It’s been half-term for my kids which generally means it’s bit of a mixed week between work and other things…one of which has been getting my driveway done.
Before you get in any way impressed I should confess that my neighbour is a landscape gardener who’s been doing his own driveway…and I’ve just piggy-backed onto his project!
Without going into the whole shebang in great detail, a couple of things have stood out to me as the project neared completion.
I had a go at some aspects of the work on my own, with my own tools. It involved a couple of evenings well beyond the fall of darkness and some severely sore legs from all the crouching down.
Then I would watch the expert. He had the right tools and (more than) a bit of know-how and the difference in how quick and how well things got done was incredible. A circular saw instead of a hand-saw. A petrol whacker-plate. An open-backed Transit instead of my family-wagon with the seats down. I could go on.
The difference in progress (productivity) between me on my own – getting there but it’s a hard slog – and the expert with the right tools and plenty of experience was immense.
Leading people, teams and organisations can be much like this. You can get it done by instinct, common sense and what you’ve picked up from others along the way or get in the right tools, with some expert guidance and see much better results with less toil and in less time.
I share loads of these kinds of tools for free (one complimentary place for the first person from any organisation) at the Foundations of Success workshop. If you, like me with my driveway, know some help would make a huge difference, you’re very welcome to get along.
Nick Howes 