Stocking the Cupboards

After a hard day at Zoom, I decided to whip up a quick batch of scratch cookies.

Cookies may not solve anything in these trying times—but hey—cookies.

Pressed for time, I began tossing ingredients into the spinning mixer.

Butter. Vanilla. Smooth sailing.

Gasp!—We’re out of sugar.

I raced to our bulk storage pantry hoping I had recently had the good sense to purchase “emergency” sugar.

I flung open the pantry door to find three superfluous bags of flour and zero bags of sugar.

Son of a—

As leaders, it’s our job to stock the cupboards.

When we deconstruct our mission, each duty we ask our teams to perform tends to fall into one of four distinct categories:

INNOVATION
TEAMWORK
PROCESS
RESULTS

It’s our job as leaders to:

1 - Define the mission
2 - Align our team’s capabilities with the mission’s requirements

For example:

It’s okay to have a surplus of PROCESS capabilities on your team, but it’s a problem if you have a deficit of INNOVATION when that’s what your mission requires.

As leaders, we stock our cupboards through our coaching, by partnering with other parts of the org, or making difficult decisions regarding our team’s roster.

How do you bake up success in your organization?