how do you shift your mindset from individual contributor to manager
growing a company from nothing to something required being an individual
contributor and getting a lot done with a little but as we grow it's clear that
I need to hire people for specific roles and accept the accept that I can't do
everything I'm very used to getting stuff done and doing everything myself
and it feels a little weird trusting someone else to do it how can I shift my
mindset to appreciate being a manager over an individual contributor so
straight up out of the gate you are actually failing as a leader by doing
what you're doing but I do by by continuing to do things yourself get in
the weeds and not let people lead you're actually failing as leader and therefore
failing the team so number one you have to watch out for that and you know by
the way that means the more time that you spend in the weeds getting stuff
done yourself because you're so perfect that's the last time that you're
thinking about strategy that's the last time you're thinking about you know
what's gonna happen tomorrow and future operations and that's not good to be in
that situation so first of all you need to build the trust with these people you
don't have to give a hundred percent trust to someone out of the gate if if I
if we're a company and I hire you and I'm gonna have you doing some tasks that
doesn't mean I say hey echo here's the task go do it and now I'm just gonna
walk away I don't even know you I don't know how well you can do the task so I'm
gonna say hey echo here's the task actually watch me do it okay you've seen
me do it now I'm gonna watch you do it okay cool you seem to be doing that
pretty well I'm gonna come check on you in two hours see how it's going come
back two hours next day I check you once every five hours next day I check you in
the morning I check you once in the afternoon next day I just check you at
lunchtime maybe two three four days later I check you once every other day
pretty soon you're good to go and guess what I'm doing I'm doing
something else doing something that I should be doing
I built the trust I confirm that you know how to do it I you trust me because
now I trust you we're building some team and some relationship so that's all
good so so the original point though I think the way that you shift your
mindset is to recognize that micromanagement is actually failure mmm
no progress is made while you're micromanaging the longer you are
micromanaging someone the longer it takes for them to develop as a human
being and as a useful person in your organization every minute that you
micromanage someone is a minute of them not thinking for themselves is a minute
for them not taking ownership of something so if I'm micromanaging your
task you're not taking ownership of it if
you're not taking ownership of it we know where that leads mmm so let people
learn let people lead and to not do that is failing don't fail one time one oh
it's you in Hawaii get your driver's license at 15 Thanks I don't know how
what it is now that was long time ago obviously but I learned to drive with my
dad before that you know when we were young we didn't quite as dirt roads
everywhere so he's like hey you know and it started with when we were young when
we're young young like seven eight years old we'd sit on his lap so he'd do the
shifting and the gas and the brake and stuff like that dirt roads we just do
the steering that's what it kind of started with then after a while he's
like okay now we're just gonna learn how to do this you know it was a man you
Trent a stick shift so he was like okay now you just learned how to go right and
now it's going shift gears all on the dirt road whatever and so I was like 50
just turn 15 or maybe even 14 and he was like hey um he's like alright let's go
drive no usually it'd be like we were going to the beach so on the way home
hey let's take this dirt road you can steer kind of thing but this was
actually like okay let's go drive so I'm like alright but he popped he plops me
on the front seat and he goes alright take us there and we were going wherever
we were going down to the beach he's like all right take us there I was like
ding I don't know Brive steered before I 50 I
haven't done the whole thing all at once but he was sitting right there he just
said take us there I was like dope I took took him there whatever he didn't
critique much you know but I got there and he just kind of let it happen he was
the same kind of thing where first he's checking my steering they
needs China this is over times years and I'll and yeah after a while it's like
bullies doesn't I he's still managing he's right there he could slide his foot
over to the brake if you need to I guess if yes put his hand on the wheel steer
you away from the oncoming truck if need be yeah and at the same time he's
letting me make little micro mistake I hit the kerb a little bit yeah you know
stick shift you do too much or yeah well any let that happen because that's my
thing to figure out the feel because each car is different and it's cool
because that's actually good one time we were going on an operation my first
deployment to Iraq and we were driving a far distance through cities we've never
been through before and we got turned around
mmm in the city and we were had a far way to go to our objective it was a kind
of a high-profile operation and where we stopped mmm and I hear the call in the
radio like all stop and I say something along lines of you know what's up and
you know the the the point man which is the lead nav in the vehicles he comes up
on the radio he's like just trying to get my bearings mmm a little stress
noise I walk up so I get out of my vehicle just to mention this guy's one
