Read Time: 4 minutes. |
| | | | Last Two Cohorts of 2025 Coming in Hot | MGMT Fundamentals - Eight one-hour sessions over two weeks starting September 9 at 12:00 PM ET. Perfect for managers with 0-3 years of experience who want to quickly build the skills and systems to lead their team effectively from Day 1. | MGMT Accelerator - Eight 90-minute sessions over four weeks plus 3 group coaching sessions starting October 7 at 11:00 AM ET. Perfect for experienced leaders with 3-10 years of experience who want to refine their systems to deliver more impact and level up as a leader. | |
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The Leadership Equation You've Never Seen |
Here's the simplest way to think about leadership: |
Your Job = Work to Do + People to Do It |
That's it. Everything else is overhead. |
Your role isn't to do more work. It's to constantly optimize the match between work that needs doing and people available to do it. |
Most leaders get this backwards. They see a problem and think, "How can I solve this?" The right question is: "Who can help us solve this, and do they have what they need?" |
You don't need to be the star player. |
You need to be the matchmaker. |
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Why Leaders Burn Out (And Teams Underperform) |
The Doing Trap: When work piles up, leaders default to doing it themselves. Every task you take on is a task someone else doesn't learn to do. |
The Resource Fight: Most leaders fight for more people or accept more work. Few systematically evaluate whether the current match is optimal. |
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The Weekly Matchmaking Audit |
Every Sunday, spend 30 minutes asking: |
Work Questions: |
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People Questions: |
Who on my team is underutilized? Who is overwhelmed with the wrong kind of work? What skills do we need that we don't have?
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Match Questions: |
Where is great work being done by the wrong people? Where are great people stuck with the wrong work? What's one change I could make this week to improve the match?
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The Resource "Fight" Framework |
How to Fight for More People: "Based on our workload, we need two additional people to avoid missing commitments. Here's the specific impact..." |
How to Fight for Less Work: "We're committed to 12 initiatives. If everything is a priority, nothing is. Which 3-4 should we focus on?" |
How to Fight for Reality: "Do more work with the same people," is wishful thinking. Force the choice: "I can deliver X with current resources or Y with additional resources. Which is more important?" |
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Building Your "Borrowed People" Network |
The Investment: |
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The Ask: Be specific about scope, explain what they'll gain, make it easy for their manager to say yes. |
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Common Matchmaking Mistakes |
The Hero Complex: "It's faster if I do it myself."
Fix: Ask "Who could learn to do this?" |
The Comfort Zone Trap: Assigning work based on who's done it before.
Fix: Regularly stretch people into adjacent skills. |
Scope Creep Acceptance: Saying yes without adjusting existing commitments.
Fix: Every new "yes" requires an explicit "no" to something else. |
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Advanced Matchmaking Strategies |
The Capacity Buffer: Always operate at 80% capacity, not 100%. The 20% buffer allows for unexpected opportunities and strategic thinking space. |
The Work Elimination Diet: Monthly, ask: "What would we stop doing if we had to cut 20% of our work?" Then stop doing those things anyway. |
The People Multiplication Strategy: Instead of asking for more people, ask: "How could we help our current people be 20% more effective?" Often the answer is better tools, clearer processes, or more focused priorities. |
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Measuring Matchmaking Success |
Team Health Indicators: |
People working in their strengths 80% of the time No one consistently working over capacity Clear ownership for every major initiative Regular skill development happening
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Business Impact Indicators: |
Higher quality outputs Faster project completion times Increased team satisfaction scores More valuable work getting done
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Just One Step |
This week: |
List all current work your team is doing Categorize it using the Matchmaking Audit Identify your biggest mismatch Make one change to improve the match
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Your job isn't to be the best individual contributor. It's to create conditions where your team can do their best work. |
The question isn't whether you can do the work yourself. It's whether you're optimizing the alignment between work and people to maximize impact. |
Great leaders own the space between work and people. |
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What You Missed This Week |
Our Sunday AM posts: |
📌 11 Lessons to Change How You Think (Dave on LI)
📌 9 Magnetic Leadership Skills (Mar on LI)
📌 20 High-Signal X Accounts to Fix Your Feed (Dave on X) |
And here are our most popular posts last week:
🔥 10 Bad Leadership Habits to Unlearn ASAP (Dave on LI)
🔥 The 2-Minute Habit to 10x Team Performance (Dave on X)
🔥 12 Hidden Rules for Peak Performance (Mar on LI) |
Our goal is to build a community of 1 million thoughtful, curious leaders. |
You can help us by reposting anything that resonates with you. |
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Thank you for reading. Appreciate you! |
Dave |
| | | | Ways To Work With Us | MGMT Fundamentals - Eight one hour sessions over two weeks starting September 9 at 12:00 PM ET. Perfect for managers with 0-3 years of experience who want to quickly build the skills and systems to lead their team effectively from Day 1. | MGMT Accelerator - Eight 90-minute sessions over four weeks plus 3 group coaching session starting October at 7 11:00 AM ET. Perfect for experienced leaders with 3-10 years of experience who want to refine their systems to deliver more impact and level up as a leader. | 1:1 Executive Coaching - My sweet spot is solving real problems while helping leaders build their management OS. Email me to setup an intro call. | Customized Leadership Programs - Bring our MGMT Accelerator or MGMT Fundamentals in-house for a tailored, intensive workshop. Ideal for 15+ leaders. | Speaking - We're now booking keynotes for Fall of 2025. Hit reply on this note, and we can set up a time to discuss topics and pricing. | MGMT Playbook - If you're here because someone forwarded this email, please subscribe before you leave. | |
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