The first part of the master apprentice relationship starts with delegation. How does somebody delegate and work with people on their team? And I use the term hands on to describe this. And maybe one way to think about it is if I were to ask you to describe your boss and and kind of share like how does he or she delegate? How do they work with you? How much leeway do they give you? Maybe you might say you know he or she, they cut me a lot of slack, they let me do what I need to do. And I got a lot of freedom or you might say the opposite which is my boss a micromanager, he or she is always after me checking every little detail, telling me exactly what to do. We usually think about micromanagement and real effective delegation as opposites while hands on delegation begins to blur the lines, not micromanagement to be sure. But let's just use the term I shared with you. Hands on super bosses will delegate, they'll delegate big, but they won't forget they don't delegate and they come back in a month, come back in three months. They will they will work with you, they will hang out with you, they will find occasions both through zoom and in person to to check in with you. And have a conversation maybe push your thinking a little bit as well. So there they delegate and that delegate big but they keep their hands in the game and a lot of great examples of this that we found from from our research on super bosses. Think about George Lucas. He worked with Ben Burtt to create a voice for R2D2 for that character. That's pretty pretty good gig right to be able to create a voice like that. And and the way they worked together as they sat down and discussed they suggested ideas to each other, they went back and forth. And and Lucas would when he would check in would say that sounds good and what about this and maybe you want to think about that. And then Brandon Burtt would be back in the lab working on it. And then coming back and then they go through this iteration again Ben Burtt I just have to tell you this is kind of a very famous guy in sound design. Because he also worked for Steven Spielberg earlier in his career. He worked on ET the extraterrestrial remember that movie? What a great movie. Ben Burttt's job was to come up with a voice for the character for ET. And if you remember the movie was this kind of cranky voice but it was a little bit it was humanoid to be sure right and was endearing. He was working like long hours trying to figure things out and then one night he comes home late. His wife had gone to bed early because she had a cold and just went to bed early and Ben is getting ready. Ben Burtt is getting ready for bed himself and he just stops and he listens carefully to his wife's breathing through her blocked nose and what I'm about to say. Yeah, he says that kind of nasal sound might be something I could use. So he actually takes a tape recorder because that's what they used in those days before the iphones, right? He put a tape recorder on his wife's side of the bed and just left it on and then went to sleep well when she woke up and saw what was going on. She wasn't all that happy about it, but winning a Oscar for best sound kind of makes everybody feel good at the end of the day. So, George Lucas would work with this Ben Burtt who's a genius in and of himself, right? So he would delegate big, but he would be involved. Alice Waters, she would walk through her kitchen as chef, Penny's looking at the sous chefs, the team and maybe somebody was struggling and so she would offer small corrections or edits. And that's the word she liked to use edits and I like that word, I mean it's a good word to use, even with the people you're working with. I think it's less, I don't know, it's less challenging. It's less confronting somebody else. It's maybe more respectful of somebody else. I want to just see if there's some edits that I could do. I mean you're providing feedback, you're helping somebody else, you're pushing them a little bit. But it's a metaphor you can use for any work that you do. It's definitely not micromanagement, but it is hands on delegation and it's something you can do. According to Proteges and people that I interviewed and work with super bosses very clearly. They have the skill to oversee and exert control without stepping on toes. They articulate their absolute vision to others. We know about that. They set their specific work goals then, but then they step back to see what happens when things go well, they let it ride while still paying close attention to what's happening under their watch. If they don't like what's going on. If they think there's some problems, they don't hesitate to step in and change it. Comedian Andy Samberg who worked for, who was a part of SNL worked with Lorne Michaels of course for years. Andy Samberg in an interview I did with him, told me Lorne Michaels chooses to be more involved in some days. And maybe less involved in other days, depending on his assessment of what's needed. Samberg said, quote, there will be weeks when you have a scene where you don't really hear from him meaning Lorne Michaels at all about it. It just goes as if it's going and it's going to just going to happen. Then there's other weeks when he'll take very strong interest in what's going on and have lots and lots of thoughts. So, he just, it's not a one size fits all. He adjusts to the scenario to the situation that he's facing one last thing. If you sometimes feel a little burned out as a manager and I do coach a lot of managers and occasionally, people come to me with this issue. The first question I have is, well, tell me about how you're delegating. And the most common explanation for why somebody feels burned out, burned out as a manager is because they don't trust their team. They have not been delegating. And the reason you don't delegate, you don't either you could be an egomaniac, okay, which is really bad opposite the super bosses. And doesn't make any sense or you may want to delegate, but you just don't trust your team and that's when we need to step in and we need to pay attention. So, you could ask yourself that very question right now if you're sometimes feeling burned out. Yes, could because there's a lot of work? Could be a lot of stress, could be personal reasons we got that. But are you actually delegating and delegating very well to the people on your team? Do you trust those people? And it turns out a lot of the things I've been talking about that super bosses do can help you build up that trust. And can also help you with this kind of hands on delegation, which is maybe a safer way to delegate. Because you're delegating, but you're keeping your hand in it, you're checking in every now and then you're making sure that it's tracking might be a good idea. So hands on delegation is one of the really core processes that super bosses do and how they interact with people, how they develop talent. And is the first thing I want to talk about under the umbrella of what is this master apprentice relationship? Hands on delegation.
