Leaders Need To know enough to be dangerous

Danger!

Leaders need to know enough to be dangerous.

And Bob had to figure that out quickly.

I started working with Bob, an Executive Vice President of Operations at a distribution company, when he’d been chosen to sponsor a multimillion-dollar tech project.

Like so many of us, though, he was overwhelmed by the tech. He was afraid he didn’t know enough about it to make wise decisions for the company.

But here’s the good news:

You don’t have to be an expert in a new technology, idea, process, or anything else in order to effectively use it, or make decisions around it.

You just need to know enough to be dangerous.

So how do you figure out where that line is?

For Bob, it meant working together to determine the exact level of tech knowledge he would need to feel confident he was making the right business decisions for the company.

Together, we developed an education plan that didn’t:

-        Take up all his time

-        Shift focus away from his core job duties

-        Feel overwhelming

Good thing we did this.

Because then COVID hit during the first release of the new tech.

But armed with his new knowledge, Bob was ready.

He quickly analyzed the impact of new work-from-home orders, plus operational safety protocols, to make the choices he needed to make.

Through his quick thinking, adaptability, and foundation of knowledge Bob enabled the organization to continue with the rollout as planned…

On time and on budget.

It turns out, you don’t need years of specialized knowledge about something in order to make effective decisions about it.

It’s all about leveraging your “shallow” knowledge, and understanding the ROI of learning something new.

Wherever you are in that process, and whatever brave new technology or tools are stressing you out…

I invite you to book a discovery call below so you can start building your plan