Chapter 97. Do One or Two Things Well and Avoid the Rest

The really good manager is a specialist. You can’t do everything. You can’t do everyone’s job. You can’t do more than a few things each day anyway. Best to pick your specialist subject, be really, really good at it, and leave the rest to other people. In my company we have a very clear demarcation of who does what. I try to do as little as possible. I figure the better a manager, the less you do; it’s all down to your powers of delegation.

So I stick to what I do best, which is basically talking to other managers. I don’t do sales, but I do open doors for sales staff to walk through. I don’t do key accounts, but I do set up contacts for our key people to follow through, and I do oversee the accounting staff. My “one or two things” is setting up meetings for my team to do the business, and overseeing the overall style of the company—its branding, its corporate identity, its place in the market. I manage the company but I don’t do products.

I know my limitations. I know what I am good at and what I am bad at. I’m lousy on detail, routine, order, regular everyday stuff. I am good on sudden, unorthodox, interesting, one-off, people-orientated projects. I don’t see what I am good at as being better, nor do I see the things I am bad at as being inferior. Quite the opposite in fact. I envy the ordered; those who can pay attention to detail, those who like to see a project through from beginning to end, those with empty in-trays and tidy desks.

What are you good at? And bad? How would you best describe the one or two things you could do well?