Chapter 13. Accept Their Limitations

As we saw earlier, effectively fusing a team together means you need several different parts—or team members. Now some of us are good at certain things and others not so. If we were all the same, we wouldn’t be able to work as a team—we would all be leaders or all followers, and you need a combination, not either/or.

So if some members of your team aren’t leaders—or followers—you have to accept that. If some are good at figure work and others not, you have to accept that. If some are good at working unsupervised and others not, you have to accept that.

And to accept these things, you have to know your staff pretty well. You have to know their strengths and weaknesses, good points and bad. If you don’t—and I’m sure this doesn’t apply to you—you will be forever trying to shove round pegs into square holes and vice versa.

You have to accept that not everyone is going to be as bright, as determined, as ambitious, as clever, or as motivated as you are—praise indeed from me, but see the next rule. Some of your team are quite possibly going to be brain dead from the feet up, and you might need to practice Rule 10 before Rule 13 if there simply is no hope. But don’t act in haste. You might not need a team of geniuses. (In fact if you hire people far too smart for a job, they will just leave, fast.)

Suppose your team contains machine operators or admin assistants. Now you don’t need these good people to have Einstein brains nor to be really on the ball when it comes to brainstorming. But you do need them to sit in a butt-numbing position for hours at a time concentrating on a bit of work that would drive you or me batty. Just don’t expect them to take creative wing and soar away with new ideas, new innovations, or new technologies. You have to accept their limitations—and love them for them because these limitations are their parameters by which you can get the very best out of them—their best of course. And while you’re at it, have a quick check of your own limitations. What’s that? You haven’t got any? Come on.