Was discussing with our investors / mentors today about developing second level leadership in Magnet. I think this has been something that we have struggled from the inception. We identify good people, they perform, then we plan growth. And many can not cope up with the demands of the new situations and increased expectations. I would assign some work and they would get stuck on a particular thing. Would come to me, and I would have to solve it. And at the end of it, I would feel it would have been faster if I did it myself.
This is not really as simple as I wrote. There are many sides to the phenomenon, but what I am left with, is when will people learn to do things on their own?
So we were discussing this, and Ajaybhai shared a beautiful thing. He said, this is a common issue in growing organizations. As promoters delegate more, this situation is going to arise. For the second level guys, the promoter is always around the corner. So if they get stuck, they just run to the promoter and ask for help. The promoter would then “get into action” and fix the problem. This loop keeps on, until the promoter decides to draw a line and not get into problems smaller than a particular size. Get onto them only if things are in a jam, else, let people handle them. At the same time, hold them accountable for the results.
I feel it should work. In practical life, it’s not going to be that easy, but I am going to give it a shot. As a matter of fact, two days ago I told the team leaders that they got to solve their team’s problems on their own! They might be shocked, but I am positive this will work out!