Hi, I’m Jack Dunigan of thepractialleader.com, and today’s leadership lesson, lessons in superlative leaderships, I’m going to you about the power of leverage. Standby.
You’ve probably seen the tagline on our website, which says reach further, accomplish more, and work less. Well, that’s an important tagline because it’s not just words, it’s not just this little slogan that’s out there. I’ve been doing it for over forty years. Showing leaders around the world how they can reach further, accomplish more, and work less. We all have things we need to get done, we all have things that we want to get done, we all have things that really should be done, we all have objectives in life, we have concerns that fill and drive our life, we want to see them happen and we find out we can’t do them all alone, we need other people. And this will show you how to reach further, accomplish more and work less.
Now, it’s more than just a tagline, it really is a way of life. It’s an objective, it’s an attitude that we have in life. I’ve worked with some leaders who absolutely, absolutely would not work cooperatively with anybody else. And there’s a lot of reasons for that. They’ve been burned before, they don’t know how to delegate, they don’t have the structure or the time, some are really quite unorganized themselves and so they don’t know how to figure out what needs to be done, or they live in states of constant chaos and anarchy.
But most of us are not that way. We can see the big picture and we can see all the details that lead up to fulfill the big picture. But the problem is how do we make it happen. So, it’s more than just a tagline, we really do want to reach further, accomplish more and work less. And we do that by figuring out what needs to be done and then finding ways to get other people to do it. Because most of understanding the power of a lever, that is a few effort results in a great deal of effect. A few efforts result in a great deal of effect. The secret to reaching further, getting more done, and working less is simple, and that’s the power of teamwork.
In some stuff that I’m writing on thepracticalleader.com and in the book that’s coming out in just a couple of months called How to Light a Fire on Almost Anyone Without Getting Burn, I talk in detail about building a strategic team and building a tactical team, and I talk about the difference between those. A tactical team is those people that make copies, and make phone calls and send out letters. But a strategic team is far more dynamic, far more effective, far more powerful, and far more capable of helping you get things done. And I’ll show you how to do that in that book, it’s a long process to explain, but easier to do in real life than it is to explain.
Here’s a secret. A little effort on your part results in a lot of productivity because of the power of leverage. An hour of your time can result in days of productivity. I’ve been working with designers and book designers, and web techs, and graphic artists in various parts of the world because they can do things I don’t want to do, I can’t do, I don’t need to do. And I’ve spent some time working with them, but the result of that is a huge amount of productivity, and it can work for you as well. It’s just a commitment on your part because the one secret that effectively is understood about getting things done is never do anything that someone else can do. Why?
Because we can do anything, but we cannot do everything.
So the secret is simple. Do only those things that only you can do. Do only those things that only you can do. Find others to do everything else. Read it again. Do only those things that only you can do, find others to do everything else.
Now here’s a little activity to get you started in this process. Get yourself a sheet of paper, use a computer screen, I don’t care, whatever works for you to write it down. List out all the things you do every day, everything that occupies your time every day. If you’ve taken my free mastering your time mini-course that you can get at thepracticalleader.com, upon the upper-right corner, click on that and it’ll take you to the registration page for that course. It doesn’t cost you a thing. If you’ve taken that course you’ve already started to do this. List out everything you do every day then list out all the things you really should do but don’t have the time to do, and then go through those lists and highlight, go get yourself a highlighter, and highlight those things that only you can do. Then get someone else to do everything else. See? Simple. Well I know the objections, I’ve heard them all. Work through them all, and I can show you how to get through them all, but that’s the secret of the power of leverage. List out everything you need to do, list out everything you should do, list out everything that you do, go through those lists, highlight those things that only you can do, only you can do, and get somebody else to do everything else. Because you’ve got so much to do that is so important that you cannot afford to waste that time, you cannot afford to waste that effort, you cannot afford to waste your talent on something that somebody else could do.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this, see you next week.