The Rules Of Management: A Definitive Code for Managerial Success, Expanded Edition

Chapter 11. Offload as Much as You Can—or Dare

The good manager, and that is you from now on, knows that she manages events, processes, situations, strategies but never people. Look, let’s imagine you have a big garden and decide to employ a gardener. Do you manage the gardener? No. He manages himself quite nicely, thank you. Your job is to manage the garden. You’ll decide what to plant and when and where. The gardener, like a spade or a wheelbarrow, becomes a tool in that garden and a tool you can use to manage your garden effectively. But you don’t manage the gardener. He manages himself. You tell him what you want done and he gets on with it. You delegate and he digs, and delves, and plants, and prunes, and tends, and weeds. The plants actually ...