Don't Make Tom Brady Play Defense

I bring up this rule more than any other, and I had to change it to Tom Brady because more people can relate to him.

Tom Brady is arguably the greatest quarterback of all time in the NFL. The thought of having him play defense would be a gross misuse of talent and the potential to aggravate or injure a Hall-of-Famer.

That seems straightforward and obvious, but we always make those mistakes with our teams.

I cleaned swimming pools at my parents’ company to pay for college from 2002 to 2006. I joined the company full time, running the home services management team. I became the office-side manager of the pool cleaners.

While working for my parents seemed easy, I knew I would never grow. I walked into my parents’ business partner’s office, and we discussed having me report directly to him. I was a co-manager with the existing maintenance manager, Wayne. Responsibilities weren’t really defined, but we were both expected to be in the field, checking job reports, selling new accounts, and doing office work.

I had been working for Wayne for four years and had a good idea of his skills, and he mine. Our relationship had a no-nonsense dynamic. We both just wanted to hit our budget targets with as little effort as possible and go home.

Wayne didn’t do well with office work, but he was amazing at sales. We divided the work up quickly: All the sales work was to be done by Wayne, and I would run the back of the house. He could be in the field and call in a quote to me, and I would have a beautifully polished quote in the customer’s e-mail while they were talking so he could review it and seal the deal. We were an amazing team.

Whenever I think about my team, I consider what they are great at and what they want to do. I put it in the context of the business needs but play to their strengths. When someone is great (or capable of being great) and loves doing it, it’s a perfect fit. Finding that sweet spot and building a team around Wayne’s synergies yielded business-changing results.

You don’t force a right-handed pitcher to throw with their left hand. Why would you do that in business?

Think about people on your team, whether they work for you or not, and you’ll be able to pick out a handful of these displaced people. It’s not the team member who misplaced themselves; it’s the leader.

One takeaway:

Don’t make Tom Brady play defense.