sudden, I could see through a new lens. Now I hadn't stumbled on something new; my boss had been telling me this for months. He just used different words:
"I need you to get out of the weeds."
"Focus on being effective, not busy."
For some reason, I couldn't connect those statements to the "weeds" I was getting into. I was ending each day feeling accomplished, not realizing that those accomplishments were actually getting in the way of my growth as a leader. I was also blocking the growth of other newer leaders by stepping into the areas that they should own.
I have talked previously about heuristics. I think every great leader employs heuristics. Sometimes those heuristics don't land like something your own subconscious created to teach you a lesson. This is my personal heuristic. It rings in my ears every time I find myself directing the traffic inside of my company.
As you get into management you will need to pass the torch on to those that come behind you. They will have to step up to the tasks and you will need to step out of them. This is good for you and good for them. Resist the temptation to jump back into the day to day and start directing the traffic. You have other things to do.
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