Page 92 - How to Drive the Bottom Line with People

Built to Serve

If someone is a good meat cutter, but does not have
the soft skills needed to be a manager, recognize and

applaud him for being a great meat cutter. But do not
promote him to a management position until you have
enabled him to develop his leadership skills.

You need to understand leaders can make winners
fail. It happens all the time, and it is unfair. Mentoring
team members—grooming them to be promoted—is
crucial to any organization. The military is one group
particularly adept at mapping out careers. It is common

for general officers leading huge enterprises to manage
the careers of their junior officers. I recall working with
68
= one general officer who carried a briefcase for person-

nel matters. It contained a magnetic board inside with
the names of junior officers printed on small tabs.
Remarkably, the board contained the general’s plan
for the organization’s leadership positions 10, 15, and
20 years in the future. In painstaking detail, each stop

a junior officer would need to make to obtain the
expertise required for the plan was laboriously laid
out on the board.

Some junior officers were young captains in the
infancy of their careers. They had distinguished them-
selves enough to catch the general’s eye. Of course,
changes were certain when officers separated from the