of my bros and I walk up the vehicle and he's in there and I hit see he's he's
flustered mmm he's flustered in he's you know I don't wanna say embarrassed but
he's flustered and now I'm there yeah you know what I mean yes and new I think
his thoughts are Jacko's you know jock was gonna be mad or whatever yeah and I
I go up and he's he's cracked open the door right I open the door on the Humvee
and I go you know what's up man just in the most mellow voice about I go
hey what's up and he goes I I don't know where we are I was like cool man we'll
set security let me know when you got it dialed and he's like all right cool and
that's what we did so and it took like you could see his face like he he just
turned back to computers started working but when I walked up to him you know he
could see that I was panicking because you know you got we had a bunch of
vehicles you know you got seven vehicles with us and and they're all driving
around and I've done two laps around the it's not fun and there's and you know
you make it through and like past the enemy one time you got away with yeah
now you went by him three times listen it's not cool yeah and every one
of the whole troop is sitting there and the vehicles going
hold on jackass is gonna run us by this checkpoint again or my this thing again
yeah all of us so but yeah just went up hey bro what's going on I'm just trying
to find where we're gonna set security let me know when you got to figure it
out good good that's that's so good on you because you know everyone was
feeling the strat like what you're saying for like it was like dang where's
this guy leader does not know one I'm sure everyone was feeling that then it's
like all right I got a kind of detached from that feeling and goes you know yeah
and and then you know I got on the radio because that wasn't you know I just said
I said the guy's name like hey just getting sorted out right now wearing me
rolling heared about a few minutes when we know we're at in everyone's you know
sat security boom done there was another time we got ambushed on that same
climate sure and I was in vehicle number two and we're in a big convoy and the
the ambush pretty much was aimed at the center and in the back of the convoy so
a bunch of machine-gun fire a bunch of RPGs and nothing really hit and in fact
nothing did hit the RPGs went over us and and I was I would never say much on
the radio right and the guy in the back vehicle he's actually the platoon chief
but I say I didn't say much but clearly we just got ambushed I mean there was a
mass but you see no fire and explosions going off and we pout you know we go
through that we continue on and the platoon chief in the back he says
something on the radio something along lines of
he's like you know comes up in the music hey joko you know we just got hit with
an ambush back here and I got on the radio knows like Roger it's it you know
whatever goes okay I guess we're all right like all good all good in the hood
I think you did me like that one day yes in fact when I say I think I mean I
remember the time you did me okay so I was
I'm forgive me right now you just talked about an actual ambush actually happened
I'm talk about something way less impactful just bear with at least you're
asking for forgivness masala grocery story is actually this pod corded like a
week or something early so I was like boom let me finish the whole thing get
it ready to get pushed out all I need it was done all I had to do is press the
button to make it live that's all I had to do and this was like a week I think
it might even even been two weeks in advance
wow those are the good old days yeah yeah but and then the day came it was so
done and out of my mind the day came and I was just like hey I don't know it's
not on my mind so the long story short I I didn't do it so yeah I didn't press
publish it was ready to go anyway so I wake up in the morning I see message
well a bunch of Twitter posts right and send that but I had got a text message I
think there might even been a phone call oh no no is a phone call and a text
message from you this you know this is something something obviously is
something you know I get it this early in the morning by the way yeah so I look
at it um and so I listen to the voice message first in it was you all coming
like hey how's it going oh good morning
um just to sort of let you know it's Wednesday you know we have that but that
podcast we recorded that's you know that's supposed to be going on right now
so whenever you can whenever you're ready go ahead and post that but it
wasn't like all the Twitter folks where's the Bundesrat you know
okay whatever you ready it's all good you know I didn't know what happened
maybe you're under more stress hey never know you got to think when you're in a
leadership position not that I'm like the leader here but if you're in a
leadership position you don't know what someone else is going through maybe you
had some technical issue and I'm like we're gonna call you up and you're like
where's that thing and now you freak out if a kid or yeah I don't need to make it
any worse there's something going on like you were sleeping that's it I
didn't want you know but you always think about the perspective of the other
person that you're dealing with and you don't want to escalate things yeah
that's not gonna help yeah just de-escalate hey man just
wondering what's up if you need anything from me on the podcast maybe we need to
re-record it I don't know let me know I'll be over that's what we're here for
I'm like with two people shouting at each other and you chime in so they
stole shouting and you're ready I got three people shouting yeah yeah anyway