I read this interview with Jerry Seinfeld recently and I wanted to share a piece from it below:
A few thoughts on this…
- You know I’m all about efficiency when the process calls for being efficient, like in recruiting. When you start talking about being creative, like Jerry is above, that’s when you have to throw efficiency out the window. Genius doesn’t have a timeline. Sometimes working smarter not harder isn’t the right answer.
- “Who’s McKinsey? Are they funny? Then, no I don’t need them.” Too often we ask for help from folks who don’t know what we do or how to do it, but they have an MBA from an Ivy League school so they must be smarter than us, right? Right!? Well, they might be smarter at somethings, but you know your business and you probably know what needs to be done. The question is do you have the courage to do it or are you using a consulting firm because you want someone to share the blame?
- “The show was successful because I micromanaged it.” When I speak to really successful entrepreneurs almost all are successful because they micromanage the crap out of every aspect of their company. We like to act like this is a bad trait because it can be destructive, but most of the great leaders find ways to micromanage and still treat people really great. It’s not one or the either, it’s both.
I love reading and listening to really successful people talk about why they are successful when they aren’t trying to be impressive. When you get the real stuff. I think this was some real stuff from Jerry.
I think it is more about attention to detail than it is micromanaging. Every person has a limited amount of bandwidth for what they can handle in a given day so micromanaging creates a ceiling. The really great entrepreneurs find or develop other people that have an eye for detail in a similar or better way than they do and empower those people within the organization to take the lead. I think you can get away with micromanaging a little more in a creative environment, but it gets messy with day-to-day operations. Attention to detail along with good leadership and development skills will get a business a lot farther than micromanaging. I think you micromanage when you have to or until you trust the other party and then you have to learn to let go.