a bet you shouldn’t hedge

If you are leading an organization, you’ve made one central bet already. A core, maybe the core, of your strategy is “doing stuff through other people.” You’re betting that you can get more done through other people than you can get done by yourself. Otherwise, you’d be free-lancing or consulting, solo.

A responsible leader, someone with a deep sense of ownership, someone who cares about all the details, can lose sight of that central bet. Instead of following the premise to its logical conclusion, that responsible leader can hedge against it, over and over, until it loses much of its force.

What I mean is: if your central bet is on people, you’re probably well served to invest heavily in the moves that will a) get you great people to start with and b) make those people even greater and more powerful as you go.

A very challenging part of b) for responsible leaders is handing over important things to people, even when you know you could do those things better. Arguably, you’re not really doing b) without the handoff of the important, uncertain stuff - things that matter and that could go wrong. Doing those things, getting feedback, doing them better - that’s how they grow. 

That’s how you tilt the odds in your favor on your most central bet.

-Eric