I’d like to share a few insights with you on a very simple leadership methodology that will help you to develop your employees, so build them up, so that you can actually push more work down to them.

Push the Work Down, Build the Team Up Leadership Methodology

I use this terminology quite often when I’m mentoring business owners. To push the work down, you have to also build the team up. Let me give you a simple model that I learned from a fellow by the name of John Maxwell. It’s very powerful and very easy to follow.

Step 1 - I do it.

You’ve got to be quite masterful in the skill or the job task that you want somebody else to take over and do for you in the future. You’ve got to be good at it first. It’s very difficult to hand over a task to somebody else if you don’t know how to master it yourself because how can you really give them direction and feedback on how to do it? Number 1, you’ve got to do it yourself. Number 2, when you do it, you’ve got to do it with somebody else.

So step 1, I do it, step 1. I do it and you’re with me, you’re my employee, so I do it and you’re with me. Now you’re learning from me, you’re receiving natural mentorship because you’re seeing how it should be done. If I’m good at it and now I’m willing to do it with you in the room with the customer or on-the-job, suddenly you’re learning the right way. For some reason, business owners don’t do that anywhere near enough.

We just let our people flounder and guess their way through instead of being the model and showing them what to do.

So step 1, I do it.

Step 2, I do it and you’re with me.

So now you’re learning.

Step 3, you do it and I’m with you.

Now I’m handing over the role to you, but I’m staying by your side. I’m not impatiently racing off, turning my back on you because I want to be there to nurture you and mentor you and really gain your confidence and skill and expertise. So you really can succeed me very soon. It doesn’t take that long when you take this model into account. 

Step 4 is you just do it.

You’re ready now. You can now just do it, but here’s the big mistake. There’s one more step,

Step 5. You now do it and you take somebody with you.

1. I do it; 2. I do it & you are with me; 3. You do it & I am with you; 4. You do it; and 5. You do it with someone else.

In the three levels of business with your business, finders, minders, and grinders, the big mistake we always tend to make is we overlook the need to create an ongoing, cascading, learning organization

Finder 4%, Minder 16%, Grinder 80%

So the final step is you do it and you take someone with you. So now, we’ve got that transferal. It was a wonderful thing last month. We hired a brand new person to our organization and our manager level did not need to train that person. Another graduate, another grinder is training another brand new person because we have this philosophy in our business.

So that’s a great tip. I hope you pay attention to that and really make it work for you. You’ll be surprised how much free time that gives you and reduces your stress and actually sees your own people develop into really outstanding performers. Talk to you again soon.