by Eddy Parham, OD Guy

       A city dweller was driving through the country side one afternoon when his car ran off the road and became stuck in a ditch. Not having cell service he had no choice but to start walking. He came upon a farm house and knocked on the door. He explained his predicament to the farmer who answered the door. The farmer explained that he had a mule in the field near where the man’s car was stuck and that the mule would have no problem pulling the car out of the ditch.

       When the two men arrived back at the car, the farmer called his mule. When Dolly heard her name called, she came running over to the farmer and was quickly hitched up to a rope. The other end of the rope was secured to the car and the farmer told the man to get in and steer the car out of the ditch when Dolly started to pull.

       The farmer then hollered “Pull Sam! Pull Ruth! Pull Buck! Pull Dolly!” And with that, Dolly pulled the car out of the ditch.

       The man thanked the farmer but had to ask, “Why did you call three other names before you called Dolly?”
       
The farmer answered, “You see, Dolly is blind and she didn’t realize that there weren’t other mules pulling. Had she realized that fact, she wouldn’t have even tried pulling your car out.”

       There are several business applications that can be seen in the story and I won’t try to cover them all here, but I think we can all agree that work is easier when others are helping to complete the job. How often though do managers try to do the heavy lifting themselves?

As a manager’s world expands, the less technical knowledge the manager needs to possess. Face it; it’s difficult to know everything about everything. And, having a high level of technical expertise is not what the manager should be concentrating on anyway. Yes, you must have an understanding of technical steps, processes, latest techniques et cetera, but as a manager moves up in the organization responsibility shifts from technical to conceptual. The higher up, the more conceptual life becomes. Put more succinctly, you stop doing the pulling and start planning on how to hitch the team in order to get the most power out of the pull.

       Chances are pretty good that your employees possess the technical knowledge, skills, and abilities and are up-to-date on the latest techniques involving the task at hand. Let them do their job and you do yours. Of course if you find that you must do their job in addition to yours then chances are high that you need to find a new team to help pull the load but that’s a topic for a different day.