Day # 189 - Operational Freedom

Today's post is about business. It's an operations thing. Those of you who work for someone else will understand. Those of you who are self-employed, stop reading now, fall on your knees and thank God for that gift - then get back to work, because you don't want to risk losing that freedom.

In business, as in government, or any other organization, it is important to know your role. It is important for roles to be clearly defined for each member of the team, from the CEO to the janitor. This seems elementary, but it's one of those things that can easily be lost when there are too many people trying to be the chief - it leaves no little Indians. The micromanaging control-freaks of the world will soon enough lose the best people and wind up with the weak and the lazy running their departments or businesses. Most of these second-rate "businesspeople" will be okay with it, because they are so unsure of their worth as human beings that they would rather hold on to their power and fail, than release it and prosper.

The formula to success in an organization is simple:

1 - Hire the best people you can find.
2 - Pay them what they are worth.
3 - Incentivize their performance.
4 - Get the hell out of their way.

Your organization will never thrive if you have an accountant watching the sales department, telling them how to speak to clients, when and if they can take a lunch break, monitoring emails and taking them out of context, and generally interfering with the smooth operation of the single most important function of any business. A hospital administrator should never walk into an operating room and tell the surgeon how to do her job, either.

This should speak for itself, but common sense ain't all that common.

The same applies to children. Give your kids enough space to operate. Let them make mistakes. This is important in their formation. If you don't know failure, you will never know success. If you control every step of their lives, they will never learn to make decisions and never know what they can be - so they won't have any incentive to try to become more, to become better, to reach their God-given potential.

Allow your people to breathe. A closed fist may not let anything go, but it also cannot receive anything; and the tighter your grip, the more (whatever) will slip from your fingers.

Adolfo