RULE 92

Share what you know

This Rule is about mentoring people who know less than you. They don’t have to know that much less and you don’t have to know that much more. But if you share everything you do know then they will know as much as you.

Some managers will see this as a threat. They are the foolish ones. What you have just done is train up someone to take some of the workload from your shoulders. Someone to replace you when you get promoted.

Some managers feel awkward about sharing because they feel they don’t know enough. But when you learnt English at school it was enough that your teacher knew about grammar and clauses and punctuation and that sort of stuff. You didn’t need an award-winning novelist or a Nobel prize winner. No, just a humble English teacher was enough.

And what are you going to share with your team? That’s easy. Anything that might help them do their job better: information, tactics, plans, skills, ideas, reading material, contacts, lunch – just keep giving them all the tools you can to make them more useful to you and to themselves.

Sharing with colleagues is important too. The more you give out the more you’ll get back. Suppose you give one bit of information to 20 other managers. If only half of them are generous enough to return the favour it means you now have ten bits of new information to add to your collection. They have only gained by one but you have gained by ten – brilliantly easy. They will invariably share with you, but not each other – don’t ask me why. Perhaps they feel indebted to you and not to them.